"Any Traffic, Please Advise" by an Airline

If you want to learn proper radio phraseology...don't learn it listening to airline crews!! All kidding aside however, in worldwide operations...sometimes the only way to properly communicate with a controlling agency is through strict adherence to standard phraseology!

On a quiet CTAF frequency....I, for one, am definitely guilty of "any traffic please advise". Of course, I view uncontrolled airports as a war zone...anything goes and expect a lot of surprises.
 
Most of the responses in this thread have been about non-towered fields. Does anyone here say it to ATC, or on an ATC frequency, like the situation in the original post?
 
Most of the airports I operate into and out of are uncontrolled and no, I do not trust other pilots one bit to make proper position reports. I almost had a midair last week when a helicopter announced it was 5 north of the field when it was really 5 south.

It happens all the time when I ask "Any traffic in the area, please advise" I get a response from an airplane close to me that I was completely unaware of; many times they are setting up for 45 to the downwind just like I am.

Right now there is snow on the ground so all the white airplanes are pretty much invisible, particularly the Diamonds. So I will continue to use my radio as a traffic avoidance tool to whatever extent I feel necessary as PIC; particularly when my ability to see them is compromised.

Rather than getting worked up about a simple phrase which is requesting traffic in the area to speak up, maybe worry more about changing the regs to actually require airplanes to have a radio. Its not the 40s anymore.
 
Boris Badenov said:
I don't see a problem with it in either case, provided it isn't tying up a busy frequency.
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:yeahthat: Good grief, is this really that big of an issue? Who the hell cares, unless the frequency is busy and you're tying things up.

I don't say it, because I assume that pilots flying around uncontrolled fields are intelligent enough to know whether they need to announce themselves to me or not
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Bad assumption. :) This is the reason I'll usually say it on a quiet frequency at an uncontrolled field. I figure there's some moron weekend warrior out there that probably shouldn't even have a driver's license, let alone a pilot's certificate, and he needs a reminder to make himself known to everyone else.
 
SIUav8er said:
Seriously though, who really cares?
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Probably no one all that much, although it was a big enough issue that the FAA added that language specifically disapproving it to the AIM 2-3 years ago.

Here's the problem. At any one airport, the frequency is used self-reporting both on the ground and in the air and for various Unicom requests and information. Added to that, there are a limited number of frequencies that are used for non-towered CTAF, so you can multiply those transmissions by the number of airports that share the same frequency within range. Since the communications are line of sight, in some parts of the US, that can mean airports within more than a 100 nm radius from where you are. Listen in to 122.8 on a nice Saturday while en route and you can hear quite a bit of transmissions stepping over one another from a good number of airports.

Fine to use it but pretending that it's useful is like pretending that "with you" doesn't just mean "uhh."

While it's obviously not the biggest problem in aviation,"Any traffic please advise" is a phrase that adds nothing to the universe of information, rarely elicits anything useful, and, let's face it, is mostly used by folks who (a) say it only because they learned it and are parroting someone or (b) don't start off by listening first.
 
MidlifeFlyer said:
Probably no one all that much, although it was a big enough issue that the FAA added that language specifically disapproving it to the AIM 2-3 years ago.

Here's the problem. At any one airport, the frequency is used self-reporting both on the ground and in the air and for various Unicom requests and information. Added to that, there are a limited number of frequencies that are used for non-towered CTAF, so you can multiply those transmissions by the number of airports that share the same frequency within range. Since the communications are line of sight, in some parts of the US, that can mean airports within more than a 100 nm radius from where you are. Listen in to 122.8 on a nice Saturday while en route and you can hear quite a bit of transmissions stepping over one another from a good number of airports.

Fine to use it but pretending that it's useful is like pretending that "with you" doesn't just mean "uhh."

While it's obviously not the biggest problem in aviation,"Any traffic please advise" is a phrase that adds nothing to the universe of information, rarely elicits anything useful, and, let's face it, is mostly used by folks who (a) say it only because they learned it and are parroting someone or (b) don't start off by listening first.
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Excellent point here. Around here, the CTAFs are very busy and I have often heard the phrase that someone at another field has announced and it has caused some crazy confusion when there are 6-7 planes in the pattern. This is exasperated when most of the planes are foreign students that don't have the greatest radio skills anyway. Just because there isn't anyone at the field YOU'RE at doesn't mean the one 40 NM away doesn't.
 
Berkut said:
Most of the responses in this thread have been about non-towered fields. Does anyone here say it to ATC, or on an ATC frequency, like the situation in the original post?
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It appears the back and forth about the phrase itself may have caused many to overlook that I was referring to an airport with an operating control tower since that was the situation last night when the crew for Allegiant Air said the phrase.
 
Windchill said:
It appears the back and forth about the phrase itself may have caused many to overlook that I was referring to an airport with an operating control tower since that was the situation last night when the crew for Allegiant Air said the phrase.
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Sorry, skimmed your original post and didn't realize they did this at an airport with an operating CT. No, it's not something anyone would normally do at a controlled airport. Usually you expect ATC to advise you of and keep you clear of conflicting traffic (that's their job when you're on an IFR flight plan). Perhaps this crew had a specific reason (they saw something, or had previously been to this airport and had a bad experience with ATC).
 
