Radio Communications: listening to aviation traffic as a remote pilot

Listen, do not transmit 0:00:00

Remote pilots are encouraged to MONITOR aviation frequencies but are not permitted to transmit on them without an FCC licence.

Aircraft radios are covered by the aircraft's own station licence; you have no equivalent.

The single exception is a genuine EMERGENCY - for example a fly-away heading into busy controlled airspace.

The instructor, himself a pilot, was not permitted to transmit from the ground during a gear-up landing incident; he had to telephone the tower.

You are allowed to listen, you are not allowed to talk.0:00:00

Phonetic alphabet and number pronunciation 0:03:55

A standardised international alphabet and number set that survives poor radio quality.

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta Echo Foxtrot Golf Hotel India Juliet Kilo Lima Mike November Oscar Papa Quebec Romeo Sierra Tango Uniform Victor Whiskey X-ray Yankee Zulu.

Modified numbers - THREE is 'tree', FIVE is 'fife', NINE is 'niner'. The 'th' sound is hard for non-native speakers.

Altitudes below 18,000 ft are spelled out - 4,500 is 'four thousand five hundred', 10,500 is 'one zero thousand five hundred'. Never 'forty-five hundred'.

Above 18,000 ft use flight levels - 20,000 ft is 'flight level two zero zero'.

Headings, speeds and frequencies are digit by digit - '360' is 'three six zero', 122.1 is 'one two two point one'.

Clock positions and call signs 0:07:34

Traffic is described by clock position relative to the aircraft's nose. Aircraft identify themselves by tail number.

12 o'clock is straight ahead, 3 o'clock right, 6 o'clock behind, 9 o'clock left.

Clock position is relative to the aircraft's HEADING, not to compass north. On a heading of 360, traffic at 10 o'clock is to the NORTHWEST.

US tail numbers begin with N - 'November one two three Alpha Bravo'.

After initial contact controllers ABBREVIATE the call sign to the last three characters, which is how you follow one aircraft through a sequence of calls.

Airliners use flight numbers rather than tail numbers.

CTAF, UNICOM, MULTICOM and Flight Service 0:10:19

At non-towered airports pilots self-announce on a shared advisory frequency.

CTAF - Common Traffic Advisory Frequency, where position reports are made. Use is RECOMMENDED, not required.

UNICOM - a non-government station providing airport services and information on request. Often the same frequency as the CTAF.

MULTICOM 122.9 - used where an airport has no published CTAF or UNICOM.

FLIGHT SERVICE STATIONS - largely superseded now that weather and flight plans are available online.

CTAF frequencies are SHARED between nearby airports, which is why every call names the airport at both the start and the end.

They don't have to make a radio call. So if you don't hear someone but you see someone - well, they're not making a radio call.0:10:19

Decoding a self-announced position report 0:15:23

A standard call is "AIRPORT traffic, TYPE and CALLSIGN, POSITION and INTENTION, AIRPORT traffic."

Typical sequence - 10 miles inbound, entering midfield left downwind, downwind, base, final, then clear of the runway.

'Sedona traffic, Cessna 123 Bravo Foxtrot, entering the pattern midfield left downwind for runway niner, Sedona traffic' locates the aircraft north of the field at about 1,000 ft AGL.

Departures announce "departing runway niner".

Combined with the traffic pattern knowledge from the Airport Operations section, a single call gives you position, leg and approximate altitude.

Towered airport procedures 0:19:15

At towered fields ATC issues instructions and pilots READ BACK the instruction to confirm understanding.

Readback exists so the controller knows the instruction was received correctly.

The vocabulary is the same - downwind, base, final - but the controller sequences traffic rather than pilots self-announcing.

"Number two following the Piper on final" is a sequencing instruction.

Which frequency to monitor, and where to find it 0:20:43

The frequency depends on whether the field is towered, and on whether the tower is currently open.

On the sectional, CT followed by a frequency is the control tower. A star means PART-TIME operation.

A boxed C marks the CTAF; UNICOM appears separately (often 122.95 at towered fields).

When a tower CLOSES, its tower frequency becomes the CTAF. At Prescott that means monitoring 125.3 at night.

The Chart Supplement lists the same frequencies plus the tower's operating hours in Zulu.