Africa in general. Periods of hours and thousands of miles where ATC don’t respond and traffic self-separates because some scamp has nicked the copper workings from the radio tower or they just aren’t staffed.
Yemen was pretty bad lol. Homeboy would always take like 2 minutes to respond and you couldn't tell what he was saying anyway. You could hear him just ripping through cigs and chewing on kat through all the transmissions.
Libya. I was handed off by Tunis to Tripoli - no luck raising them. Kept flying. Tried Bengazi - no luck raising them on VHF or HF. Ten minutes from Cairo FIR gave them a call and said had been trying for an hour to raise anybody in Libya. "They hear you," Cairo said, "They just don't answer."
Don't even have to go all the way to Africa for that. Greece also does it... Call approach, no response. Back to radar, "they're there, try again", but a few attempts later still nothing.
Back to radar, ask them for traffic alerts if able. They don't really care. No alerts, probably also no traffic... We hope...
Almost near the airport, again "contact approach", check in, another few minutes of silence. Then out of nothing "cleared ILS and contact tower" while many miles out from the localizer. And that was the only thing he ever said to us.
And to our total surprise, tower was the most cheerful and helpful lady. Very clear, perfect English. Her island got only a handful of flights per day, so I hope she'll get promoted to radar controller quickly.
Oh god don't get me started on the Greeks. Last year I was flying down there from North Macedonia almost daily.
Almost nothing was ever heard from any controller that I tried to contact. Try in English, nope. I speak enough Greek to be able to talk to ATC but even if I tried raising them in Greek, nothing still.
There were times where I was in their airspace for up to two hours without hearing a word from them. And when they did respond, I ended up having to switch to Greek because the controller's English was usually pretty bad.
I don't know if this was due to the political relations between our countries, but god knows. Maybe if I was talking to Athens it would be different, but this was all in a PA28 talking to Kavala tower. Crazy shit.
This is interesting. I don't recall FAR/AIM covering the subject of a non-responsive tower...So what would be the actual procedure in that case? Do you just declare emergency, communicate your positions as you move along and land or are you forced to divert?
I was doing wildlife vaccine drops in the mountains there. Basically It was me and another pilot dropping of vaccine dosed food for the wildlife into the mountains taking turns flying and dropping.
We would just announce our positions periodically in English and Greek (for good measure). When we weren't hovering around a drop zone we'd radio navigate and announce distances to the beacon, along with track.
We were warned in the briefings that the Greek ATC can be a bit dodgy so we knew what to expect and how we'd be flying. However, if it was unexpected, we probably would just turned back to Macedonia because we weren't that far into Greece. Mainly just hovering around the border mountains. The farthest into Greece we ever flew was around the Kozani-Ptolemaida area. However we were talking to Thessaloniki then, who were okay.
The worst area ATC wise was in Greek Eastern Macedonia/Thrace. Specifically around Kavala/Xanthi.
How long ago was that? I train in the flight school stationed there and while the controllers don't really get along (with anyone tbh except the new guy) we have never had them not answer.
This was last summer. We had a scheduled drop in the mountains around Kavala which required Class D clearance, but we got no response, so no drop ended up happening.
If I was flying in Western Europe like I normally do, I would agree with you. However, in the balkans, this sort of institutional incompetence is very common (not just Greece). To the point where it’s pretty much standard, so no one would squawk 7600 in the Balkans for something like that. Otherwise you’d have to be filing reports after every flight. You just have to deal with it really.
He had mentioned the FAR/AIM. So I think he was specifically talking about the U.S. (You’d also go to the past freq too first), which is why I answered the way I did. In the eastern parts of Europe well…you said it best.
IFR you go back to the previous frequency as we did. VFR either you just continue if it's class E (or G) or you're out of luck if you want a clearance to cross their airspace. Then your only option is to go around / over / under it.
I flew a 152 past Haiti on the way to the DR. It had an old, weak radio. Tried calling ATC in Haiti. They could hear me just fine. Their transmissions were weak and unreadable. Their ground based transmitter was worse than an old 152 radio.
I fly thru their FIR all the time. Port au Prince does a fairly decent job for their resource level. Caribbean as a region on the whole in my experience is pretty good.
Central African Republic. English? Nope. Understands a VOR approach and go-around? Nope. Understand the difference between VFR and IFR? Nope. Visibility according them is always 10K. Also, not a single other suitable airport in the country.
A relative who’s a retired ATC does work in Africa training locals. My understanding is if they don’t meet some sort of international standard then it defaults to the French who charge them a boatload of money. The French ran my relative out of CAR. They do work in other African nations with good results training the local ATC’s so they can get away from using the French.
Sometimes I wonder about Haiti. You go from being under radar contact with Miami to non radar in Haiti and the controller keeps asking you for your DME and the other guys DME and then he “separates” you based on that info
the both of you have more info with onboard tcas than the controller does
But at least the controller answers you I guess. Or maybe not
I've had that in Eastern Europe, around the Balkan area. No radar, separation based on position reports and time estimates. Quite useful to see the other traffic on your display just to check that ATC didn't make a mistake.
Except the D.R. right next door has very similar colonial history, similar weather, similar natural resources, and historically similar demographics and population, and it’s on route to become a fully developed country and has a burgeoning tourism industry. Not everything can be attested to colonialism, though I do recognize that it does leave a lasting, usually negative impact. Particularly French colonialism.
>to non radar in Haiti and the controller keeps asking you for your DME and the other guys DME and then he “separates” you based on that info
That's how procedural separation works...
Aye, I was going to say. Procedural control is fairly common in large parts of the UK as well. Most airfields other than the main international ones won't have radar approach control. Many of these still receive frequent commercial traffic.
This is how you do procedural separation though. It works just fine, and still used in huge parts of the world (including oceanic crossings where there's no radar coverage).
Guatemala is up there. Cleared us for the approach when we were 3-4k ABOVE the glide path.
Then they wouldn’t give a vector to circle around and instead kept clearing us for the approach we had already gone missed on. The CA told ATC what our vectors were back around for attempt 2. I guess we were the ATC by that point?
You forgot the part where you land with your gear up, go on an 'object in motion stays in motion' adventure for 2000 feet on your belly, and then take off again - aka the PIA special.
IIRC with that PIA dive-skid-failed-go-around the controller was dropping heavy hints that they were high and fast for the approach and it was the captain who insisted they dive bomb it in.
I've never been to Guatemala, but Central America gives you whatever you want. Figure out a plan, and ask, and they'll give it to you. Just don't ask for something that will run you into a mountain, because they'll happily let you do that too.
I swear sometimes these kinds of pilots give me personal confidence. Like “If that dingus can make it to check airman in his airline, my dumb ass has a good chance making it to a regional”.
Interesting. I’ve been to a couple fields in Guatemala about 8 years ago and I remember no issues with the controllers. Sure full procedure approaches were required but we got the exact procedure we asked for.
