IO390 wrote:
I will also try turning up the radio volume a bit as in the PA28 I fly, the intercom is a fair bit louder than the radio.
Definitely get the levels sorted. You are paying a lot of money to fly and there’s no point doing it half-deaf for want of some simple adjustment.
Enough times I’ve been flying with an instructor and when I’m setting up the avionics I check levels for the intercom and radio, they tell me not to bother fiddling with things and let’s go flying. Perhaps people who fly all the time find hearing everything they need to hear very easy, but I prefer to take a few seconds to get the volumes right and ensure everyone can hear what they need to.
Actually during my PPL skills test debrief the examiner, with reference to a zone transit we’d done, started telling me that I couldn’t hear very well because when you are overloaded the first sense to go is your hearing. Of course I smiled and nodded (because he still had to sign the pass form) but actually I was thinking “No, it was because you turned the radio volume down from where I set it, I watched you do it.”
You will always need some adjustment unless it’s the same two people with the same two headsets in the same aeroplane as last time. In some older installations, with some headset combinations, it might not be possible to achieve satisfactory settings – i.e. one of you can be happy with the levels but not both.
US big-airport ATC is – with some exceptions – a million miles away from anything in Europe.
I missed this at the time. In what respect is it different? Better? Worse? What do I have to look forward to?
If we are talking France, firstly it depends what you are calling a big airport. If you are talking of Charles de Gaulle, Orly, Nice, Bordeaux Merignac French GA tends to avoid them because of cost and there are usually more economically GA friendly airfields one can choose nearby.
As for friendliness, to GA I have never had a problem with any of them and usually manage a coffee and a chat in the club.
I missed this at the time. In what respect is it different? Better? Worse? What do I have to look forward to?
US ATC tends to speak very fast. They also tend to use “local” phraseology. I can’t actually comprehend much of what I hear on the various videos etc carrying it, but I have flown all over Europe with no issues (other than some ATC speaking no English, or speaking a heavily accented form which – based on the comments I get on my videos – lots of others can’t understand either 
).
