All, I have recently gained interest in monitoring air traffic, but I must say, I'm a bit lost. "Pilot talk" is like a different language epically if you're use to monitoring law enforcement & public services. I just picked up a stand alone air band scanner for the shack, & a Arrow 126 GP airband antenna. The antenna will be up 20 ft. or so in the air.
Any advice for a new guy starting out monitoring the air band?
I live in McAlester OK, DFW air traffic goes right over the house. Fort Worth Center is quite active here. Most of the traffic im hearing is Ft Worth, with an occasional Memphis, Tulsa & Kansas City thrown in. I have a page of RCAG site freq's printed off for the ZFW area, but they're hit & miss.
DFW Inbounds from the North are getting lined up for descent right over McAlester, so there is a lot of chatter.
Interesting, but very different from anything else I've ever monitored.
Hey, you hear me on there all the time if you're monitoring the low frequency out there. 90% of my flights are between Little Rock and North Dallas so I go right over Mena AR, down over the tip of OK, and into TX over the Red River. If you pick up "Cherokee 8083 Yankee" that's me
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First things for a layman picking up on aviation, and the vast majority of stuff you'll hear.
The basic format is, 1) who are you, 2) who am I, 3) what do I want. So the first couple of parts will always be the airplane identifier and the controller's identifier. The rest is what's actually happening.
1) Upon initial contact the pilot will identify the plane and whatever clearances he is currently on, or absent any current clearances, his altitude. Out in the middle of nowhere when I get switched from Memphis to Fort Worth I'll just say "center Cherokee 8083 Yankee checking in (altitude)", and the controller will respond "Cherokee 83 yankee Fort Worth center roger, Texarkana Altimeter number number point number number". They always give you the nearest weather station's altimeter setting for you to set your altimeter to upon initial contact.
2) Every transmission is double, you can pick up a lot of lingo just from pilots and controllers saying things differently. Whatever the controller says, the pilot repeats to verify that he is complying. For example, my last takeoff I was given "clear for takeoff, heading 360 for traffic" which I repeated "clear for takeoff 36 runway heading". Those mean the same thing, just said differently. 36 = runway magnetic compass alignment, which is 360 or due north, so "heading 360 on takeoff" from 36 is the same as "runway heading."
3) "Squawk number-number-number-number". Not terribly interesting. Transponder codes. When you are being monitored by a controller on his radar, it is accomplished by your plane's transponder sending out a distinct signal that's unique per airplane. You get a code from the first controller you talk to which you punch into the box in the plane. You'll get it on the ground from a towered airport but in the air from a center or approach controller if you left from an un-towered airport. On the other end of the flight if the pilot is going to an un-towered airport, at some point you'll often hear "cancellation received, squawk VFR, change to advisory frequency approved" meaning the pilot is in range and in sight of his destination and doesn't need to fly an instrument approach because it's a fair weather day and he can just fly in visually, so the controller is turning him loose and he's changing his transponder code to the default (1200), and leaving the frequency.
4) "Clear xxxx xxx xxx xxx." People flying by instrument flight plans get clearances for everything, this will be most of what you hear. On fair weather days most people file instrument flight plans, even in small piston/propeller airplanes, since this requires controllers to help you, they have to give you clearances. If you're not on an instrument flight plan, their help is optional based on THEIR workload (although they rarely deny requests, unless super busy). Jets and turboprops heading to high altitudes will always be on instrument flight plans so will always be getting clearances for everything they do. "Clear to (whatever)" is gonna be to a location, so with maps/charts and some practice reading them, you can find out where someone is headed by their clearances. The location will be an airway (like highways in the sky, lines from point to point that planes fly on) or a VOR radio tower 99 times out of 100. VORs are radio nav towers that approaches and departures tend to stem from. Most fly by GPS these days but you can still do it by radio, a VOR sends out a radio frequency that an instrument on your panel plots like a crosshair, telling you what direction you need to fly to go to or from it. If you tune in a VOR tower in range of you, you'll hear a morse code identifier, and perhaps some weather updates from time to time.
