BrewMaster
Well-Known Member
My trainer hammers on me hard about useless verbage. i'm sure its the same at other facilities.
'About' isn't useless verbage when used correctly. It really has no place while IFR, but flying VFR in a less than modern airplane and used as a rough estimate of distance in a quality transmission(see my example above), it's ok. Do you know precisely how far you are just by looking outside? It tells the controller or other planes that it is an estimate, I can almost guarantee you are a mile or two off when making visual estimates. Unless, of course, you're over a checkpoint and KNOW the distance. When I know pretty accurately how far I am from something I just say the distance, when I'm not familiar with an area and am making a distance estimate, I will say 'about.'
It does not take away from a transmission, and DOES NOT ADD LENGTH. That's rediculous. It means nothing other than I am roughly a certain distance.