Hi All,from Jim, Could any Developer out there say if call sign's,for example Colgan 9444 will be pronounced as Colgan ninety four forty four,instead of the annoying Colgan nine four four four? Thank's,Just a pet peeve of mine:-)

The currently used callsigns with the numbers *are* correct - well partially at least. You will never hear a "ninety-four-forty-four" in any ATC conversation, the correct wording would also not be "nine-four-four-four", but "niner-triple-four", "niner-four-four-four" or only "double four", if traffic permits.Hope this answers your question,Pat

I listen every night and ATC is very casual with airline numbers. This is not just towers but ARTCCs as well. They almost always say it the easy way. I don't hear too many 9's, but a 3626 with be said "thirty-six twenty-six", or a 954 will be "nine fifty-four". Same for frequencies. If the controller tells the plane to switch to 126.60, the pilot with often responds with "twenty-six six". They cut corners whether the book says they can or not.

They might, but they're certainly not required to.ATC in Europe from what I've heard of it rarely if ever does so, at most they may skip the first one or two letters from an aircraft registration if it's a locally registered one (so PH-COU would become "Charlie Oscar Uniform" after the first identification with full registration).No, the system currently implemented is correct according to the international conventions in use worldwide. If individual controllers and/or organisations choose to diverge from that that's their choice.

>The currently used callsigns with the numbers *are* correct ->well partially at least. You will never hear a>"ninety-four-forty-four" in any ATC conversation, the correct>wording would also not be "nine-four-four-four", but>"niner-triple-four", "niner-four-four-four" or only "double>four", if traffic permits.No, thats not right. Maybe you're thinking of registration numbers? Flight numbers are - more often than not - verbalized as "Ninety-four Forty-four". At least in the US...Here's what the 7110.65R says:If aircraft identification becomes a problem when the procedures specified above are used, the call sign shall be restated after the flight number of the aircraft involved. EXAMPLE-"American Five Twenty-One American.""Commuter Six Eleven Commuter.""General Motors Thirty-Seven General Motors." REFERENCE-FAAO 7210.3, Aircraft Identification Problems, Para 2-1-13. 2. Air carrier and other civil aircraft having FAA authorized call signs. State the call sign followed by the flight number in group form. NOTE-"Group form" is the pronunciation of a series of numbers as the whole number, or pairs of numbers they represent rather than pronouncing each separate digit. The use of group form may, however, be negated by four-digit identifiers or the placement of zeros in the identifier. EXAMPLE-"American Fifty-Two.""Delta One Hundred.""Eastern Metro One Ten.""General Motors Thirty Fifteen.""United One Zero One.""Delta Zero One Zero.""TWA Ten Zero Four."And flight numbers are never abbreviated.Regards,Nick

This seems to be a US usage.The use of the group form isn't covered in the UK Manual of Radio Telephony. That Manual doesn't make the US distinction between registration numbers and callsigns - they are both regarded as callsigns for ATC purposes (Section 1.8).

>This seems to be a US usage.Hi mgh,You're absolutely right, I referenced the FAA 7110.65 - which is specific to the US - because the OP was obviously referring to the US procedure. I also stated that fact in my first post.I am not implying that the rest of the world does it the same way. Unfortunately, several people made incorrect assertions regarding authorized phraseology, and I wanted to clear that up.If we're going to talk about UK ATC phraseology, then I'll have to bow out graciously, because I have no meaningful experience with it. Regards,Nick

Maybe I can help here being a former Air Traffic Controller in the UK, now doing the same job in Canada.In the UK the manual of Air Traffic Services (MATS) Part 1 gives instructions on grouping numbers. Basically its a no-no unless you are referring to something like a DC-10 or a Falcon 50 where you are permitted to use ten or fifty rather than one-zero or five-zero.In all other instances numbers should be pronounced individually.Examples:Speedbird one-two-six-fouror radar service terminates, position four-eight miles.......or contact Director on one one niner decimal seven twoIn North America they do go by pretty much what Blueridgedx posted, Canada seems very similar to the US instructions. Callsigns can be said as fourteen-twenty five for example.On the subject of abbreviating callsigns.In the UK for example a callsign G-ABCD can be abbreviated (after initial call where full callsign must be used by both pilot and controller) as Golf-Charlie-Delta, unless there is any other similar callsign on frequency. For example if G-ABCD and G-DDCD are on frequency full callsigns must be used.In Canada a callsign C-ABCD would be abbreviated as Bravo-Charlie-Delta, restrictions on similar callsigns are the same as UK.On numeric registrations the rules are the same, example N12345 would be abbreviated to 345 or N345 or the pilot can opt to use his type Mooney-three-four-five.In no circumstances may airline flight number callsigns be abbreviated as far as I can tell anywhere in the World. There is too much possibility for confusion.Now what is written in the manuals and what controllers do under the priviledges of their own license are different matters !

