Proper Radio Proceedures

[kevenv]

Are you seriously going to say "Winnipeg Centre, Air-whatever, climb and maintain _____" ?

I have never, ever heard anyone say the name of the ATC center when reading back any IFR clearance.

Did you not read my post Gannet:

"I would probably omit Winnipeg Center since they did."

I guess it just comes down to how much standard phraseology you or ATC can ignore or change safely.

It has nothing to do with anyone changing or ignoring standard phraseology. We can omit our own name (ie: XXX Center) after initial contact.

[North Shore]

A while back, I read a small article somewhere that suggested to read the clearance first, and then the call sign, as that made the controller listen to the readback as well, just to make sure that you got it correctly. The theory being that if you answer with your callsign first, the controller would check you off their mental list of things to do, and proceed on to the next task, without confirming that what you read back is what they told you to do...

[Big Pistons Forever]

I do not care what the AIM says.........I teach the industry standard.


1) When calling ATC put your call sign first

2) When replying to ATC put your call sign at the end of the transmission

3) Start with the facility location and name (ie Vancouver ground, Abbotsford tower, Edmonton centre etc) on your first call. After you have established communications
there is generally no need to keep repeating who you are talking to.

4) When you are given a frequency change, wait for a few seconds before transmitting so that you do not step on somebody.

5) On your initial call to ATC use all 4 letters of your call sign. After establishing comms, use just the last 3 ( ie omit the F or G ) unless ATC directs otherwise.

As for the takeoff debate I teach : when you are at the hold line set for takeoff, call "ready" at the runway and intersection you are at. (eg Victoria tower, ABC is ready zero nine at echo)

[elvis]

Big Piston WHAT IS YOUR REFERENCE ???? or is it just your ARROGANCE!!!!



Rotateandfly was far more informative as were others thanks but no definitive ref. texts

[iflyforpie]

The reference is 5.0 in the AIM. Read is all and you will find what is 'advisory' radio procedures.

For BPF's post, it is what is accepted as standard. In maintenance, we have 'standard practices', things that are not critical that are simply done 'that way'. In flying, it is called airmanship.

Good god, do we need rules and regulations for everything?

[Maynard]

When your waiting to go behind someone, don't say "ready in sequence".........same goes for when an aircraft is on short final..."xxx ready 07." Roger.......hold short......sigh

[swordfish]

You read back clearances and clearance limits, followed by your call sign. "Line up & wait" is a clearance limit. AND, you do it word-for-word!

You don't read back advices, traffic, "call the center airborne", blah blah blah.... in fact, if you get the frequency right on the first call, you don't even need to read back the frequency in a handover. I read it back if it's an unexpected freq, or I'm not sure I got it correctly. Most of you know what frequency is coming up next, anyway, and where...don't you...?

Otherwise, "AC007 - Wilco; g'day".

AC007 ready for 'departure' ... hello...?? You are simply "Ready". The tower knows already what you are ready for - in fact they're just dying for your current state or readiness so they can launch you into the abyss and readily hand you off to some other poor overworked stressed-out bugger - who is, in turn, ready to receive you.

[swordfish]

And while I'm on a roll...

When you call a control unit (as distinct from Aeradio, CARs, Unicom, etc), give them the whole lot:

"Sumspot Ground, Speedbird 007, with Lima, IFR Timbuctu. Request airways & taxi clearance. Departure off 15, from the intersection. Ready to push/taxi gate 69."

I shudder when I hear: "Sumspot Ground, Lamer 007...?", followed by the pregnant silence....

[TG]

AC007 ready for 'departure' ... hello...?? You are simply "Ready". The tower knows already what you are ready for -

If adding the word 'departure' after saying 'ready for' is one of your pet peeve radio calls...

...hello...?? I seriously think you need to get a life!

[burhead1]

I was up yesterday afternoon and there was a young lad obviously learning. Gave me some easy listening and enjoyment went something like "*** traffic for airport advisory, sorry correction *** unicom airport i mean aerodrome for airport information, We will be over the area at 3500 looking for the airport, when we find the airport we will be um ya going to come down and turn on the other side and then we will come over and join, join, _____ a *** unicom we will then be going to join mid downwind" This went on the the hour i was up LOL I hope in time he learns to shorten it up a little.

[complexintentions]

And while I'm on a roll...

When you call a control unit (as distinct from Aeradio, CARs, Unicom, etc), give them the whole lot:

"Sumspot Ground, Speedbird 007, with Lima, IFR Timbuctu. Request airways & taxi clearance. Departure off 15, from the intersection. Ready to push/taxi gate 69."