If you grab your location's VFR sectional chart, a VOR will look like this...
It's in the middle of the blue compass circle.
VOR
The blue box has its info. The frequency on top of the box is a Flight Services frequency (people calling them will call them "radio"). The frequency in the box is the VOR's frequency. The channel is for UHF distance measuring instruments, mostly military use. The PGO is the tower's identifier (like its airport code, but for a radio tower), Rich Mountain is its name.
5) At low altitudes on fair weather days you don't have to file an instrument flight plan and get clearances for everything, you can just go fly willy nilly (with airspace permission caveats). When you hear "request following" that's a VFR flight requesting that the controller monitor them to warn them of traffic in proximity to them, and storms, and other such hazards, even though they're not on an instrument flight plan and therefore doesn't need clearances for most things. VFR flights getting following will get a squawk code too, but typically no other clearances other than to change to the next frequency as they cover their route, unless they request some other assistance.
6) Expanding further still, you can tell who's IFR or VFR, and who's big or small, by their altitudes. Small piston/propeller airplanes will be in the low altitudes which are spoken by their number, seventy five hundred feet is "7 5 hundred" just like that. VFR flights travel on the "500s", never an even thousand. Airplanes on IFR flights travel on the even thousands, so you'll hear them say "7 thousand" or "8 thousand" etc. They're also separated by whether they're going east or west. Easterly traffic goes on the odd numbers (5000, 7000, 9000, etc.) and westerly traffic goes on the even numbers (4000, 6000, 8000, etc). From the high teens on up, altitudes are referred to by flight level, which you multiply by 100. So when a guy is given "climb maintain flight level two three zero" that means he has permission to climb up to 23,000 feet. Turbine engined planes will always be going high for fuel efficiency, so the ones getting flight level clearances will be the jets and turboprops.
7) If you hear mention of Memphis, Kansas City, or OKC center on the Fort Worth frequency, that's someone being passed off to them. You'll hear their plane identifier, and then who they're being sent to. "Cherokee 8083 Yankee contact Memphis Center 123.45" and then the pilot will confirm that he got the order to switch and do so, and usually end with something nice for the controller, "123.45 for 83 Yankee, thanks see ya", or "have a good day/night", just bein' polite ya know
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There are lots more but that's a lot of what you'll hear on a low center frequency. On bad weather days it'll be a bit more varied, for example, you'll hear mention of storms by the term "precip", short for "precipitation". There are lots of common abbreviations like that. Another common one off the top of my head is if a controller is wanting confirmation that a pilot will comply with something, the pilot will respond "wilco" which is short for "will comply."
Example conversation if I'm flying VFR and approaching a storm, for reference...
A controller would call me
"Cherokee 83 Yankee Fort Worth Center"
I'd respond
"83 Yankee go ahead" to let him know I heard his call and am listening
He'd say
"Cherokee 83 Yankee you have some precip at your 12 o'clock, one zero miles" (meaning 10 miles straight ahead)
I would respond
"roger 83 Yankee, request vector to avoid?"
He would respond
"Cherokee 83 Yankee turn left heading 220 should get you around"
I would respond
"left turn 220 for 83 Yankee" (meaning I'm gonna turn to a heading of 220, southwest'ish)
When I get past the storm I'll call him back,
"center 83 Yankee"
And he responds
"Cherokee 83 Yankee Fort Worth center go ahead" to let me know he heard my call and is listening
I'll let him know I'm past the storm with
"83 Yankee past that precip, resume direct to destination"
He'll respond
"Cherokee 83 yankee roger, resume own navigation maintain VFR"
And I'll respond that I comply by repeating
"own navigation maintain VFR for 83 yankee"
The last bit meaning that I'm free to go back to flying however I want, but am to remain clear of the clouds since I'm flying VFR.
Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty simple. Pick a busy frequency to listen to and you should have the hang of most of it in a few days.
