Re: \"Wilco\"
[ QUOTE ]
"Approach Archer 5171 X-Ray with you out of 2,500 for 5,000 180 assigned"
[/ QUOTE ]How about this instead:
--Detroit Departure, Archer 5171X, LEAVING two thousand fife hundred CLIMBING TO fife thousand--
During initial contact, the fact you are using a full callsign is indicative that this is your first callup and you are establishing contact with the designated facility. Therefore, if you are using "with you" to let the controller know this is the first time you are calling her...well, they know.
Also, initially, the controller does not need to know your assigned heading.
Doug Brown, the Atlanta Center controller who writes for Avweb, once stated the following[ QUOTE ]
"Asheville Approach, Cessna 12345 level 6,000 direct PDK."
It always tickles me when pilots do that. Tell me they're direct somewhere or on a heading. I know where the habit of telling controllers your heading came from but I can't explain the "direct XXX." Let's check the book.
AIM 5-3-1.b
2. The following phraseology should be utilized by pilots for establishing contact with the designated facility:
(a) When operating in a radar environment: On initial contact, the pilot should inform the controller of the aircraft's assigned altitude preceded by the words "level," or "climbing to," or "descending to," as appropriate; and the aircraft's present vacating altitude, if applicable.
I don't see anything there about "direct PDK." Anything about a heading? How about you?
[/ QUOTE ]Whether you like Brown or not, I think he has a point. The article can be read here:
http://avweb.com/news/columns/186645-1.html
He goes on in another article about the likely origin of the "include heading on initial contact" routine:[ QUOTE ]
From my conversations with pilots here on AVweb, I've run into several professional pilots that believe telling a controller their assigned heading is required and/or a good practice when they check in. Again, refer to the book. Do you see it anywhere?
Of course, it could be our own fault. Controllers, that is. Does this sound familiar? "Contact Atlanta Center 132.97 and tell 'em your heading."
There are two reasons for that. Both of them are wrong. First, it's been common practice for years on the midnight shifts to put the box haulers on a vector for several hundred miles direct to their destinations. Oh yeah, we can do that when we're working a tenth of the airplanes that we work during the day. Anytime a controller puts an aircraft on a vector, the controller is required to coordinate that heading with the next controller (assuming the aircraft is to stay on that heading until entering the next sector). To avoid coordinating (lots of phone calls), controllers began telling the pilot to tell the next controller their heading when they check in on the next frequency.
What's that old saying? What were once vices are now habits? After being "trained" to do this for years, there are pilots who do it that way on every frequency change. Now that the box haulers are flying during the daytime, even more pilots are copying it.
[/ QUOTE ] Available here:
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182633-1.html
