Andy Hawkins wrote in
:

Hi,

In article ,
Bertie the wrote:
But, like sticking to imperial measurements, I think you stand alone.

What, like altitude in feet, altimiter settings in inches of mercury,
distance in miles, volume in gallons? Mr. Kettle, allow me to
introduce you to Mr. Pot


I'm more of a frying pan than a kettle.

And you'll notice i have not excluded americans in this thread.

Britain is still clinging to a number of archaic aviation terms (you
still gotta know which direction to go whatever you choose to call
it!) One of my favorites is the "Pan" call. Nobody uses that anymore
except you guys. I had an entertaining few minutes in Germany
listening to some Nigel making one of these a few years back. It went
something like this. The Nigel Skipper is played Terry Thomas and the
German controller by Hardy Kruger in this re-creation.

Boffo Air 2234 "Rhine, Boffo 2234, PAN PAN PAN"
ATC "Station calling?"
BA 2234 "Rhine this is Boffo 2234, PAN PAN PAN"
ATC. "Boffo 2234, pass your message"
BA 2234 "Rhine, this is Boffo 2234, PAN PAN PAN"
ATC, "Boffo 2234, say again?"
BA2234 "Rhine, this is a PAN call from Boffo 2234"
(at this point you can almost hear the Boffo skiper thinking "bloody
foreigners"
ATC, "Boffo 2234, are you declaring an emergency?"
BA2234 "Negative Rhine, Boffo 2234 is making a PAN call"
ATC, -silence-
BA 2234, Rhine, we have a pasenger having a heart attack, we're
mkaing a PAN call"
ATC, "Boffo 2234, do you wish to declare an emergency?"
BA 2234 "Nega- Oh, yes, yes, we're declaring an emergency, we'd like
to divert to Frankfurt immediatly. "
ATC, roger 2234, fly heading 330 and descend now to FL 150"

No ****, this really happened. I think it actually took longer than
this. The Brit captain just wouldn't let go....

The PAN actually sounds to me like a good idea, but as I always say
I'm still a lowly stude! Being able to differentiate between a Mayday
(basically aircraft in imminent danger) and PAN (something that needs
priority but nothing that will endanger the aircraft in short order)
seems like a good idea to me.

Anyway, the formt of his PAN PAN call was all wrong according to CAP
413


I can't remember precisely what he said, but the jist of the
conversation is there and it's pretty much the way it happened. I don;'t
even know the format off th etop of my head, but he probabyl did it
right.

That's my current bug-bear actually. The only exam I've got left to do
(apart from the Skills test) is the R/T practical. On this, unless
you're word perfect on the Mayday call you've failed, but what are the
odds of a controller ignoring your mayday because you forgot (for
example) your pilot qualifications in the mayday call?

Pretty slim. I've never even used the Mayday and I've had several
emerencies and just declared an emergency and got everything I needed. I
think I'd ony use a Mayday to cut through heavy radio traffic if it was
neccesary.


Bertie