For many new flight simulator pilots, the prospect of using voice communications is the most intimidating consideration when contemplating joining our events. It doesn't have to be this way! Remember what was said in the Membership Requirements -- as long as you can speak and understand basic commands in English, don't worry if you don't have any experience with air traffic control communications. We will forgive errors made through the learning process. This document is a fairly comprehensive guideline for the bare-minimum basic phrases you'll need to get by in a TransGear event, but we don't expect that you memorize it and/or get it perfect the first time. Glance over it, make your best effort, and then come back and look at it again after the event when it's more likely to make more sense to you! (Then come back and join us again the following month and see how much you can improve!)

Keep in mind that everything we do procedurally in TransGear Airways gatherings, while "based on"/"inspired by" realistic procedures, are extremely watered down from the real world. The basics here will barely get you by in more detail-intense simulator environments like VATSIM but by no means is it intended to be a thorough training manual for real-world operations. Due to the limited scope of our operations, there is a lot of detail being glossed over for our purposes. It's a pretty good beginner's primer but don't take it as gospel if you should graduate to bigger and better aviation endeavors.

Part One -- Basic Concepts

The second critical notion is that communication is two-way. The blame for a misunderstanding can almost always be laid upon the feet of two people -- the one delivering the message and the one receiving it. Again with the goal of reducing misunderstandings, standard aviation procedure calls for pilots to "read back" (i.e. repeat) certain instructions they are given, so that the controller can verify that the pilot heard them correctly.

Part Two -- Basic Vocabulary

A quick note about the number "9" -- there are two digits that can be mistaken for one another when sound quality is poor, and those are "five" and "nine". This caused the governing body, years ago, to institute the practice of using the pronunciation "niner" in place of "nine" to ensure that it could not be confused with "five." Many sources still designate "niner" as the proper pronunciation for the digit 9, but in my listening experience this practice has become relaxed, and I will hear pilots that say "nine" just as often as I hear ones keeping with the traditional "niner," and some pilots and controllers switch casually back and forth hapahazardly. On the other hand, amateurs who are not aware of the reasoning for this adjustment often erroneously believe that adding the suffix "-er" to the end of numbers is just something pilots do to sound "cool." If you ever hear someone say "fiver" over the air in any two-way radio setting, please educate them -- as such a practice can be quite painful to the trained ear!

Headings are always read out as three digits -- values less than 100 will be pronounced with a leading "zero" (heading 030 is said "zero-three-zero"); and due north is usually pronounced as "three-six-zero" even though your compass/HSI will generally read "000". Altitudes can end in the word "hundred" or "thousand", and are usually rounded to the closest of either; but altitudes at or above 18,000 (see note below) are usually referred to as a "flight level", in which the last two zeroes are taken off (such that 33,000 feet is referred to as "flight level three-three-zero"). Airspeeds are always assigned in knots, and refer to "indicated" airspeeds. Radio frequencies are always given to at least one decimal place, even if that place is a zero (as in 119MHz being referred to as "one-one-niner-point-zero"); the word used to incidate the decimal is supposed to be "decimal" but in the United States the word "point" seems to be in common use. Altimeter settings are always given in four digits (two before the decimal and two after), and the word "decimal" or "point" is sometimes ommitted (such that a setting of 29.80 might be said as "two-niner-eight-zero").

(NOTE: in Europe, I believe the cutoff for altitudes in feet versus "flight levels" is different, or perhaps the two terms may be interchangeable; I'm not exactly sure. However, in U.S. airspace, per FAA guideline, the transition point is 18,000. At or above this point, altimeters should be set to 29.92 regardless of the current barometric pressure; below that altitude, the "local" setting as advised by ATIS or ATC should be used.)

Letters. Have you ever noticed how many letters in the standard English alphabet rhyme with one another? Nine of them end in the long e ("ee") sound, five have a short "e" ("eh"), and four have the long "a" ("ay"). Only four don't rhyme with any others. To be sure letters said over the radio would not be misheard, the governing body set forth a standard list of words to be substituted for letters so that they could be completely distinct from one another. This can't be accomplished by using any name or word -- "Don" could sound like "John," for example -- only a standard set would do the job. That set is properly referred to as "The International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet", and appears in the table below:

The spelling alphabet is most often used in non-commercial aircraft callsigns (which are generally airframe registration numbers -- "N531MD" would be "November-five-three-one-Mike-Delta," for example), or in taxi instructions, as airport taxiways are almost always designated with a single letter ("Echo") or a letter follwed by a digit ("Lima-seven"), or occasionally a doubled-letter (such as "Alpha-Alpha").

Part Three -- Radio Transmissions

Check-Ins. When you first make contact with a controller, whether you are coming out of uncontrolled airspace or being handed off from another controller, you should make a full check-in with the new facility. The form of that check-in is "controller's callsign, pilot's callsign, pilot's position, pilot's intentions." (Yes, real-world pilots, we are intentionally generalizing and/or glossing over a piece or two here.) To fully understand that, let's break it down into its four parts:

• Controller's Callsign. The ATC facility's callsign is often a shortened version of their location and what role they fulfill. For example, the Tower controller at John F. Kennedy International Airport is simply called "Kennedy Tower." Approach facilities are often regional and handle more than one airport; for example, the facility that handles Los Angeles International is called "SoCal Approach" (Southern California); the one handling Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia is "Potomac Approach" (named for the Potomac River, which separates Maryland and Virginia and runs past D.C.). The correct callsign is usually published on the chart which lists their frequency, but if you don't have the charts handy or are flying without them, just take a guess -- when they respond back, they'll do the same thing in reverse, so the correct callsign will be the second thing they say, right after yours.
• Pilot's Callsign. For our purposes, your callsign is the word "TransGear" followed by your flight number.
• Pilot's Position. No, not "seated" (heh)... this is usually given as a number of miles and a direction from a common reference point (such as a VOR station or charted intersection), followed by your current altitude, and if different, the altitude you're climbing or descending to. Often, and for our purposes, position references can be implied, given relative to the destination airfield ("25 miles southeast, thru six thousand for four thousand" -- if you don't say what you're 25 miles southeast of, "{of your airfield}" is assumed).
• Pilot's Intentions. This last piece is critical information, especially in our environment where the controllers do not necessarily know your flightplan and thus don't know what SID or STAR you may be following (if any), or whether you are navigating by direct path. "Departing Southbound" would mean you're not following a published departure protocol and just need to be vectored out to the South; while "departing via DAWNN3" would mean you're following the path depicted on the SID chart of that name. Similarly, "inbound direct for arrival" versus "inbound via ERLIN5" would indicate non-procedural versus procedural arrivals, respectively. (Checking in with Tower on an approach, however, it's pretty much assumed for our purposes that your intentions are to land.)

Here are some example check-ins which you might make during TransGear events:

• with the Approach Controller: "Indy Approach, TransGear 1240 crossing Muncie VORTAC at one-six-thousand going to one-one-thousand, inbound via CLANG-five."
• or, with Approach, while not on a STAR: "Indy Approach, TransGear 1240 fifty miles Northeast thru one-six-thousand for one-one-thousand, inbound direct."
• with the Tower Controller: "Atlanta Tower, TransGear 1190 nine miles out on the ILS two-six-right."
• with the Departure controller: "Atlanta Departure, TransGear 1200 climbing thru two thousand, departing via BUZZY6."
• or, Departure, not following a SID: "Atlanta Departure, TransGear 1200 climbing thru two thousand, for eastbound departure."

Acknowledgments. In the movies, pilots always answer "Roger" when they're given an instruction. In the real world, pilots are required to answer with a "readback" of certain key pieces of all instructions given to them by a controller, so that the controller can verify that they were heard correctly; if a controller's transmission contains none of the below items, only then may a pilot answer with simply "Roger"; but regardless, the last piece of ALL acknowledgments is the pilot's callsign! For our purposes, a "readback" must be given for any of the following:

• an assigned altitude,
• an assigned heading,
• an assigned speed,
• a new radio frequency to switch to,
• ANY type of runway clearance (two distinct parts: (1) what kind of clearance, followed by (2) which runway was cleared).

... however, when in doubt, repeat back any instruction you were given, before ending the response with your callsign. Reading back purely informational transmissions such as wind advisories is not necessary.

Reports. Usually in uncontrolled airspace (and, actually, in controlled but non-radar-covered environments as well), pilots are used to giving "position reports" at each key part of the pattern. In radar-controlled airspace (which for our purposes, all controlled airspace is assumed to be), you really don't have to do that except when the controller has given you a "report {x}" directive. The most tempting one for many to say is "clear of runway {xx}."; but the Tower controller can usually see that, so there's no need to announce unless he's asked you to.

If you are asked to report crossing a certain waypoint or position, the form for doing so is very simple, concise, and precise: your callsign, followed by the position you were asked to report, followed (just for good measure) by your altitude. If you're asked to report crossing LaGrange VORTAC (and of course you've acknowledged the request by reading it back: "Okay, we'll report crossing LaGrange, TransGear {flt#}"), then upon doing so, your report should be "TransGear {flt#}, crossing LaGrange at {altitude}." If instructed to "make a left downwind for runway 23L and report midfield," and you've already read that back, then upon reaching that point you should say "TransGear {flt#} is midfield on our left downwind at {altitude}."

Requests. Most of the time, the only request a pilot will need to make of a controller during a TransGear event is for their clearance to push back from the gate when they are ready to depart from one of the controlled hub airports ("TransGear {flt#}, request startup and pushback."). In very rare cases, a TransGear pilot might need to make some other request of the controller. In these unusual instances the requests are to be kept as short and direct as precisely what follows and no more. The only instances I can think of in which this would be the case are:

• ... if you are instructed to head direct to a waypoint, but need a vector (compass heading) instead: "TransGear {flt#}, unable to locate that waypoint, request vector."
• ... if you are advised to expect an ILS approach, or instructed to intercept a localizer, but need a visual approach instead: "TransGear {flt#}, request vectors for visual approach."
• ... if you've missed your approach and need to go around: "TransGear {flt#}, missed approach, going around."
• ... if you simply need the controller to repeat their last instruction: "Say again for TransGear {flt#}."

Part Four -- Putting it All Together

(NOTE: it is strongly recommended to use the "range-extended" version of FGCom, available on the Charts and Resources page. However, it may not be available for Mac users as of this writing. If for some reason you must use the standard version, which only supports contact with facilities within 50km or approximately 27nm, it is advisable to make inital contact with Approach via Multiplayer Typed Chat, advise them you will check in by voice before 25nm out, and proceed that way. The controllers should have no problems working with you in that manner, but please use extreme caution while typing and flying -- always make sure you have a dialog box before trying to enter your message!)

What follows below is sort of a "script" you can use as a guideline for your flight. To cover all of the bases, it assumes you are starting at a controlled airport and also arriving at one; so ignore any pieces which don't apply if you are starting or ending at a spoke airport. The instructions may not also come in the precise order listed, depending on the exact situation. Also, keep in mind that the wording used by the controllers may not be exact but should be as close as possible to the phrases as they appear below.