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Originally Posted by seagull  Well, you think that because your experience is based entirely on flying within the U.S. Some of us have spent a lot of our time flying outside the U.S., and teaching other pilots how to operate in a Worldwide environment. Using the "global" technique will not get you in trouble in the U.S., but using a "U.S." technique can VERY easily get you in trouble if you fly outside the U.S.
In other parts of the world, altitudes below transition (which can be as low as 3000') are often stated as each individual number, so 2700 would be "two seven zero zero". You may see how the words "for" and "to" could cause problems there!
Also, in the rest of the World, the word "level" is a short form of the word "FLIGHT level", so does NOT mean you're MAINTAINING an altitude. I have often heard U.S. pilots make idiots of themselves overseas.
I never use the word "level" to mean "maintaining", or "at" for that reason. U.S. controllers are not confused by my slightly altered technique (in fact, I doubt most even notice), but those habits can literally save your life outside the U.S.
On the topic, you also hear pilots saying something like "FL twenty four point seven" when passing through an altitude. Not sure where that comes from, as the word "point" should just be dropped, as it's totally incorrect anyway. |
So, when you're flying in the US do you read altitudes as "two seven zero zero?" Do you reply to "position and hold" as "line up and wait" simply because that's how you do it in other countries? Hopefully you don't. So how do you justify using
some "global technique" like omiting "to" and "level" but you don't use other "global" phraseology like "line up and wait."
Point is, the AIM is pretty precise on how we're supposed to say things. We all know there's a lot of slang in aviation and we've all used it at some point, but that doesn't mean I'm going to teach my students the non-standard phraseology so they can sound like the airline pilot who just called up with "ahh, delta 123 outta 1.7 up to 12."