On Jul 17, 12:23 pm, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote:
Not IMHO a bad idea really. When I was training and flew to controlled
airspace for XC flights it was suggested that I mention I was a student and
they did seem to slow things down a little.

I can see how a uniform way of doing this might be helpful both in
controlled and uncontrolled airspace. Example, "Bumfigle Tower, Cessna
Student 1234A, ...."


I had a side thought that is somewhat similar; I was watching/
listening to a recording of a mayday flight in (I believe) Britain,
and the communications initiated from the pilot of the emergency craft
prefixed his callsign with Mayday (e.g. Mayday Company 1234 is turning
to heading 120 requesting runway 5R). I don't remember the exact
details, but it was a bird strike on takeoff (i think the vid is on
youtube).

Anyway, I bring it up because of a previous discussion regarding the
ATC handling of the American flight that ended up "accepting" a runway
assignment that was somewhat inappropriate for their situation. From
what I remember, some of the ATC transcripts involved an initial
landline comm between approach and tower, with approach requesting the
tailwind runway, but not telling tower that the pilot had declared an
emergency. If the AA pilot was prefixing his callsign with the
"mayday" tag, the first communcation between him and twr would have
alerted the tower controller that the runway request was not
"ordinary". (of course, IIRC, the initial controller told the pilot
to squawk 7700 as well which would be yet another reminder). It seems
(to me at least) that it could also help with the following:
New pilots on frequency would be immediately aware of the emergency
situation being handled on the frequency,
Controllers would be reminded of the priority of the flight's
handling,
On initial callup on a handoff by the emergency craft, the new
controller would be immediately reminded of the mayday sit.