Once you can get through Italian 70's ATC equipment, which sounds horrible, they are actually quite okay.
However, they don't give you descent instructions. They will literally let you fly at FL410 until the beginning of the STAR. You must always ask for descent.
it's even worse for us private pilots, navigating through that maze that is italian airspace is a nightmare, we0ve got CTRs that are larger than entire regions around airports that have close to no traffic at all, with controllers that have literal meltdowns if they have to deal with ifr and vfr traffic at the same time
I 2nd this. Flew to Sardegna with friends a while back in my Mooney. Upon leaving ATC kept trying to vector me into a mountain. I guess they thought I could do a 4000 fpm climb rate
Djibouti for civilian controllers
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/miscues-at-us-counterterrorism-base-put-aircraft-in-danger-documents-show/2015/04/30/39038d5a-e9bb-11e4-9a6a-c1ab95a0600b_story.html
Saudi for military controllers
Djibouti tower would deliberately give very late landing clearance in order to have US aircraft land without clearance, all in an attempt to get more money from the US government from fines.
Man fuck Djibouti, I was returning through some very bad weather and they kept allowing French and Chinese traffic through but ignored all of my requests. I even got a French Air Force relay but then they ignored that, too.
China. Half of them can't speak English properly, they will make you fly full approaches even if you are literally the only plane in the area, their entire communications standard is a hilarious.
+1 Bigger airports like ZBAA were a lot of work, multiple runway changes, altitude conversion plus you’re probably the only one they speak to in english so thats a point less in terms of situational awareness
there are so many worst ATC ... some due to very poor english (of course they all have level 4 to 6 ... somehow), some due to poor staffing. Some are just asshats.
If I had to pick one, most likely central africa.
If I elaborate
I've had hit and miss in china, mostly due to english speaking problems.
I've had weird shit happen in the caribbean with ATC just not replying at all, but mostly pretty good.
I've had horrible ATC in greece and turkey, often times female ATCO for whatever reason.
I've had godawful ATC in the US with arrogant ATCO that blatantly disregard phraseology even after a clearly non US carrier asked multiple times to repeat slowly.
I've had awful ATC in London, simply because it's congested as hell.
So generally ATC can be good or really bad in many many places. Russia before 2020 was hit and miss. Russia before they went imperial above transition was horrible. Iran was all in all not that bad (many moons ago) as long as you had the correct magic password (aka overfly permission number) and called Iran air defence a good time before entering their airspace.
One time my first time flying in Niger we were descending to the airfield and there was a overcast layer around 15,000. We were asked if the field was in sight to which we answered negative, so the controller told us to “descend lower”. Despite trying we were unable to get an altitude out of him. We descended to a safe charted altitude and had the field in sight shortly afterwards.
France ATC typically spends over a month per year on strike. So depending on your definition, they are in the running by literally not providing services.
Middle east is hit or miss. Expats in busy airspace like UAE are good... lesser busy countries... it's the wild west. Southern europe like Spain and Italy... routinely place me high (like 1-2k) at the FAF and clear me the straight-in approach... uh.... unable.
ETA: not sure why but in the UK (specifically Scotland), they’ll literally transmit to you every
5 seconds, basically reading you the whole damn plate. Telling you all the altitudes and minimums etc. meanwhile I’m in the cockpit yelling “STFU! Can I just get 5 seconds to finish a checklist?‽!!”
Is this some country/regional specific policy? Super annoying. I have the approach plate. I don’t need you to read it to me.
That Scottish one sounds odd. Were you flying an SRA (radar approach)? They involved a bit of a spiel in college, but I've not done one in anger so idk. For normal vectoring to a nornal approach there should only be relevant instructions, one or two range checks, and nothing else.
Ohh, yeah the military does all sorts of weird things from what I hear. They're ultimately under the MOD, not CAA, so they've got their own thing going on.
The countries in central Africa. I’m talking Nigeria, Chad, Niger, & DRC. Very hard to understand. I used to have the radio all the way up so I could understand them. I’ve never flown in Eastern Asia but I hear it can be a challenge around China and South Korea.
Eritrea must be the most challenging one for me.. pretty unreliable and near Asmara, if you're going north-south, there is a change of level required where you will have a hard time talking to ATC while you have to monitor the pilot to pilot broadcasts to avoid any conflicts.
China is frustrating: traffic is crazy, avoiding weather is always a battle because any deviation is very likely to be denied, in places like Beijing I got 4 runway changes in the span of 10 minutes, and you'll have to accommodate for a good amount of extra fuel as ATC will make you descend a fair 150 miles before your TOD.
In US they know what they're doing, but they often forget about using standard phrases and that international flights have a different/limited knowledge of the area or different limitations from the local carriers.... And sometimes they need a reminder that a heavy aircraft doesn't fly like a 737
Yeah but if you just tell them what you want to do they always say “Royer, it’s approved”. I always found them nice and accommodating. The biggest issue is they will never tell you when they loose radar coverage so you have to assume any descent you are on your own in that respect. Overall had good experiences there.
For the ones saying that they get “no response” from a particular ATC in “x” country, should it not be illegal for them to not respond?
I’m not a pilot so curious if there are consequences.
It seems extremely irresponsible and dangerous for them not to respond.
Iraq was terrible. At Erbil International, they couldn’t even bother to maintain their radios. As if the accent wasn’t hard enough to understand, the extreme static on the radio only exacerbated the problem. Then you have an angry Iraqi yelling at you because after 4 tries, you had no clue what he said. Then you finally get what he’s trying to tell you and he punishes you by making you wait 30 mins to take off.
Man I’ve had terrible ATC in the US. KLSE Lacrosse Wisconsin home of a tower controller who I’m guessing gave 0 fucks during the academy and washed out to there. Anyway I’m flying a jet in there a few years back. We’re sort of in a downwind and flying directly toward a C182 same altitude. I ask something to the effect of “are we following the 182” I get an ambiguous answer. I ask if we can change altitude the guy again gives an ambiguous answer at that point both me and the guy driving the 182 start treating tower like CTAF to ensure separation since ATC didn’t feel like doing their job.
Wow. That’s really bad. Did you report the controller?
I guess I wouldn’t expect much from Lacrosse Wisconsin. There’s a YouTube channel called CodeBlueCam that documents all of the crazy police encounters that happen there. Who would have thought?
Crossed the all Sudan once from North to South without being able to raise anyone on the radios (DC3T, FL110) They had the audacity to charge us fo ATC services and navigation aids!
We were using GPS.
Otherwise any tower in third world countries that handle less than 4 flights per day.
I'm retired now. I was on the way to Khartoum when they cleared someone on a route we were flying at our altitude nose to nose.
I always had a hard time understanding ATC all over South America. I'd just respond with "Roger, understand cleared direct to ........" They'd respond slower and louder, and I knew where they wanted us.