I shudder when I hear: "Sumspot Ground, Lamer 007...?", followed by the pregnant silence....

Hmm. Only proves that procedures vary greatly from place to place. At our home base (admittedly very busy) if you gave the whole spiel as you suggest, you'd step on about ten other a/c all calling for clearance at once and block the frequency for several seconds - not cool. The approved procedure for us is "callsign only" and the controller will often reply "standby, number three in the queue" etc. The controller will take your details when they want them.

In the end, in spite of attempts to standardize, there are still many, many variations from region to region and even from airport to airport within the same jurisdiction. A good suggestion is to READ THE PUBLICATIONS specific to the airport! There may very well be instructions to "monitor tower" for example, which does NOT mean to call "Ready", "Ready for Departure", or any such variation! lol Be concise, be as ICAO standard as possible - guess what, there ARE things published about this! - and for heaven's sake don't build traps into things. Examples:

-"Leaving five thousand for seven thousand" - "for" is always a no-no, it's also a number. The correct phraseology would be "climbing" or "descending", it's completely unambiguous

-using the word "to" in a numerical clearance - also a number

-reading back a heading or flight level without reading back "heading" or "flight level" - lots of mistakes in busy TMA's due to this, although more likely in Europe where "one two zero" can be a heading or a flight level

-"oh" is not a number...

I could go on and on...

A recent flight had us crossing over Canadian airspace and my FO, of Pakistani descent, was manning the radios...the YEG controller gave us a clearance to "proceed direct to XXX, balance unchanged". My poor partner had NO idea what he had said, so I read it back and then explained. Our flight deck that day was comprised of a Pakistani, German, South African and myself and none of them besides me had ever heard the phrase "balance unchanged". Just goes to show that there are always traps and nuances in communication.

[niss]

Our flight deck that day was comprised of a Pakistani, German, South African and myself and none of them besides me had ever heard the phrase "balance unchanged".

This Canadian has never heard it. What does it mean?

[kevenv]

Our flight deck that day was comprised of a Pakistani, German, South African and myself and none of them besides me had ever heard the phrase "balance unchanged".

This Canadian has never heard it. What does it mean?

Flight Planned Route

[photofly]

""Sumspot Ground, Speedbird 007, with Lima, IFR Timbuctu. Request airways & taxi clearance. Departure off 15, from the intersection. Ready to push/taxi gate 69."

Try that where I fly, and tower will give you a "who was that calling?". You'll have to repeat the whole thing and annoy about 10 other pilots as well as the controller. This is what they want:

"Sumspot Ground, Speedbird 007 with Lima"
"Speedbird 007, Sumspot Ground, go ahead"
"Speedbird 007 IFR to Tumbuctu etc etc."

[sstaurus]

Our flight deck that day was comprised of a Pakistani, German, South African and myself and none of them besides me had ever heard the phrase "balance unchanged".

This Canadian has never heard it. What does it mean?

Flight Planned Route

I heard it a few days ago, the controller changed just one part of the clearance, and said 'balance unchanged'. Makes sense to me.

I also agree with the above post, you have to make sure they're listening first before you go on with your giant shpiel.

[ahramin]

Our flight deck that day was comprised of a Pakistani, German, South African and myself and none of them besides me had ever heard the phrase "balance unchanged".

This Canadian has never heard it. What does it mean?

Means nothing else in the original clearance has changed. A redundancy.

[Dagwood]

I have heard an Air Canada flight use the term "balance understood" as in:

Tower: "Air Canada, the 737 is rolling, caution wake turbulence, cleared to land, wind 300 at 12, plan to exit at Hotel"

"Cleared to Land, balance understood"

[aviatrixfss]

My biggest pet peeve as an FSS is when pilots don't know how to make an initial call. The first call to any ATS shall be : Station you are calling (XXX radio/tower/centre)
Your aircraft manufacturer (Piper/Cessna,etc)
Your ident
(with flight numbers ie. ACA900, manufacturer can be omitted)
THAT'S IT!!

You must establish communications prior to blabbing out your life story. Many of us are working more than one frequency, and just because the one you are on is quiet, it doesn't mean that we aren't busy elsewhere. While talking to another aircraft on another frequency we can usually listen to them and hear your ident and type, but we can't listen to two full conversations at the same time and not miss something.

When you do make a proper initial call and are told to stand by...pleased do that. Many pilots hear their ident, don't listen to the "stand by" part and start blabbing all of their information while we are still busy on another frequency...PLEASE LISTEN!

