pilot radio training for air traffic control is a huge part of flight school
yet I hear some airline pilots on the radio and it makes me want to say shut
up I'll explain you how to improve for free coming up hey seven for crew
welcome back if you don't know me my name is Kelsey I'm a 747 pilot my
channel 74 gear is all about aviation so whether you're a pilot or an aviation
enthusiast consider subscribing in this video I'm talking about radio
communication and radio phraseology which is essentially how you speak on
the radio now if you decide to go to the airline's
about 50% of the flying you're doing is actually gonna be talking on the radio
unfortunately we don't spend a lot of time working on radio communication
radio phraseology especially in the u.s. in this video I'm gonna go over the two
biggest errors that I hear pilots making on their radio and three ways which you
can improve let's get into it first let's go over why it's important first
if you're new first officer that's showing up to an airline job and you are
pushing back with a new captain if in the first 15 or 20 minutes of flight
he's having to make radio calls for you because you can't properly speak on the
radio or you're not able to properly handle the calls that are coming in it
is going to set a bad tone for you and it's gonna make it a long three or four
day trip if you're flying with that captain for all those days so having
that good radio phraseology is going to make just an easier work environment
when you show up and you start working at the airline's
second another situation is if you're flying general aviation and you're
asking for requests meaning maybe cutting through a bravo airspace or if
you're trying to get a favor from air traffic control in order to do something
if you're using good radio phraseology air traffic control feel you are more
professional as a pilot and may be willing to give you something that they
will not give to a person that sounds like they're just trying to learn how to
fly so you may be able to get favors by speaking very well on the radio
the third point to consider why it's important to learn how to properly speak
on the radio is if you leave the US or you leave your native country and you're
flying overseas you are gonna find that not every controller is going to speak
English very well and your English may have an accent so if you're using
unhhhh standard phraseology while you're speaking on the radio for example you're
a pilot from Argentina and you're flying from Argentina to Paris and you want to
interference airspace you're gonna both be speaking in English
which is not your native language in that scenario you're gonna be both
hindered a little bit in what it is that you're trying to communicate if you're
speaking in proper ICAO phraseology it's going to prevent one the possibility of
an accident and two it's going to prevent possible delays that you could
have because of miscommunication that's happening between the both of you so
those are the reasons why it's important to learn how to properly speak on the
radio now let's address the the two big errors that I hear pilots make on the
radio one is confusing two and four and here's an example of that
Jake you departure Boeing one 8400 climbing two Niner thousand Boeing one
Jake a departure you're climbing to flight level two Niner zero you see how
that could be a problem the pilots thinking I'm climbing to
9,000 feet air traffic control is maybe misunderstanding you climbing to flight
level 290 because you're saying to nine or thousand feet so using that too
and using that for can be a problem here's an example of using for Berlin
departure of Boeing one 3400 for flight level 5 0 now I know some of you
are making the argument well you said flight level and they should be able to
distinguish that and you know what yes they should be in a perfect world that's
exactly how it be however that's not the reality of the situation you're gonna
have some controllers who's going to be weaker in English than others so when
you are saying for flight level five zero they may be hearing flight level
four five zero or confusing the numbers so just eliminate that possible
confusion of what could be happening and that will increase your safety overall
while you're out flying so I'm gonna give you another example I'm gonna put
in a clip here I was just recently on a flight and I was watching
Miami Vice which is a pretty cool movie in it Jamie Foxx is flying and he's
flying it and he's about to do an ILS and I was listening to him and I thought
that's how a lot of guys speak on the radio so he's actually doing you correct
as far as how pilots are often speaking on the radio but it's not proper ICAO
phraseology so watch this clip
fortune daikon turning to heading three four zero down to 6,000 feet 30 hours
from
so you see how that could be confusing if English was your native language you
could be confusing what flight what altitude is he going to what he's doing
the ILS - what runway things like that those
small things could be issues on a bigger scale so it's important to get in those
good habits now of speaking correctly the second biggest issue that I hear
from pilots is using slang when they're on the radio and again in the u.s. most
