3 ms·

Do people easily understand these transmissions? I always think there must be something wrong with either my English, or my ears because I barely understand a n

Do people easily understand these transmissions? I always think there must be something wrong with either my English, or my ears because I barely understand a number here and there, even with headphones.

meredydd 10y ago
You really do get used to it. First time I got into a light plane, I had exactly the same reaction as you - it was all gobbledegook. By the time I took my first proper lesson, I'd started reading the textbook, and it was mostly making sense. Within a few hours I was fluent, and things like this recording made sense. The big thing is understanding the vocabulary, and the things they're likely to say. It's called the "pop-out effect" - once you know what you're looking for, it's much easier to find it. You can think of it in Bayesian terms - an increased prior on certain words and phrases makes them much quicker to detect. (I will also say that many people find American aviators/ATC much harder work. They use less standardised phraseology - perhaps because they don't have so many different native languages all crowded up into a small airspace. See if, eg, Amsterdam or Dublin is easier for you to understand.)
OmIsMyShield 10y ago
When I did my PPL one of the instructors gave us a CD full of recordings that we could listen to to train our ear for it. Matching that to transcripts helped - and it also helps once you know the lingo, since it's mostly a limited set of words and the phraseology has a specific structure. For example: Altitudes and flight levels: 3,500 is spoken as "three thousand five hundred". 13,500 is spoken as "one three thousand five hundred". But other numbers (like times, directions, etc) have every digit spoken, for example 10 minutes is "one zero minutes" or wind direction 220 is "wind direction two two zero". Speed reading would be something like "one niner zero knots" for 190 kt. The sentence structure is also relatively strictly defined, for instance at an unattended airport you would always transmit in this order: (1) where you are (2) who you are (3) what you intend (4) repeat where you are So you'd say something like: "Swartkops traffic(1), small Jabiru Kilo India Tango(2), left downwind for runway one eight, touch and go(3), at Swartkops(4)" This kind of strict structure and limited lexicon does make it understandable after a bit of practice, since you are expecting certain words to show up.
- Fiahil 10y ago
  Interesting, thanks! I bet it's international ? The french transmissions were also following this patterns.
  - OmIsMyShield 10y ago
    Yes - UN member countries generally use ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) standards. There are some country-specific weird things, though. You can read the ICAO Radiotelephony Guide[1], should you be interested. Searching for something like "ICAO Phraseology Reference Guide" might give you good results too. [1] http://www.icao.int/safety/acp/Inactive%20working%20groups%20library/ACP-WG-C-3/wgc3_wp7.doc http://www.icao.int/safety/acp/Inactive%20working%20groups%2...
- richoakley 10y ago
  "Swartkops" - hello fellow South African AV geek!
sk1pper 10y ago
Yes, but I'm a private pilot so I kinda have to. Without context there are a lot of just letters and numbers, so your brain might just be dropping them cause it can't make any meaning out of them. But... not understanding isn't necessarily a bad thing, I can't listen to this and work because I can understand it
iamatworknow 10y ago
The most confusing thing to me is probably the nicknames that some airlines have which are used instead of their actual names. British Airways flights are usually called "Speedbird" and US Airways are called "Cactus".

meredydd 10y ago

You really do get used to it. First time I got into a light plane, I had exactly the same reaction as you - it was all gobbledegook. By the time I took my first proper lesson, I'd started reading the textbook, and it was mostly making sense. Within a few hours I was fluent, and things like this recording made sense. The big thing is understanding the vocabulary, and the things they're likely to say. It's called the "pop-out effect" - once you know what you're looking for, it's much easier to find it. You can think of it in Bayesian terms - an increased prior on certain words and phrases makes them much quicker to detect. (I will also say that many people find American aviators/ATC much harder work. They use less standardised phraseology - perhaps because they don't have so many different native languages all crowded up into a small airspace. See if, eg, Amsterdam or Dublin is easier for you to understand.)

OmIsMyShield 10y ago

When I did my PPL one of the instructors gave us a CD full of recordings that we could listen to to train our ear for it. Matching that to transcripts helped - and it also helps once you know the lingo, since it's mostly a limited set of words and the phraseology has a specific structure. For example: Altitudes and flight levels: 3,500 is spoken as "three thousand five hundred". 13,500 is spoken as "one three thousand five hundred". But other numbers (like times, directions, etc) have every digit spoken, for example 10 minutes is "one zero minutes" or wind direction 220 is "wind direction two two zero". Speed reading would be something like "one niner zero knots" for 190 kt. The sentence structure is also relatively strictly defined, for instance at an unattended airport you would always transmit in this order: (1) where you are (2) who you are (3) what you intend (4) repeat where you are So you'd say something like: "Swartkops traffic(1), small Jabiru Kilo India Tango(2), left downwind for runway one eight, touch and go(3), at Swartkops(4)" This kind of strict structure and limited lexicon does make it understandable after a bit of practice, since you are expecting certain words to show up.

Fiahil 10y ago
Interesting, thanks! I bet it's international ? The french transmissions were also following this patterns.
- OmIsMyShield 10y ago
  Yes - UN member countries generally use ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) standards. There are some country-specific weird things, though. You can read the ICAO Radiotelephony Guide[1], should you be interested. Searching for something like "ICAO Phraseology Reference Guide" might give you good results too. [1] http://www.icao.int/safety/acp/Inactive%20working%20groups%20library/ACP-WG-C-3/wgc3_wp7.doc http://www.icao.int/safety/acp/Inactive%20working%20groups%2...
richoakley 10y ago
"Swartkops" - hello fellow South African AV geek!

sk1pper 10y ago

Yes, but I'm a private pilot so I kinda have to. Without context there are a lot of just letters and numbers, so your brain might just be dropping them cause it can't make any meaning out of them. But... not understanding isn't necessarily a bad thing, I can't listen to this and work because I can understand it

iamatworknow 10y ago

The most confusing thing to me is probably the nicknames that some airlines have which are used instead of their actual names. British Airways flights are usually called "Speedbird" and US Airways are called "Cactus".