ICAO Aviation English Archives

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How to Pass Your ICAO Aviation English Exam with Flying Colours

Posted on April 4, 2019October 21, 2021 by Kai

Effective communication is an important skill for any pilot. Being able to pass your ICAO Aviation English Exam with flying colours is crucial to your career. It is a requirement for radio communications with aircraft and air traffic control, advising your flight intentions, and with colleagues both in and around aircraft.

To ensure consistency, global standard English is the recommendation from ICAO for communication. It forms an essential part of pilot training. It covers a range of topic areas including the use of relevant terminology, vocabulary, and protocols. Pilots will be tested on Aviation English throughout their career.

Background

The language proficiency standards were established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) in 2008, and then applied to flight crew licensing and signatory countries soon after.

Although one may speak English well, it’s also critical that pilots can listen to and comprehend instructions given over the radio. Accents from controllers and pilots can vary from flight to flight. Overcoming the challenge of accents alone can mitigate issues, and consequently play a significant part in making a flight run smoothly.

Listening Skills

Taking the time to observe and listen to Air Traffic Control (ATC) can be a valuable strategy prior to your ICAO Aviation English test. Live ATC allows individuals to listen to various control centres globally. You can listen to ground control, control towers, and en-route centres at a number of locations around the world.

When developing your listening skills, accents from both pilots and controllers will become apparent. This allows you to effectively tune your ears to a range of accents and instructions that you will likely experience daily as a pilot. This will ultimately then make this component of the ICAO English test more achievable.

Vocabulary skills

In addition to honing your Air Traffic Control listening skills, pilots need a broad spoken vocabulary in practical aviation. Reviewing aviation images or scenes online and then describing them out loud can be a valuable technique in determining the depth of your vocabulary.

Google search for aviation scenes and images. Practice describing what you see in random scenes or images verbally using known aviation terminology. Practice this technique regularly to help expand both your aviation vocabulary and flow of communication. You will need to execute this for the Aviation English Proficiency Test.

Preparation is Key

Clear and effective communication will always be critically tested and assessed for any pilot candidate. Utilise the resources available to you immediately and then start applying techniques in preparation. Expanding and improving your own listening and communication skills will prepare you well as a future pilot in a rapidly developing and growing industry.

Darren McPherson
ACS – Aviation Consulting Services 2019

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Common Pilot Phrases: What Are The Pilot Phrases You Should Know?

Posted on May 18, 2018October 22, 2021 by Kai

Have you listened to the way a pilot speaks over the intercom? Can you make out everything they say? ICAO Aviation English is the universal language of aviation. It is used by pilots, air traffic control, aircraft maintenance engineers, technicians, airport crew, and airline and cabin staff. Like any language, there is a lot to learn, but knowing it well will make you a far better pilot. So what are some of the most common pilot phrases that you should know?

Clear Communication

Passing the radio communications exam is compulsory for all trainee pilots. A pilots role is to be fluent and knowledgeable in the various technical words and abbreviations. A pilot who can respond swiftly and accurately with an air traffic controller will significantly reduce the margin for error. In the air, mishearing can lead to a big mistake.

Some of the worst plane disasters occurred with confusion from the pronunciation of certain words. A pilot must not just break through the sound barrier, but the language barrier as well.

The Phonetic Alphabet

The NATO spelling alphabet that you may already know (Alpha = A and Bravo = B) was first developed by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) after World War II. Like all languages, the phonetic alphabet can differ slightly around the globe. Certain Scandinavian countries have altered letters and added symbols. Some words in the NATO alphabet are spelt differently to assist with international pronunciations.

For example, ‘Alfa’ is spelt without the ‘ph’ because some European languages would not pronounce it as an ‘f’. ‘Juliett’ is given an extra ‘t’ for similar reasons because, in French, with Juliet a single ‘t’ is silent.

Common Pilot Phrases

AFFIRM

Don’t believe everything you saw on Top Gun! Pilots don’t say “affirmative” for ‘yes’ – the correct term is “AY-firm”.