That's a very helpful summary.The main differences tend to arise because the UK, and many other countries, tend to follow ICAO Annex 10 Volume 2 and ICAO PANS-ATM Document 4444. Even so, there are differences, especially in phraseology. For example the UK used the phrase "pass your message" instead of ICAO's "go ahead" to avoid any possibility of "go ahead" being taken as as instruction to procede by a pilot or a driver of a ground vehicle.The UK identifies all the difference from ICAO stands (not just in matters of phraseology) in the AIP GEN 1-7 as do most, if not all, other countries that have adopted the ICAO standards.

Just thought of another instance where you can group numbers (Its been 3 years the memory is fading), in the UK.RVR readings can be given as eg: five hundred-four hundred-two fifty.There may be a few others as well, but generally the UK follows ICAO fairly well, mostly differences have come about as a result of incidents. In the example given pass your message was brought in exactly because many years ago someone misunderstood go ahead as authorisation to do something.

UK MATS Part 1 states in Appendix E 2.4.3 that:All numbers used in the transmission of altitude, height, cloud height visibility, and runway visual range (RVR) information which contain whole hundreds and whole thousands, shall be transmitted by pronouncing each digit in the number of hundreds or thousands followed by the word 'Hundred' or 'Tousand' as appropriate. Combinations of thousands and whole hundreds shall be transmitted by pronouncing each digit in the number of thousands followed by the word 'Tousand' followed by the number of hundreds followed by the word 'Hundred."Examples are:900ft - Niner Hundred feet11000ft - Wun Wun Tousand feet2500ft - Two Tousand Fife Hundred feetNote the restriction to whole hundreds and thousands, which may rule out your example "four hundred two fifty feet" Perhaps this would become "four two five zero feet" because it isn't a whole hundred?

A tidbit about US registrations... I have yet (in six years of flying) to hear anyone start their registration with "november." N632SP is "six-three-two sierra papa;" the Cessna I flew for basic training would be "Cessna six-four-eight-six sierra" on first contact."Foxtrot" is often reduced to "fox," and radio frequencies often leave off the initial one (since that's always there), and for the .025 MHz increments, the .005. 122.725 becomes "twenty-two seventy-two" or "one-twenty-two seventy-two" or "one-two-two point seven-two."And a story... I was riding along in a Gulfstream (N632SP) one day while we were shooting practice Cat-II approaches in Huntsville. Tower got us mixed up with a Cessna (N362SP) because they were calling out directions to "two sierra papa." Everyone had a good laugh after it was noticed.

I don't want to p!ss anyone off here, but is it possible to allow for both phraseologies? I know Microsoft wants to do the 'world' concept. Maybe a solution is to allow for it to be one way or the other, the same way that EditVoicepack allows us to use either ICAO phraseology (for the most part) or FAA phraseology. I personally fly a lot of transatlantic flights, and would love to hear them both at the same time, but if I had to take just one the whole way, it would be to hear US Air Twenty-Six, or Speedbird Twenty-Twenty-Fower Heavy.$0.02

It's gaining popularity to call out the November part now and I don't know why. Last time I read through the AIM it said to leave the N out of the registration but when I went on a trip from Grant County Intl. to Boise. They kept calling me Sundowner November 63866. I don't know if there has been a change in the phraseology but I would doubt a change like this since we are pretty much the only country that uses numbers in the callsigns.

That would be a little more difficult to do having to have two phraseologies out of the box. Editvoice pack does a good job of the two phraseologies but you have to change them for your self between flights.