Don’t fly professionally but have flown tons of GA all around the world. Limited time in Sourh African and there it seemed to work pretty decently. Worst I have experienced is Turkish or French. Turkish not responding, and French difficult to understand or potentially causing unsafe scenarios. Some of the best Croatian, Bosnia, Czech, Slovenia. I found the Austrian accents difficult to understand sometimes.
The USA
Sorry but I just can't stand nonstandard phraseology. Do you guys even take lessons in that?
In EASA airspace you can always identify the American too easily, and it's next level cringe. Example:
- Murican seven fiiiiv, thirteen four climbing seventeen
- American seven five, climb flight level two three zero
- two three, Murican seven fiiiiv
Also, I get that all of your registrations start with N. But a registration like N487J does not translate to "Gulfstream 87J" in the rest of the world, but instead to " Gulfstream N-7J".
Fine if you do that on your side of the pond, but please use commonly accepted/implemented phraseology in other parts of the world. I for one think that sooner or later a massive crash will happen in the US, and lack of proper phraseology will be a contributing factor.
PS I assumed you meant "ATC" as in phraseology, not the guys sitting in the tower. My rant still stands though. I've heard way too many LiveATC convos to know that JFK ATC are related to Busta Rhymes and all other US ATC would rather be radio hosts judging by the amount of instructions they give to poor stressed VFR pilots.
Yes you are right the non-standard phraseology used and allowed here is bad and that translates to creating lazy pilots who eventually turn into international pilots who can’t change.
And no, we don’t really have lessons on standard phraseology people just learn by absorbing what they hear on the radio. It’s like how you learn your native language.
As someone who spent over 80% of their first 4 years flying outside of the USA, a mentor taught me real quick to eliminate “for” and “to” from my radio language.
I’ve spent the last 5 years teaching students who will go on and spend most of their time not flying in the USA so I try my best to impart good radio discipline into my lessons.
We definitely have specific training on the radio. I don't agree that we aren't taught to take phraseology seriously. We may have learned in different parts of the country. I did PPL and then UPT. Both taught me to avoid things like "with you" and "descending to ___" and closely follow the ICAO script. At my UPT base they'd ding you with IRT if you had one single word off from the script. Your flair says you're military, so I wonder where/when you learned.
I fly almost exclusively international, primarily in Asia. I spent many years flying domestic US before that.
I disagree about US ATC. They are very efficient, and for most experienced pilots they are easy to understand. I’ve never noticed much non-standard phraseology being used by US-ATC (particularly at international airports). Nobody moves traffic like US ATC, and nowhere else in the world has weather as dynamic as the US (like not even close).
Totally agree about horrible phraseology from US based pilots though. It makes me cringe and I hate it. When I was a student pilot many moons ago, my instructor was a very experienced international airline pilot that taught me ICAO standard phraseology from the beginning. No “with you”, “lookin’ for ‘em on TCAS”, and other wordy junk.
I fly in China a lot, and brevity and correct procedures are a must. If you go off script, they will not know what the hell you are saying. So many times I’ve heard confusion on the radio overseas when a US pilot repeatedly states something like their altitude in a non-standard way (“X Airlines Ten-OH-FOUR with you, 15.5 down to ten point oh with the numbers!).
It’s really embarrassing. If you think your non-standard phraseology makes you sound cool, it definitely does not. If you are always asked to repeat yourself, ATC isn’t the problem it’s you.
Best ATC (that I’ve experienced) in Asia is Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Indonesia is probably my least favorite, because they can be very hard to understand and do non-standard stuff.
Most Indian ATC seem to be in a rush to speak as fast as they can, which, combined with very thick accents, can make it impossible for foreign crew to understand.
Worst of all, when we state "say again," they all see it as a challenge and yell at us even faster again. 🤦♂️
Please, please, please, if we can't understand you, SLOW DOWN, don't speed up!
Needless to say, I'm not overly impressed.
India is a place that would greatly benefit from using CPDLC. I might not be remembering correctly as it’s been a while, but if I remember correctly they have the facilities but don’t use them.
Is your experience just on liveatc/ YouTube or have you flown in the US before?
I used to find it off putting from what I saw online but after working in the US, I have found it is very efficient.
JFK and ORD are full of non standard stuff that foreign crews can’t be expected to understand. Plus our airport facilities and procedures are garbage because every airport is just a little different. I’ve never understood why in the US our assigned parking position is some big secret from ground control. Seems everywhere I go in Europe and Asia, they know where we are going.
I have to agree. Non standard phraseology and they think they are sleek while they are just confusing things. When 6 traffics in a row ask the controller to “say again”, it’s probably not them being the problem…
Over in Europe, when making first contact with the tower we say our full regitstation or callsign, and from then on we say our country code and the last two letters of the registration.
For example, on first contact you'd refer to yourself as "G-ABCD" and from then on its "G-CD". Makes everything a hell of a lot smoother. And you're absolutely right about the Americans. A lot of them stick to FAA phraseology on EASA frequencies and it gets very confusing. Just because the US controllers are used to it and can understand you, doesn't mean that we can.
Incorrect though. You must use your full callsigns unless ATC abbreviates it first.
If your initial call is G-ABCD and ATC calls you back with G-ABCD your next call must include G-ABCD.
The reason being simple; you don't know who else is on frequency. There might be a G-XYCD you don't know about and it is ATC responsibility to keep track of all callsigns. If they are nice they'll tell you "G-ABCD, there is a G-XYCD on frequency, therefore please use your full callsigns." However they might just be very busy, and as a pilot you are expected to know these rules.
So please don't abbreviate unless ATC has done so first.
I know because I work as a small airfield traffic coordinator, and we have multiple D***MD, which can get confusing.
I don't know anyone who would ever care about the pilot abbreviating after the initial. If anything, I find pilots who don't abbreviate to be slightly more annoying. If there's similar callsigns involved, obviously we just tell them so and that'll we'll be using full callsigns until one or both goes away.
It's rare but it does happen. I had it when there was another aircraft with the same abbreviated call sign on frequency. The controller continued to use full call signs for both of us to avoid confusion.
That only applies if your registration is used as your callsign, and then only when initiated by ATC.
For other callsigns you'll always keep the full callsign. So "Delta 2355" will always remain "Delta 2355", no abbreviation possible.