APPROACH

A plane coming into land.

MAYDAY

This is one you never want to use. It’s the distress call for emergencies, such as a complete engine failure. It comes from the French ’m’ aidez’, meaning ‘help me.’ When in trouble, a pilot will say it three times.

MEL

Minimum Equipment List. This means a part of the aircraft has malfunctioned but is not of vital importance to the flight.

PAN-PAN

This is the next level of distress down from ‘Mayday’. Apply it situations which are severe but not life-threatening. Pan-pan originates from the French word ‘panne’, meaning a breakdown. Like ‘Mayday’ it is said three times at the start of a call.

ROGER

Contrary to popular belief, not all men who work in aviation are called Roger. This code-word confirms the pilot has received a message but not yet complied.

SQUAWK

To squawk is to set your transponder (the device for receiving a radio signal) so that your location can be identified on radar. Pilots may be asked to ‘squawk Mode – – Charlie’ or ‘squawk ident’, which are individual settings to allow air traffic control to locate a plane.

STANDBY

Meaning “please wait”, this is said when the air traffic controller or pilot is too busy to receive a message.

WILCO

An abbreviation of “will comply”, meaning the message has is received, and the pilot will comply. The phrase ‘Roger Wilco’ has made its way into more popular use, but technically, the ‘Wilco’ part is the more important.

So, read up on common pilot phrases! Then combine them with clear pronunciation and eager listening skills, and you are clear for takeoff.

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A Successful Forced Landing: Case Study (Part 2)

Posted on April 30, 2018October 22, 2021 by Kai

The case study of the successful forced landing has proved that other than having the tremendous flying experience, pilots need to be determined and make quick decisions.

Forced landings are simulations that we do when we are down to 500 feet and when we punch the power and overshoot; however, in reality, if your engine fails, you are literally flying the final 500 feet to the ground without training. The instructor did have the fortune to go through specialised forced landing training and he shared some excellent tips to students.

How do you sustain the seat crash tolerance?

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, aircraft that are manufactured before 1987 only require a seat crash tolerance of 9Gs in all directions while for others all seats have to exceed that tolerance.

A Cessna 172R has crashworthiness of 26Gs. As the impact in the incident was actually around 5–6Gs, it can be easy to exceed limitations if you botch something.

Tips for a successful forced landing in this aircraft:

To keep the cabin intact during the impact, you do not only need to fly at the minimum controller airspeed, but also use dispensable parts of the airplane to take the impact for you, such as the wings, landing gears and even the engine.

The crash energy goes up with the square of airspeed and using other parts of the airplane structure can help reduce that crash energy safely.

If you were to use trees as the instructor did in this case study, you should aim to impact the trees as horizontally as possible as that will allow the trees to reduce your forward kinetic energy.

How do you deal with engine failures?

A crucial takeaway from this case study is that not all engine failures are the ‘propeller stops spinning’ scenario that you might see in a textbook.

Most engine failures are in fact partial power loss. Some partial power losses can sustain level flight but in the case of the pilot in the case study, he didn’t have the power to sustain level flight, so essentially he was in a slightly powered glide.

How do you measure the best glide speed?

Tips:

If your flight is too high, then fly faster, which will allow you to be less efficient and fall faster. You just have to have the technique to slow it down.

If you want to lose altitude and you are not on final approach on a forced landing yet, it is advisable to pitch the nose over to the white arc speed in order to lose height even quicker.

In the end, you have two options, either side-slipping or S-turns or even a combination of both.

Do not be timid on S-turns! The instructor in this case study flies extremely wide S-turns, which is the only way for them to be effective.

Hopefully, this entry can inspire you to get up and practice some forced landings and consider that the last 500 feet will be the real make or break moment! Have fun and fly safe!

To learn more about forced flying techniques, head to Forced Landings: An Alternative Technique. Thanks to LTF student pilot Howard Lau for contributing this case study on completing a successful forced landing.