air traffic control are gonna know what you're saying however getting into those
bad habits especially early on to your career are gonna make them harder and
harder to stop as you get later on so it's important to develop those good
radio habits now so later on in your career you're not having any problems
with it here's an example of one that I hear sometimes on the radio
Boeing one Denver center traffic ten o'clock three miles a thousand feet
above Denver Center Boeing one yeah we got him on the fishfinder if you're
wondering what the face of the air traffic controller you're talking to is
looking like it looks something like this now here's another example slang I
used to use when I was flying at the regionals and when I was doing charters
it was a bad habit that I got into and before I started flying 747s I knew that
it was gonna be a bad habit but this is a bad habit that I'd had for several
years so when I showed up on my very first flight of the 747 the captain
asked me to get the clearance I called I got the clearance and when I read back
the clearance I read back the ifr clearance like this departure frequency
120.5 and 1 2 3 4 in the box and obviously in the US we know in the Box
means that's gonna be your squawk code and what it should have sounded like was
departure frequency 120.5 squawk 1 2 3 4 anyway when I read back that
clearance I could see the captain was looking at me and I looked over at him
and he says do you think that they're gonna know what you're saying when you
say in the Box in another country and I said no it's not what I said I just said
ok yes sir and that was it and I knew that I had made that mistake I knew that
wasn't proper phraseology but it was a bad habit breaking those bad habits
early on are gonna make it a lot easier as you get further and further in your
career here are two ways to improve one if you're a new pilot and you're in
flight school first don't set yourself up for a standard of perfection on the
radio I still make errors there's a lot of pilots that make air so don't beat
yourself up on it but just work on being conscious of
trying to improve your phraseology the first thing I would do especially if
you're new pilot and start listening to online websites like ATC live net or
sites like that that have air traffic control go to a busy Airport go to JFK
go to LaGuardia Newark go to LAX Dallas any of those busy airports and start
listening to what those air traffic controllers are saying and then listen
to the pilots response it's important to listen to the controllers because
generally controllers are speaking with proper phraseology so if you listen to
what the controllers are saying and you repeat back in the way that they are
saying it to you nine times out of ten you're gonna be able to speak in proper
ICAO phraseology so it makes it pretty easy monkey see monkey do but sometimes
you'll hear pilots including airline pilots on the radio and they're using
two or four or other slang words while they're talking and if you listen for
that while you're listening to the radio it gives you something to focus on for
yourself and a way for you to improve because now you're listening for what
are the controllers saying and you can practice in the comfort of your home or
in your car or wherever you're listening to it you can practice doing those
things if you see my video on passing check rides you remember I was talking
about chair flying this is kind of the same thing if you're learning how to
talk on the radios while you're also learning how to fly a plane it can get
overwhelming practicing doing these radio calls when you're not also flying
a plane makes it easier and like everything in aviation the more you
practice the better you're gonna get the second thing you can do is online you're
gonna find PDFs on ICAO phraseology some of them are free again ICAO ICAO ICAO
phraseology there's tons of PDFs online some of them
have errors in them but they're free so it's a good way start reading and
improving on your communication another book which is one that I have and I'll
put a link to it up here everything explained for a professional pilot now
it's not a mandatory thing that you need to read but it is something I think when
I had about three or four hundred hours I got it and started reading it it goes
over radio communications and a lot of other things that you should consider so
that's another option and not free but it's definitely something that you can
do to improve on your overall skills of the pilot because it's not just flying
like I said 50% of your time flying is gonna be not flying so it's important to
start improving on those skills early and develop those good
so that's all I have on radio communications in the comments below let
me know what areas of radio communications you want to improve on
just generally being more comfortable on radio do you want to improve on your
radio phraseology let me know in the comments below if you like this video
give it a like and a thumbs up make sure to share it with a pilot that needs to
improve on their radio communications or that wants to improve on their radio
communications I look forward to hearing from you until then keep the blue side
up