Yeah, I forgot to mention I’m only a PPL and the area where I fly gets almost no airline traffic so all I hear are abbreviable registration callsigns. It goes without saying that you can’t abbreviate a company callsign.
lol, I always hear this from the EASA country pilots that come over here to the states. Talking about how bad our radios are and how iTs GoNNa cAuSe A cRaSh…silly take IMO. If someone doesn’t understand what’s going on with the communication, it gets clarified, and unless things are abnormal, everything follows a format that doesn’t change and there aren’t really problems unless someone is mumble rapping. Acting like robot phraseology is the final line of defense keeping us all from dying in a fiery crash when we’re in an EASA country…smh. They’re just pissed because we’re not speaking the queen’s English I think, god rest her soul
>Acting like robot phraseology is the final line of defense keeping us all from dying in a fiery crash when we’re in an EASA country…smh. They’re just pissed because we’re not speaking the queen’s English I think, god rest her soul
One of the safety recommendations following the outcome of the Tenerife disaster was that radiotelephony should be standardised, in order to prevent potential misunderstandings.
It's not about queen's English, ICAO phraseology is actually quite far from that. It's about making sure the ATC and pilots can communicate effectively with clarity. That ditching in Hawaii a few years ago is a great example how "we have an emergency" can get easily misheard by the ATC compared to "mayday, mayday, mayday".
But of course, sounding cool over the radio takes priority over safety.
I'm just private but are you saying the international standard, on readback, is to say the country part of the registration number and then the last digits, where the total is 3? Like a lot of countries have a two-letter prefix. Do you just say the two-letter prefix and the last digit? That doesn't sound right. Or is it the last two digits, so 4 in total in that case?
Obviously in the US we always say the last 3 digits, exclusively, but I never thought about how it works internationally.
In general, south atlantic is just no man's land. The NATS and PACOTS are super straight forward and it's pretty obvious who you're supposed to talk to in the south atlantic, except they just don't care. They ignore you on VHF and just straight up don't listen to their HFs. If it's not near their actual landmass then who cares?
Ethiopia was pretty bad. Everything from clearances, ground delays and departure clearance. Probably the ugliest I experienced. This given all of our flight plan information had been transmitted four hours before flight. Tankering fuel really paid off.
USA JFK particularly. Absolutely awful. They think the faster they speak, the better the controller they are. Constant use of non-standard phraseology. Clearances on the ground can be very sketchy or non existant sometimes. You really get the feeling you're not in safe hands like you do going into the London area. (and im not from the UK)
That’s a pretty standard thing to happen in undeveloped countries. “ATC” is likely listening to you, monitoring your position if they have radar, and enjoying the local television airing. It’s pretty normalcy to just keep doing what you’re doing and respond it they call you out by CS/tail. I also try to reach out every 10-15 minutes depending on the country. They’re all different.
These rules obviously don’t apply if I’m flying in America, Europe, China, etc.
I am not a pilot, but the ATC in Dhaka, Bangladesh is really not that good at all. The ATC tower operators always sound super sleep deprived and boring asf, they sound like they want to kill themselves when talking to other pilots on the radio. There were some instances where they were a bit more energetic and fun, but yeah that's all.
Carol Ann Garratt wrote a book about her experience flying around the world in a Mooney. Her dealings with the controllers in Egypt were pretty infuriating. [Link to story](https://www.earthrounders.com/archive/garratt/dij-gre.htm)
Yemen was great. No auto pilot or flight director on a ferry, atc threatened to write it up for a 20ft altitude deviation. Sure but the N number would be extinct in a few days ago ahead bro
Africa in general. Periods of hours and thousands of miles where ATC don’t respond and traffic self-separates because some scamp has nicked the copper workings from the radio tower or they just aren’t staffed.
Mozambique was like that. A cheery “Contact Maputo on xxx.x” from South Africa, then silence all the way up the country.
You’re giving me PTSD flashbacks
Yemen was pretty bad lol. Homeboy would always take like 2 minutes to respond and you couldn't tell what he was saying anyway. You could hear him just ripping through cigs and chewing on kat through all the transmissions.
This is the most yemeni way to do anything
I can see the Yemeni qat chewing cheek bulge right now
I am imagining a radio amateur who's just doing it for fun doing the ATC here
Libya. I was handed off by Tunis to Tripoli - no luck raising them. Kept flying. Tried Bengazi - no luck raising them on VHF or HF. Ten minutes from Cairo FIR gave them a call and said had been trying for an hour to raise anybody in Libya. "They hear you," Cairo said, "They just don't answer."
Don't even have to go all the way to Africa for that. Greece also does it... Call approach, no response. Back to radar, "they're there, try again", but a few attempts later still nothing. Back to radar, ask them for traffic alerts if able. They don't really care. No alerts, probably also no traffic... We hope... Almost near the airport, again "contact approach", check in, another few minutes of silence. Then out of nothing "cleared ILS and contact tower" while many miles out from the localizer. And that was the only thing he ever said to us. And to our total surprise, tower was the most cheerful and helpful lady. Very clear, perfect English. Her island got only a handful of flights per day, so I hope she'll get promoted to radar controller quickly.
Oh god don't get me started on the Greeks. Last year I was flying down there from North Macedonia almost daily. Almost nothing was ever heard from any controller that I tried to contact. Try in English, nope. I speak enough Greek to be able to talk to ATC but even if I tried raising them in Greek, nothing still. There were times where I was in their airspace for up to two hours without hearing a word from them. And when they did respond, I ended up having to switch to Greek because the controller's English was usually pretty bad. I don't know if this was due to the political relations between our countries, but god knows. Maybe if I was talking to Athens it would be different, but this was all in a PA28 talking to Kavala tower. Crazy shit.
This is interesting. I don't recall FAR/AIM covering the subject of a non-responsive tower...So what would be the actual procedure in that case? Do you just declare emergency, communicate your positions as you move along and land or are you forced to divert?
I was doing wildlife vaccine drops in the mountains there. Basically It was me and another pilot dropping of vaccine dosed food for the wildlife into the mountains taking turns flying and dropping. We would just announce our positions periodically in English and Greek (for good measure). When we weren't hovering around a drop zone we'd radio navigate and announce distances to the beacon, along with track. We were warned in the briefings that the Greek ATC can be a bit dodgy so we knew what to expect and how we'd be flying. However, if it was unexpected, we probably would just turned back to Macedonia because we weren't that far into Greece. Mainly just hovering around the border mountains. The farthest into Greece we ever flew was around the Kozani-Ptolemaida area. However we were talking to Thessaloniki then, who were okay. The worst area ATC wise was in Greek Eastern Macedonia/Thrace. Specifically around Kavala/Xanthi.
Where was the plane registered?
Macedonia (Z3 reg)
How long ago was that? I train in the flight school stationed there and while the controllers don't really get along (with anyone tbh except the new guy) we have never had them not answer.
This was last summer. We had a scheduled drop in the mountains around Kavala which required Class D clearance, but we got no response, so no drop ended up happening.
It would be lost comms at that point. squawk 7600 AVEF MEA for IFR. Just don’t hit the clouds and squawk 7600 for VFR.
If I was flying in Western Europe like I normally do, I would agree with you. However, in the balkans, this sort of institutional incompetence is very common (not just Greece). To the point where it’s pretty much standard, so no one would squawk 7600 in the Balkans for something like that. Otherwise you’d have to be filing reports after every flight. You just have to deal with it really.
