The last lesson supplied the atoms; this one flies them. A flight is a chain of exchanges, each with a different unit and a small fixed vocabulary, and the syllabus wants the chain walked twice: once as a VFR flight, once as an IFR flight, with the special phraseology of PBN, SELCAL, ACARS and TCAS folded in where it lives.
An IFR flight works its way along a chain of units, each handing the aircraft to the next. The figure is the map this lesson walks:
Three questions from this lesson — one straightforward, one that applies it, one that pushes a little further. Nothing is recorded, and you can draw a new set as often as you like.
In radiotelephony the expression TAKE-OFF is used:
During a resolution advisory, ATC instructs a descent that the RA forbids. The pilot replies:
A VFR aircraft on final at an aerodrome with AFIS receives: 'runway 06, surface wind 040 degrees 6 knots.' The pilot:
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The VFR chain is short but complete. The calls, in flight order:
Before taxi — first contact with position and intentions, and the taxi request; the reply is a taxi instruction with a clearance limit, normally the holding point of the runway in use: "taxi to holding point A1, runway 06".
Departure — at the holding point the aircraft reports ready; the tower clears it for take-off with the runway named. Leaving the circuit, a report of position and intentions closes the loop with the tower.
En route — position reports to the flight information service: position, level, next point; the FISO informs, and never clears.
Circuit and landing — a joining call with position and the ATIS letter where one exists, then the downwind and final reports the tower asks for, the landing clearance with the runway named, and after landing the instruction to vacate.
At an AFIS aerodrome — the same reports are made, but the AFIS officer passes information, not clearances: "runway 24, surface wind 250 degrees 8 knots" is the whole reply, and the decision to land stays with the pilot.
The IFR chain adds the route clearance at the start and the procedural machinery around the runway:
Route clearance — from Delivery before start-up: cleared to the destination via the route or SID, initial level, squawk; read back in full, as the read-back lesson will formalise.
Pushback and taxi — "pushback approved", then taxi with a holding-point clearance limit, exactly as for VFR.
Line-up, including the conditional clearance — "line up runway 24", or conditionally: for movements affecting the active runway, conditional phrases are not used unless the traffic concerned is seen by both the controller and the pilot, and the aircraft causing the condition must be the first to pass. Its fixed order: identification, the condition, the clearance, and a brief reiteration of the condition: "SAS 941, behind DC9 on short final, line up behind".
Take-off — the clearance names the runway: "runway 24, cleared for take-off". The expression TAKE-OFF is used only when clearing for take-off or cancelling that clearance; every other transmission about the departure says DEPARTURE, a rule written after the word's ambiguity helped cause the Tenerife disaster.
Climb, cruise and descent — hand-offs by CONTACT, level changes with the level read back, and the level vocabulary of the level-report lesson to come.
Arrival — the STAR, the approach clearance with the procedure named, the landing clearance with the runway named, and the vacate instruction back to Ground.
PBN operations add their own degradation call. An aircraft that can no longer meet the navigation specification tells ATC immediately: "unable RNP (type) due (reason)", the reason being, for instance, loss of RAIM or a RAIM alert; the same shape with RNAV covers RNAV specifications. ATC may equally ask "advise if able (designator) departure" before assigning a PBN procedure.
On long HF sectors nobody wants to listen to static for hours. SELCAL, selective calling, lets the ground station transmit the aircraft's assigned tone code; the code trips a chime and light on the flight deck, so the crew need not keep a continuous listening watch. The discipline on the air is a check before relying on it: "request SELCAL check", answered by the station keying the tones, and the aircraft confirming the chime. The SELCAL code travels in item 18 of the flight plan.
ACARS, the aircraft communications addressing and reporting system, moves routine traffic off voice altogether: a datalink between aircraft and airline or ATS ground systems carrying company messages, movement times, weather and, in some regions, the departure clearance itself. Its phraseology footprint is exactly that: what ACARS carries, no one has to say.
When a resolution advisory fires, the aircraft manoeuvres first and tells ATC with a fixed vocabulary; the instrumentation course's ACAS lesson covers the system commanding it. The exchanges:
"TCAS RA" — the pilot's report on deviating from clearance under a resolution advisory; the controller answers ROGER and stops issuing instructions to the deviating aircraft.
"Clear of conflict, returning to (assigned clearance)" — when the RA ends and the aircraft turns back toward its clearance, followed by "clear of conflict, (assigned clearance) resumed" once re-established; the controller acknowledges or issues an alternative.
"Unable, TCAS RA" — the reply to any ATC clearance or instruction that the resolution advisory forbids following.
The fixed word-orders and the guarded words carry the marks: the conditional clearance's four parts, the take-off rule, and the TCAS calls verbatim. The overview, following the learning objectives:
Use the correct standard phraseology for each phase of a VFR flight
Use the correct standard phraseology for each phase of an IFR flight, including PBN
Explain phraseology for SELCAL and ACARS
Explain TCAS phraseology