Bad Engrish?

Cubdriver,

he controller should speak a
standard English, like that used by network announcers and news
readers.


And, just like pilots, they should use standard phraseology! (Hint:
Neither "with you" nor "out of thirtyfivehundred" is)

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
news
I think he did very well.

I don't give a **** what you think. I also know that many others also don't
give a **** what you think.

In a previous article, Cubdriver usenet AT danford DOT net said:
I often have trouble understanding controllers. I often suspect that
they try to mumble, on the theory that if the pilot doesn't know
what's going on, then he's not much of a pilot.

I think they're mumbling because they spend their entire duty shift
talking.


--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
It could have been raining flaming bulldozers, and those idiots would have
been standing out there smoking, going 'hey, look at that John Deere burn!'
-- Texan AMD security guard

El Maximo writes:

I don't give a **** what you think. I also know that many others also don't
give a **** what you think.

Then why do you feel compelled to tell me so? And why do you need to
speculate that others feel as you do? Are you uncomfortable with your own
opinions if they don't match those of the club?

Cubdriver usenet AT danford DOT net writes:

Spoken like a true monophone American!

No, spoken like someone who is bilingual and teaches ESL for a living.

Accents are VERY important. You might try landing at Liverpool with a
controller speaking clearly in a Liverpudlian accent. You wouldn't
have a clue what he was saying.

A minority of British accents are very strong, but most are not, and most
American accents are mild compared to British accents.

It's not enough to speak clearly. The controller should speak a
standard English, like that used by network announcers and news
readers.

That would certainly be ideal, but in this case he wasn't that far from the
standard.

I wrote a recommendation for a graduate student
applying to Harvard for a PhD program. I had no doubt whatever that
she could handle the work with ease, but I had to admit that I was
sometimes mystified by her speech. ("Wolf" for example. She pronounced
it with a long O, and it became another word entirely.)

I feel sorry for any students she ends up teaching.

Thomas Borchert writes:

And, just like pilots, they should use standard phraseology! (Hint:
Neither "with you" nor "out of thirtyfivehundred" is)

Standard phraseology would not have helped here. The Chinese pilot was simply
incompetent in English.

Mxsmanic,

teaches ESL for a living.


Bruhaha!

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Mxsmanic wrote:
Standard phraseology would not have helped here.
The Chinese pilot was simply incompetent in English.

How much more standard can it get than, "Were you cleared to the ramp?"
The question couldn't GET any more basic than that, and even after
asking four times, the guy *did not understand* that it was a
*question*, NOT a clearance. IMO, that clearly falls under the heading
of not "understanding" English. Not to mention his inability to LISTEN
and comprehend. How many times did the controller have to repeat that he
was saying "Mike/Alpha", NOT November? The guy was so intent on reading
back his instruction that he failed to even HEAR what it was accurately.

Shirl

Air China had an incident (I think it was in the late 80's) involving
a 747 bound for LA. The plane lost its outboard engine in flight, and
while the pilots were distracted with the engine shutdown checklist,
the plane slowed down as the autopilot struggled to deal with the
adverse yaw and began to pitch up and apply aileron to attempt to stay
straight and level. By the time the Captain noticed the problem, the
plane had slowed way down. The captain disengaged the autopilot and
applied rudder to straighten out of the nose, which caused a cross-
control situation and an immediate stall. The 747 abruptly snap-
rolled into a split-S, pulling over 10Gs in the process. Damage
included a twisted engine pylon, a crumpled aileron, loss of several
feet of the horizontal stabilizer, and numerous popped rivits. The
damage to the tail was symmetrical.

The pilots regained their orientation as they passed through a cloud
deck at 10,000 feet and recovered to climb back to altitude, unaware
of the extent of the damage to the plane. The controllers contacted
them to see if they were OK (due to the large and sudden altitude
excursion), and they said that they were. Asked if they wanted to
divert to San Francisco, they opted to continue to LA until they were
informed that at least one of the PAX had been injured.

Upon arrival at San Francisco, the FAA impounded the plane to conduct
an investigation, and the Boeing AOG team couldn't touch it until
after almost a month had passed while the investigation was
conducted.

The 747 does not have a G meter. They determined the G force of the
snap-roll by the fact that the flight data recorded had stopped laying
down data during the roll. Concluding that the head had pulled away
from the tape in the data recorder, they put the unit in a centrifuge
and spun it until the head pulled away from the tape at about 10Gs.

The Air China captain didn't understand what had happened until the
tapes were replayed in a simulator, at which point he was reportedly
quite shocked.

I originally heard the story from Jack Hessburg, chief mechanic on the
777 program in an air-carrier operations class that he gave at
Boeing. I also saw a segment on this incident on a TV documentary a
year or two ago...

Shirl,

How much more standard can it get than, "Were you cleared to the ramp?"


It's an easy sentence, agreed. However, it is NOT a sentence in the AIM
nor the Pilot/Controller Glossary or the ICAO standard phraseology. It is
also not the proper way to phrase a question in standard phraseology. It
is plain English, but that doesn't help a foreigner trained to expect
standard aviation phraseology. And THAT is exactly what standard
phraseology is for.

So, to sum up: It's a non-standard phrase and a non-standard way to ask
something. How much LESS standard can it get?

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)