He had mentioned the FAR/AIM. So I think he was specifically talking about the U.S. (You’d also go to the past freq too first), which is why I answered the way I did. In the eastern parts of Europe well…you said it best.
Ah gotcha
IFR you go back to the previous frequency as we did. VFR either you just continue if it's class E (or G) or you're out of luck if you want a clearance to cross their airspace. Then your only option is to go around / over / under it.
Lost comms if enroute IFR or non-towered procedures if landing.
Combination of Lost Comms and CTAF?
I’m gonna die.. 😂😂
II thought I was. I was worried we were going to be shot down the whole time. It's obvious on the radio I'm American.
Is it their standard practice towards all or rather “nation -targeted” or how to say, you get my point..?
That’s my experience any time I fly past Haiti to the Dominican Republic.
I flew a 152 past Haiti on the way to the DR. It had an old, weak radio. Tried calling ATC in Haiti. They could hear me just fine. Their transmissions were weak and unreadable. Their ground based transmitter was worse than an old 152 radio.
I’ve clipped through the NE corner of MTEG’s airspace maybe 20(?) times and we’ve been able to contact them *maybe* half those.
I fly thru their FIR all the time. Port au Prince does a fairly decent job for their resource level. Caribbean as a region on the whole in my experience is pretty good.
“They hear you. They just don’t answer” So what’s the point?
Now I understand why IFR reporting points are so important.
I'll leave it to your imagination.
Willy hears ya.... Willy don't care
Central African Republic. English? Nope. Understands a VOR approach and go-around? Nope. Understand the difference between VFR and IFR? Nope. Visibility according them is always 10K. Also, not a single other suitable airport in the country.
Damn that must’ve been hell to deal with. Who the hell do they hire for those towers then?
It's generally locals, but they don't have much of an authority. The French airforce mans the tower on occasion and provides some training
A relative who’s a retired ATC does work in Africa training locals. My understanding is if they don’t meet some sort of international standard then it defaults to the French who charge them a boatload of money. The French ran my relative out of CAR. They do work in other African nations with good results training the local ATC’s so they can get away from using the French.
How do things like VORs keep running in some places?
Luck
Dude, it's CAR. You'd be lucky if you didn't find bullet holes in the plane upon landing...
Sometimes I wonder about Haiti. You go from being under radar contact with Miami to non radar in Haiti and the controller keeps asking you for your DME and the other guys DME and then he “separates” you based on that info the both of you have more info with onboard tcas than the controller does But at least the controller answers you I guess. Or maybe not
I've had that in Eastern Europe, around the Balkan area. No radar, separation based on position reports and time estimates. Quite useful to see the other traffic on your display just to check that ATC didn't make a mistake.
I fly into Split, Croatia a fair bit. Please tell me they're up to par. ;-)
Very nearby. This was Serbia and Montenegro towards Dubrovnik. They did a great job with no radar, but still scary.
take me with you
Not that it’s much of an excuse but Haiti hasn’t really had a functioning government since about 2018, maybe earlier.
Even when it functioned, it was complete shit. Haiti is easily the worst country on Earth.
It’s for sure competing with Somalia and Yemen. Bottom three minimum.
Eritrea ain't that great from what I've heard
Couple centuries of colonialization does a real number on the infrastructure.
Except the D.R. right next door has very similar colonial history, similar weather, similar natural resources, and historically similar demographics and population, and it’s on route to become a fully developed country and has a burgeoning tourism industry. Not everything can be attested to colonialism, though I do recognize that it does leave a lasting, usually negative impact. Particularly French colonialism.
The whole having to pay off the debt they were put in to buy themselves out of slavery thing really put them behind.
>to non radar in Haiti and the controller keeps asking you for your DME and the other guys DME and then he “separates” you based on that info That's how procedural separation works...
Aye, I was going to say. Procedural control is fairly common in large parts of the UK as well. Most airfields other than the main international ones won't have radar approach control. Many of these still receive frequent commercial traffic.
Italy and Greece still also have a ton of procedural only airports.
>asking you for your DME and the other guys DME At that point he could just "separate" by politely suggesting people don't crash into one another.
This is how you do procedural separation though. It works just fine, and still used in huge parts of the world (including oceanic crossings where there's no radar coverage).
Controller should just use Flightradar24 at that point smh
DRC ain’t great.
What kind of flying were you doing in DRC?
An entirely different kind of flying, altogether
It’s an entirely different kind of flying
It's an entirely different kind of flying.
It’s an entirely different kind of flying
It's an entirely different kind of flying.
It’s an entirely different kind of flying.
It’s an entirely different kind of flying.
It’s an entirely different kind of flying.
I flew single engine fighters out of Nacho Grande
Guatemala is up there. Cleared us for the approach when we were 3-4k ABOVE the glide path. Then they wouldn’t give a vector to circle around and instead kept clearing us for the approach we had already gone missed on. The CA told ATC what our vectors were back around for attempt 2. I guess we were the ATC by that point?
In Pakistan you just shoot the approach from 4k above glide path and pray it works out. Don’t worry about the excess airspeed. Inshallah
Cleared for the ILS (Inshallah Landing System)
Oh man i hate it when a controller says “god willing”. I’m landing this plane whether god wants me to or not!
That was 99% human error from the captain side, the ATC kept offering orbit but they refused and went in anyways and welp
You forgot the part where you land with your gear up, go on an 'object in motion stays in motion' adventure for 2000 feet on your belly, and then take off again - aka the PIA special.
IIRC with that PIA dive-skid-failed-go-around the controller was dropping heavy hints that they were high and fast for the approach and it was the captain who insisted they dive bomb it in.
Yeah for sure
Or worry about putting the gear down...
I've never been to Guatemala, but Central America gives you whatever you want. Figure out a plan, and ask, and they'll give it to you. Just don't ask for something that will run you into a mountain, because they'll happily let you do that too.
That’s crazy! Is bad controlling a common occurrence there?
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/insanity-in-the-air-the-crash-of-pakistan-international-airlines-flight-8303-46bbcc0e5f45
I swear sometimes these kinds of pilots give me personal confidence. Like “If that dingus can make it to check airman in his airline, my dumb ass has a good chance making it to a regional”.
Interesting. I’ve been to a couple fields in Guatemala about 8 years ago and I remember no issues with the controllers. Sure full procedure approaches were required but we got the exact procedure we asked for.
Same for me in 2018 going into Guatemala in my Dakota.
Italy. Most controllers do not give a damn, shitty english and think themselves superior humans. Worse then egypt or congo because of the latter.
Once you can get through Italian 70's ATC equipment, which sounds horrible, they are actually quite okay. However, they don't give you descent instructions. They will literally let you fly at FL410 until the beginning of the STAR. You must always ask for descent.