Thank you

[kevenv]

My biggest pet peeve as an FSS is when pilots don't know how to make an initial call. The first call to any ATS shall be : Station you are calling (XXX radio/tower/centre)
Your aircraft manufacturer (Piper/Cessna,etc)
Your ident
(with flight numbers ie. ACA900, manufacturer can be omitted)
THAT'S IT!!

You must establish communications prior to blabbing out your life story. Many of us are working more than one frequency, and just because the one you are on is quiet, it doesn't mean that we aren't busy elsewhere. While talking to another aircraft on another frequency we can usually listen to them and hear your ident and type, but we can't listen to two full conversations at the same time and not miss something.

When you do make a proper initial call and are told to stand by...pleased do that. Many pilots hear their ident, don't listen to the "stand by" part and start blabbing all of their information while we are still busy on another frequency...PLEASE LISTEN!

Thank you

Do you have VSCS panels? If so touch and hold the frequency you really want to listen to and the rest are muted.

[Beefitarian]

That doesn't sound right, FSS having some kind of panel that mutes frequencies? What if someone's lost or having a pan pan or something?

[aviatrixfss]

We do have a mute function on our panel, however, where I work, you have to turn your back on that panel in order to deal with our RAAS airport strip board. Not a well thought out workspace - everything was just crammed in wherever it would fit.

Beefatarian(sp?)
The mute function doesn't completely mute the other frequencies, it just makes them slightly less loud than the one frequency you are trying to listen to. The problem is, if you have just switched your transmit capability to the one frequency, then try to mute the other frequencies (within about 10 seconds) by touching that frequency, it actually turns off your transmit capability again. AARRGGGHHH!!

Regardless of the equipment deficiencies, a proper initial call would save a lot of aggravation on both sides of the mike.

[HeadingAltitudeSpeed]

In the terminal environment I don't care if you use the call sign first or last when responding to me. If all goes well you should be answering my call so I am expecting it. I do care if you drop the call sign though. How do I know that it really is XXX123 and not YYY456 responding? Yes the voice is the same but that and a buck fifty gets me a coffee at Timmies.

I am going to list 1 hours worth of poor RT from pilots (in another post). In general the level of professional RT has plummeted in the last 20 years. this ranges from ignoring calls, dropping idents, half assed readbacks, shitty phoneatics, deviations to "cool" phraseology. These all make my job more difficult and open me up to liability.

I can ignore the crap RT in favour of ensuring an efficient system (always maintaining the safety of course) and put my licence at risk (most of us do this) or I could become a phraseology cop and chase down every read back that is "close enough" and tie up my own frequency resulting in a less efficient system.

So please, be professional, use approved phraseology, give complete readbacks as required and when required, when things are busy listen up so I only have to use words once.

[Expat]

WHAT IS PROPER RADIO CALL READ BACK PROCEEDURES????

When tower/ATC calls an A/C with instructions it always preceeds the message with A/C call sign::

eg. Air Canada 007 climb and maintain 16 thousand.

IS THE CORRECT READ BACK 1 or 2

# 1 Air Canada 007 , climbing to 1 6 thousand


# 2 Climbing to 1 6 thousand , Air Canada 007


Do you have a ref. in AIP Comm 5.0 to back up your call???? Transport says both are correct; but do you feel one is more correct???

None of these calls are "proper", although ATC lets alot of things slide. A Standard radio call is in this form:

1. Who you are calling
2. Who you are
3. The message

.

+1

This is universal military, marine, and ICAO procedure.
"Tower, this is YYYY, cleared for landing....."

[HeadingAltitudeSpeed]

+1

This is universal military, marine, and ICAO procedure.
"Tower, this is YYYY, cleared for landing....."

I prefer it as well. Your call sign gets my attention directs my thought process to who is important, the information should be the last thing I hear.

[Big Pistons Forever]

If a radio call is going to get garbled/mangled/stepped on it is usually the first part of the call which gets cut. The advantage of putting your call sign at the end of your reply means that instead of hearing

"Garble turn right heading 330"

And having no idea whether this is a ATC to plane transmission or a reply from somebody

Your will hear

"Garble urn right heading 330 Alpha Bravo Charlie".

And you know know it was

1) not a call from ATC to someone.... maybe you

2) ATC will know that ABC got the message even if the first bit got cut off.

This is why pretty much every pilot at Air Canada/WestJet/Jazz/CMA/Georgian/PASCO/etc etc have adopted the practice of putting their call sign at the front of the transmission when calling ATC and at the end when replying to ATC. In this case I think the AIM is wrong. I have submitted a recommendation to correct the AIM but I do not think it is being treated as a very high priority.