

As it was not possible to transmit a Morse-coded “R,” they adopted the word “Roger,” which at the time was the phonetic alphabet version of the letter “R,” later changed to "Romeo." Today, it is still the simple acknowledgment that a pilot or controller has received and understood your last transmission. Our pilot forefathers and mothers needed a similar standard response.
#Iata spelling alphabet code
Since Morse code telegraph transmissions could be unreliable, the receiver would transmit a single letter “R” when they successfully received a message, so R came to mean that I have received and understood your transmission. Roger - Why do pilots always say Roger when they’re done talking? Its origin is from the early days of aviation when we adapted practices from the telegraph industry. The word is derived from the French term "m’aidez" meaning help me. Mayday - Mayday - meaning emergency - is a word that hopefully you won’t ever have to use. Squawk can be used as a noun (Say your assigned squawk), an adjective (Squawk code is 2345), or as a verb (Squawk 5423). Squawk - Squawk refers to an aircraft’s transponder code, which can be either a standard code (1200 for visual flight rules - VFR) or a discrete code assigned by Air Traffic Control. For example, “ATIS information Foxtrot is current.” Each ATIS recording has an alpha-numeric designator to distinguish it from the previous message. Here are some words and phrases you might hear, and what they mean.Īutomatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) - ATIS is recorded information on current weather and airport information, such as runways in use. The number nine (9) is pronounced “niner.”.The number five (5) is pronounced “fife.”.The number three (3) is pronounced “tree.”.Pilots pronounce numbers similar to regular English, with a few exceptions: To help avoid confusion with similar sounding consonants and numbers, in March 1956 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) adopted a standard phonetic alphabet for aviation use:Īlpha, Bravo, Charli, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, PaPa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. To avoid pilots and controllers mishearing each other and potentially creating an accident, a language of aviation terms and phrases were compiled in the Pilot/Controller Glossary. The language of aviation came about from a need for safety.

Here’s a refresher course on pilot speak, along with some interesting facts from the July/August issue of FAA Safety Briefing. Whether you’re an experienced pilot, a rookie, or a co-pilot, it’s important to understand the language of aviation. Home > Newsletter > Understanding Aviation Language, September 2014 Understanding Aviation Language The alphabet is still pivotal in today’s communication despite the massive leaps in technology.Pilot | Aviation | Language | Codes | Phonetic | Alphabet | Similarly, the aviation sector also uses it to communicate passenger records and flight names. For example, the IT sector uses the alphabet to communicate long sequences of data that may be flummoxing. Consequently, the ICAO states improved the alphabet and a draft was ready by 1956 and is still in use today. However, the reversion did not mean that the need disappeared. The majority of the pilots did not feel that the new alphabet was better than the old one and so they stuck to the old system. As with most debuts, there were problems. The professor worked in close association with NATO between 19 until a first draft was ready to be tested in the year 1951. A linguistic professor, Jean-Paul Vinay, was tasked with coming up with the phonetic alphabet system. In transmitting information with no margin for error, a means of clearer communication needed to be established. For examples, the letters "m" and "n" as well as "b" and "d" sound very similar when the name of the letter is said out loud. The ICAO phonetic alphabet was created and adopted primarily to avoid confusion among flight crews as some letters of the English alphabet can be easily confused when heard orally. Civilians and the military all over the world use the system. The alphabet is also known as the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Phonetic Alphabet, or the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Phonetic Alphabet. The NATO phonetic alphabet is a radiotelephone spelling alphabet that assigns code words to each of the 26 letters of the alphabet and used for international radio communication worldwide.