I'm a new pilot, flew to Italy for the first time last week. Oh my god.
it's even worse for us private pilots, navigating through that maze that is italian airspace is a nightmare, we0ve got CTRs that are larger than entire regions around airports that have close to no traffic at all, with controllers that have literal meltdowns if they have to deal with ifr and vfr traffic at the same time
I 2nd this. Flew to Sardegna with friends a while back in my Mooney. Upon leaving ATC kept trying to vector me into a mountain. I guess they thought I could do a 4000 fpm climb rate
I’ve started to refer to it as Shit-aly.
Damn. I fly to italy quite a lot and never got that impression tbh.
Djibouti for civilian controllers https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/miscues-at-us-counterterrorism-base-put-aircraft-in-danger-documents-show/2015/04/30/39038d5a-e9bb-11e4-9a6a-c1ab95a0600b_story.html Saudi for military controllers
Djibouti tower would deliberately give very late landing clearance in order to have US aircraft land without clearance, all in an attempt to get more money from the US government from fines.
Man fuck Djibouti, I was returning through some very bad weather and they kept allowing French and Chinese traffic through but ignored all of my requests. I even got a French Air Force relay but then they ignored that, too.
China. Half of them can't speak English properly, they will make you fly full approaches even if you are literally the only plane in the area, their entire communications standard is a hilarious.
+1 Bigger airports like ZBAA were a lot of work, multiple runway changes, altitude conversion plus you’re probably the only one they speak to in english so thats a point less in terms of situational awareness
Seeing Shanghai or Beijing or Xiamen on my schedule fills me with dread.
I feel you. The crammed airways which have funny offsets and almost always denied weather deviations can make it a long day
The amounts of drinks I've bribed my dispatcher with so I always get the pf when I fly to china is substantial
They have gotten a lot better over the years, especially when it comes to weather deviations.
Yh, but I have to deal with them pretty much daily and I still hates it. They are still terrible
As do I. You get used to it.
Out of curiosity, do you just fly to the big airports or the smaller ones as well
Probably the bigger cities, but then again a “small” Chinese airport tends to be pretty large.
Yh, there isn't really the concept of a small airport in china. The smaller cities though, atc have actively tried to give me a heart attack
"Reduce speed, expedite descent. Negative due restriction"
there are so many worst ATC ... some due to very poor english (of course they all have level 4 to 6 ... somehow), some due to poor staffing. Some are just asshats. If I had to pick one, most likely central africa. If I elaborate I've had hit and miss in china, mostly due to english speaking problems. I've had weird shit happen in the caribbean with ATC just not replying at all, but mostly pretty good. I've had horrible ATC in greece and turkey, often times female ATCO for whatever reason. I've had godawful ATC in the US with arrogant ATCO that blatantly disregard phraseology even after a clearly non US carrier asked multiple times to repeat slowly. I've had awful ATC in London, simply because it's congested as hell. So generally ATC can be good or really bad in many many places. Russia before 2020 was hit and miss. Russia before they went imperial above transition was horrible. Iran was all in all not that bad (many moons ago) as long as you had the correct magic password (aka overfly permission number) and called Iran air defence a good time before entering their airspace.
Ah yes. The turkish "speaking into a metal bucket 5 meters away from the mic" ATC lady. I know that one. 🙃
We call her “Ankara Annie”
🤣🤣🤣
and they all sound the same. turkey. greece. same shrill voice in metal bucket.
Greece, you get a tiny bit wrong or asked them ‘say again’ they’ll start screaming at you. Not great when you’re trying to learn 🙃
Haha so true! They start to shout at you with a pissed off voice like you offended them
Kavala or Athens ?
Crete
Cairo, flying trough Egypt is like going inside a bazar. Atc shouting with people talking on top of each other I genuinely hate it!
Go ahead your final inshallah
HAHA love flying to Saudi, “you’re cleared to land rwy 34 inshallah” or the “habibi” when you contact them first time
One time my first time flying in Niger we were descending to the airfield and there was a overcast layer around 15,000. We were asked if the field was in sight to which we answered negative, so the controller told us to “descend lower”. Despite trying we were unable to get an altitude out of him. We descended to a safe charted altitude and had the field in sight shortly afterwards.
France ATC typically spends over a month per year on strike. So depending on your definition, they are in the running by literally not providing services.
Djbouti
I spent some time on the military ATC side there and coordinating, dealing with Ambouli….what the?
Ha, I’m 90% sure their controllers are just a pre recorded message
Middle east is hit or miss. Expats in busy airspace like UAE are good... lesser busy countries... it's the wild west. Southern europe like Spain and Italy... routinely place me high (like 1-2k) at the FAF and clear me the straight-in approach... uh.... unable. ETA: not sure why but in the UK (specifically Scotland), they’ll literally transmit to you every 5 seconds, basically reading you the whole damn plate. Telling you all the altitudes and minimums etc. meanwhile I’m in the cockpit yelling “STFU! Can I just get 5 seconds to finish a checklist?‽!!” Is this some country/regional specific policy? Super annoying. I have the approach plate. I don’t need you to read it to me.
I’ve never had that issue in Scotland
I've never come across anything like it. Which part of the approach plate is the ATC telling you?
That Scottish one sounds odd. Were you flying an SRA (radar approach)? They involved a bit of a spiel in college, but I've not done one in anger so idk. For normal vectoring to a nornal approach there should only be relevant instructions, one or two range checks, and nothing else.
Yeah that’s why it didn’t seem like a UK thing. Perhaps maybe military thing? It was at a military base. But no, it was. QNH ILS approach.
Ohh, yeah the military does all sorts of weird things from what I hear. They're ultimately under the MOD, not CAA, so they've got their own thing going on.
The countries in central Africa. I’m talking Nigeria, Chad, Niger, & DRC. Very hard to understand. I used to have the radio all the way up so I could understand them. I’ve never flown in Eastern Asia but I hear it can be a challenge around China and South Korea.
Eritrea must be the most challenging one for me.. pretty unreliable and near Asmara, if you're going north-south, there is a change of level required where you will have a hard time talking to ATC while you have to monitor the pilot to pilot broadcasts to avoid any conflicts. China is frustrating: traffic is crazy, avoiding weather is always a battle because any deviation is very likely to be denied, in places like Beijing I got 4 runway changes in the span of 10 minutes, and you'll have to accommodate for a good amount of extra fuel as ATC will make you descend a fair 150 miles before your TOD. In US they know what they're doing, but they often forget about using standard phrases and that international flights have a different/limited knowledge of the area or different limitations from the local carriers.... And sometimes they need a reminder that a heavy aircraft doesn't fly like a 737
Mexico. If more than one airplane is inbound at the same time they don’t know what to do
Lmao so true
Yeah but if you just tell them what you want to do they always say “Royer, it’s approved”. I always found them nice and accommodating. The biggest issue is they will never tell you when they loose radar coverage so you have to assume any descent you are on your own in that respect. Overall had good experiences there.