Windchill said:
It appears the back and forth about the phrase itself may have caused many to overlook that I was referring to an airport with an operating control tower since that was the situation last night when the crew for Allegiant Air said the phrase.
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Using it at an airport with an =operating= control tower (as opposed to one closed for the night) would seem to make even less sense that using it at a non-towered field.

But...

Tower responsibility does not include traffic separation in the air. The pilot could have been asking whether the tower was aware of any other traffic in the vicinity of the airport to be aware of on departure, since those airplanes would not be self-announcing.

Either that or the pilot though it was after 10 PM.
 
On a broader note than just this issue...

I think it's interesting how many professional pilots take a stance of "ehh, who cares?" when it comes to phraseology, yet ATC is required to use rock solid phraseology every time.

When was the last time you heard ATC using slang? It happens, but very rarely. They are required to stick to proper standards from Day 1 of their careers. They're professionals and that's how they get the job done.

I wish more pilots took it that seriously. It's not as much an issue of safety as it is professionalism, in my mind. Will saying "climbing to two two oh" kill anybody compared to "climbing flight level two two zero"? No, probably not. But it's sloppy. Simple as that. Who wants to be sloppy?

It's like landing left of centerline, or not using correct rudder input, or lots of other things in flying. It might not be a huge safety issue, but professionals don't (or shouldn't) do it that way, either.
 
jrh said:
On a broader note than just this issue...

I think it's interesting how many professional pilots take a stance of "ehh, who cares?" when it comes to phraseology, yet ATC is required to use rock solid phraseology every time.

When was the last time you heard ATC using slang? It happens, but very rarely. They are required to stick to proper standards from Day 1 of their careers. They're professionals and that's how they get the job done.
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Generally you have a good point, but there are exceptions. My favourite peeves are controllers who refer to the departure leg as "upwind" and request pilots to "Confirm you have ATIS xxxx" after the pilots have already reported the correct ATIS letter.
 
B767Driver said:
On a quiet CTAF frequency....I, for one, am definitely guilty of "any traffic please advise". Of course, I view uncontrolled airports as a war zone...anything goes and expect a lot of surprises.
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come fly in Florida. its like a hot debate at the United Nations.

I wanna know where all these guys are, in the best English they can muster.
 
I guess the FAA sees "Any Traffic, Please Advise" as a unsatisfactory replacement for an actual position/intention report. Personally I never use it, however I hear it all the time. I guess anything that promotes radio communication and traffic recognition is acceptable. I certainly have heard much worse things being said over the CTAF.

The thing I can't stand at non-controlled airports is when people refer to any given runway as the "active". How is anyone supposed to know which runway is "the active"? Is it really that hard to state what runway your using? I don't know why it bothers me so much, I guess it's because my old CFI would rip me a new one if I said it.
 
jrh said:
I wish more pilots took it that seriously. It's not as much an issue of safety as it is professionalism, in my mind. Will saying "climbing to two two oh" kill anybody compared to "climbing flight level two two zero"? No, probably not. But it's sloppy. Simple as that. Who wants to be sloppy?
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What's the difference between sloppy and dangerous? In my book, if it's not dangerous, it's not sloppy. Navigating the various byzantine federal bureaucracies is difficult enough without a bunch of self-appointed appratchiks policing the airwaves for wrongspeak. It seems to me that the "professionalism" boosters put the cart before the horse. The purpose of professionalism is (presumably) to increase safety, not to drop your voice an octave and sound like a flinty-eyed television-actor-playing-pilot. The purpose of a radio is to communicate with the person or people on the other end, not to play "who's more professional" for a captive audience. Do you clearly and concisely announce your intentions over the radio? Great, who cares what verbiage you happen to use? Further, what's the point of having a two way radio if no one is allowed to ask stupid questions they would already know the answer to if everyone flying were utterly perfect?

Making your job about sounding tougher/better/more professional/more handsome (well, I can't help that one) than the other guy is way less "professional" than making your job about getting the thing from one place to the other as safely and efficiently as possible, even if you sound less than perfect in doing so.
 
Well, I am one of those guys. :D However, like Boris, I am more concerned about safety than correct language.

I also agree with B767driver, un-control airport is like Forest Gump movie - "My mama said life is a box of chocolate, you never know what you are gonna get". ;), I.e. RC plane, Glider, Home build airplane...etc.
 
Yeah, it is a little amateurish, but if it gets someone flying around the pattern or someone who is about to join the pattern and has been quiet up to that point to say where they are, it served its purpose. I've never used it personally, but if I *think* I heard someone announce, say, just as soon as I changed frequencies, I'm probably going to ask "last aircraft, say position" or something like that.
 
We fly into uncontrolled airports every day and I do say this, in fact my first callout is usually something like this:

StupidWyomingTown Traffic, Airshuttle 69 is a dehavilland dash-8 30 miles southeast, inbound for runway XX, all traffic in the area please advise, stupidwyomingtown.


When you're sitting there listening to the CTAF on comm 2 and hear _nothing_ for a while and then you hear a call for someone on final or something with no other calls previously it makes you wonder.
 
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