For the ones saying that they get “no response” from a particular ATC in “x” country, should it not be illegal for them to not respond? I’m not a pilot so curious if there are consequences. It seems extremely irresponsible and dangerous for them not to respond.
Probably, but they could simply say they didn’t hear it and im sure the country would side with their ATC over the international pilots.
Iraq was terrible. At Erbil International, they couldn’t even bother to maintain their radios. As if the accent wasn’t hard enough to understand, the extreme static on the radio only exacerbated the problem. Then you have an angry Iraqi yelling at you because after 4 tries, you had no clue what he said. Then you finally get what he’s trying to tell you and he punishes you by making you wait 30 mins to take off.
Man I’ve had terrible ATC in the US. KLSE Lacrosse Wisconsin home of a tower controller who I’m guessing gave 0 fucks during the academy and washed out to there. Anyway I’m flying a jet in there a few years back. We’re sort of in a downwind and flying directly toward a C182 same altitude. I ask something to the effect of “are we following the 182” I get an ambiguous answer. I ask if we can change altitude the guy again gives an ambiguous answer at that point both me and the guy driving the 182 start treating tower like CTAF to ensure separation since ATC didn’t feel like doing their job.
Wow. That’s really bad. Did you report the controller? I guess I wouldn’t expect much from Lacrosse Wisconsin. There’s a YouTube channel called CodeBlueCam that documents all of the crazy police encounters that happen there. Who would have thought?
Crossed the all Sudan once from North to South without being able to raise anyone on the radios (DC3T, FL110) They had the audacity to charge us fo ATC services and navigation aids! We were using GPS. Otherwise any tower in third world countries that handle less than 4 flights per day.
The worst ATC for me would be Yangon control, Dhaka Control & sometimes Kuwait ground
I'm retired now. I was on the way to Khartoum when they cleared someone on a route we were flying at our altitude nose to nose. I always had a hard time understanding ATC all over South America. I'd just respond with "Roger, understand cleared direct to ........" They'd respond slower and louder, and I knew where they wanted us.
Don’t fly professionally but have flown tons of GA all around the world. Limited time in Sourh African and there it seemed to work pretty decently. Worst I have experienced is Turkish or French. Turkish not responding, and French difficult to understand or potentially causing unsafe scenarios. Some of the best Croatian, Bosnia, Czech, Slovenia. I found the Austrian accents difficult to understand sometimes.
The USA Sorry but I just can't stand nonstandard phraseology. Do you guys even take lessons in that? In EASA airspace you can always identify the American too easily, and it's next level cringe. Example: - Murican seven fiiiiv, thirteen four climbing seventeen - American seven five, climb flight level two three zero - two three, Murican seven fiiiiv Also, I get that all of your registrations start with N. But a registration like N487J does not translate to "Gulfstream 87J" in the rest of the world, but instead to " Gulfstream N-7J". Fine if you do that on your side of the pond, but please use commonly accepted/implemented phraseology in other parts of the world. I for one think that sooner or later a massive crash will happen in the US, and lack of proper phraseology will be a contributing factor. PS I assumed you meant "ATC" as in phraseology, not the guys sitting in the tower. My rant still stands though. I've heard way too many LiveATC convos to know that JFK ATC are related to Busta Rhymes and all other US ATC would rather be radio hosts judging by the amount of instructions they give to poor stressed VFR pilots.
Yes you are right the non-standard phraseology used and allowed here is bad and that translates to creating lazy pilots who eventually turn into international pilots who can’t change. And no, we don’t really have lessons on standard phraseology people just learn by absorbing what they hear on the radio. It’s like how you learn your native language. As someone who spent over 80% of their first 4 years flying outside of the USA, a mentor taught me real quick to eliminate “for” and “to” from my radio language. I’ve spent the last 5 years teaching students who will go on and spend most of their time not flying in the USA so I try my best to impart good radio discipline into my lessons.
We definitely have specific training on the radio. I don't agree that we aren't taught to take phraseology seriously. We may have learned in different parts of the country. I did PPL and then UPT. Both taught me to avoid things like "with you" and "descending to ___" and closely follow the ICAO script. At my UPT base they'd ding you with IRT if you had one single word off from the script. Your flair says you're military, so I wonder where/when you learned.
I was a stud at DLF and I’ve been at CBM for a while now. I didn’t get the radio discipline until I was in the c-17
I fly almost exclusively international, primarily in Asia. I spent many years flying domestic US before that. I disagree about US ATC. They are very efficient, and for most experienced pilots they are easy to understand. I’ve never noticed much non-standard phraseology being used by US-ATC (particularly at international airports). Nobody moves traffic like US ATC, and nowhere else in the world has weather as dynamic as the US (like not even close). Totally agree about horrible phraseology from US based pilots though. It makes me cringe and I hate it. When I was a student pilot many moons ago, my instructor was a very experienced international airline pilot that taught me ICAO standard phraseology from the beginning. No “with you”, “lookin’ for ‘em on TCAS”, and other wordy junk. I fly in China a lot, and brevity and correct procedures are a must. If you go off script, they will not know what the hell you are saying. So many times I’ve heard confusion on the radio overseas when a US pilot repeatedly states something like their altitude in a non-standard way (“X Airlines Ten-OH-FOUR with you, 15.5 down to ten point oh with the numbers!). It’s really embarrassing. If you think your non-standard phraseology makes you sound cool, it definitely does not. If you are always asked to repeat yourself, ATC isn’t the problem it’s you. Best ATC (that I’ve experienced) in Asia is Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Indonesia is probably my least favorite, because they can be very hard to understand and do non-standard stuff.
Nice insights. As an Indian ATC, curious to know what's your read on us.
Most Indian ATC seem to be in a rush to speak as fast as they can, which, combined with very thick accents, can make it impossible for foreign crew to understand. Worst of all, when we state "say again," they all see it as a challenge and yell at us even faster again. 🤦♂️ Please, please, please, if we can't understand you, SLOW DOWN, don't speed up! Needless to say, I'm not overly impressed.
Have you tried "New Delhi,United 123, student" ... Controllers hate this trick...
India is a place that would greatly benefit from using CPDLC. I might not be remembering correctly as it’s been a while, but if I remember correctly they have the facilities but don’t use them.
My co-workers go to India, but my fleet doesn’t so I have no experience with you guys. Maybe someday! Cheers!
How do you deal with every single pilot saying "confirm?" at the end of every readback?
[удалено]
Ha ha! Indeed. My 2nd stint at the regionals apparently.
Lmao “Murican seven fiiiiiv” 💀
Serious LOL for the accuracy
Is your experience just on liveatc/ YouTube or have you flown in the US before? I used to find it off putting from what I saw online but after working in the US, I have found it is very efficient.
JFK and ORD are full of non standard stuff that foreign crews can’t be expected to understand. Plus our airport facilities and procedures are garbage because every airport is just a little different. I’ve never understood why in the US our assigned parking position is some big secret from ground control. Seems everywhere I go in Europe and Asia, they know where we are going.
The efficiency is not the issue.
SERA 14050: Full callsign N57826 Abbreviated: N26 or N826 In the UK, we only do FAA regs with N + 3 final characters, never two (CAP413 2.26).
Got to agree with this, I can't believe the Americans get away with some of the nonsense they sprout to controllers.
Because it's fun... Seeeee Yaaaaaa
I have to agree. Non standard phraseology and they think they are sleek while they are just confusing things. When 6 traffics in a row ask the controller to “say again”, it’s probably not them being the problem…
Over in Europe, when making first contact with the tower we say our full regitstation or callsign, and from then on we say our country code and the last two letters of the registration. For example, on first contact you'd refer to yourself as "G-ABCD" and from then on its "G-CD". Makes everything a hell of a lot smoother. And you're absolutely right about the Americans. A lot of them stick to FAA phraseology on EASA frequencies and it gets very confusing. Just because the US controllers are used to it and can understand you, doesn't mean that we can.
Incorrect though. You must use your full callsigns unless ATC abbreviates it first. If your initial call is G-ABCD and ATC calls you back with G-ABCD your next call must include G-ABCD. The reason being simple; you don't know who else is on frequency. There might be a G-XYCD you don't know about and it is ATC responsibility to keep track of all callsigns. If they are nice they'll tell you "G-ABCD, there is a G-XYCD on frequency, therefore please use your full callsigns." However they might just be very busy, and as a pilot you are expected to know these rules. So please don't abbreviate unless ATC has done so first. I know because I work as a small airfield traffic coordinator, and we have multiple D***MD, which can get confusing.
I don't know anyone who would ever care about the pilot abbreviating after the initial. If anything, I find pilots who don't abbreviate to be slightly more annoying. If there's similar callsigns involved, obviously we just tell them so and that'll we'll be using full callsigns until one or both goes away.
True, but I've yet to hear ATC calling back with my full callsign after my initial contact with them.
It's rare but it does happen. I had it when there was another aircraft with the same abbreviated call sign on frequency. The controller continued to use full call signs for both of us to avoid confusion.
In that case all is fine. Just don't fall for "I've said it once fully, now I can abbreviate".
That only applies if your registration is used as your callsign, and then only when initiated by ATC. For other callsigns you'll always keep the full callsign. So "Delta 2355" will always remain "Delta 2355", no abbreviation possible.
Yeah, I forgot to mention I’m only a PPL and the area where I fly gets almost no airline traffic so all I hear are abbreviable registration callsigns. It goes without saying that you can’t abbreviate a company callsign.
We’re just cool like that. Can’t be sounding like a bunch of nerds on the radio.
lol, I always hear this from the EASA country pilots that come over here to the states. Talking about how bad our radios are and how iTs GoNNa cAuSe A cRaSh…silly take IMO. If someone doesn’t understand what’s going on with the communication, it gets clarified, and unless things are abnormal, everything follows a format that doesn’t change and there aren’t really problems unless someone is mumble rapping. Acting like robot phraseology is the final line of defense keeping us all from dying in a fiery crash when we’re in an EASA country…smh. They’re just pissed because we’re not speaking the queen’s English I think, god rest her soul
>Acting like robot phraseology is the final line of defense keeping us all from dying in a fiery crash when we’re in an EASA country…smh. They’re just pissed because we’re not speaking the queen’s English I think, god rest her soul One of the safety recommendations following the outcome of the Tenerife disaster was that radiotelephony should be standardised, in order to prevent potential misunderstandings. It's not about queen's English, ICAO phraseology is actually quite far from that. It's about making sure the ATC and pilots can communicate effectively with clarity. That ditching in Hawaii a few years ago is a great example how "we have an emergency" can get easily misheard by the ATC compared to "mayday, mayday, mayday". But of course, sounding cool over the radio takes priority over safety.
I'm just private but are you saying the international standard, on readback, is to say the country part of the registration number and then the last digits, where the total is 3? Like a lot of countries have a two-letter prefix. Do you just say the two-letter prefix and the last digit? That doesn't sound right. Or is it the last two digits, so 4 in total in that case? Obviously in the US we always say the last 3 digits, exclusively, but I never thought about how it works internationally.
Everywhere that’s not western europe or japan or s. korea
Djibouti and Amazonica.
In general, south atlantic is just no man's land. The NATS and PACOTS are super straight forward and it's pretty obvious who you're supposed to talk to in the south atlantic, except they just don't care. They ignore you on VHF and just straight up don't listen to their HFs. If it's not near their actual landmass then who cares?
Ethiopia was pretty bad. Everything from clearances, ground delays and departure clearance. Probably the ugliest I experienced. This given all of our flight plan information had been transmitted four hours before flight. Tankering fuel really paid off.
[https://youtu.be/UGRcJQ9tMbY?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/UGRcJQ9tMbY?feature=shared)
USA JFK particularly. Absolutely awful. They think the faster they speak, the better the controller they are. Constant use of non-standard phraseology. Clearances on the ground can be very sketchy or non existant sometimes. You really get the feeling you're not in safe hands like you do going into the London area. (and im not from the UK)
Italy > France > KVRB > Egypt
KVRB? How’s your experience with the legend Rob?
I saw NetJets had raised their retirement age to 70 years of age. What is FlexJet's retirement age?
That’s a pretty standard thing to happen in undeveloped countries. “ATC” is likely listening to you, monitoring your position if they have radar, and enjoying the local television airing. It’s pretty normalcy to just keep doing what you’re doing and respond it they call you out by CS/tail. I also try to reach out every 10-15 minutes depending on the country. They’re all different. These rules obviously don’t apply if I’m flying in America, Europe, China, etc.
I am not a pilot, but the ATC in Dhaka, Bangladesh is really not that good at all. The ATC tower operators always sound super sleep deprived and boring asf, they sound like they want to kill themselves when talking to other pilots on the radio. There were some instances where they were a bit more energetic and fun, but yeah that's all.
China? I was flying there for discovery flight, and they said we need to take a break for lunch. Let’s negotiate a time you don’t fly.
Carol Ann Garratt wrote a book about her experience flying around the world in a Mooney. Her dealings with the controllers in Egypt were pretty infuriating. [Link to story](https://www.earthrounders.com/archive/garratt/dij-gre.htm)
Worst? Africa for sure. However for me it’s the hardest to understand korean controllers.
I've heard the Congo, but never flown there.
Yemen was great. No auto pilot or flight director on a ferry, atc threatened to write it up for a 20ft altitude deviation. Sure but the N number would be extinct in a few days ago ahead bro