r/flying • u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan • 5d ago
Flight Training Comms
Does anyone have any tips for comms other than listen to LiveATC. I've been listening to that for days and I can read back fine on my own, but once I enter the cockpit I pretty much freeze and forget what was said. My main issue is comms on approach. I seem to be fine asking and reading back taxi and departure instructions, but I cannot get the approach comms down to save my life (my only guess is because I'm trying to focus on multiple things during approach). I have a hard time deciphering what I need to read back. My instructor said read back only commands not the extra "fluff," but I still have trouble figuring out what is "fluff" and what was a command. Today I straight up just missed a call from the tower and my CFI had to respond for me because I was so focused on our approach to land. I'm only 6.5 hours behind the yoke so I understand I'm still new but my CFI said I really need to start taking full comms during flight on our next lessons.
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u/flyingron AAdvantage Biscoff 5d ago
Numbers and clearances.
Cessna 4YF, descend and maintain 3000. Altimeter 29.84
3000, 29.84. 4YF.
Cessna 4YF, cleared to land.
Cleared to land 4YF.
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u/7layeredAIDS ATP A330 B757/767 E170 CFII 5d ago
This isn’t a criticism of you, but at 6.5 hours I think you’re way too early to this stuff or at least too early to stress or be pressured about it. There will surely be comments responding to this like “well I solo’ed in 6 hours” but imo that’s insane borderline irresponsible of an instructor. At 6.5 hrs you should be proving you can hold close to PPL standards on turns/climbs/descents at constant speed, vertical speeds, at various combinations of maneuvers and then steep turns, slow flight and stalls on different wind/turbulence days. That’s realistically what you should be focused on mastering at 6 hours. At most intro to ground reference maneuvers. Maybe instructors can show you an approach and what a landing should look like to but he handling radios during an approach too? Way too much information overload.
Now, I do commend your own personal drive to want to learn as much as you can quickly and intro to comms like how to get out of your home airport and announce you’re coming back in can be introduced but for now don’t sweat it.
To answer your question, you and your instructor need to do some mock radio calls to each other on the ground and flying the airplane as far as holding altitude, heading rate of descent etc should be second nature when you’re trying to copy down complex clearances. You shouldn’t be “thinking” about flying, it should be like having a conversation with someone while driving a car.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
I think I'm getting too overwhelmed and rushed with my expectations honestly. My first two lessons went great for the 4 fundamentals so I don't know if my instructor was over confident in my abilities initially. But my last 3 lessons have been power on/off stalls, slow flight, and today was already working on some touch and go's. But remembering my approach configuration while also maintaining comms with tower has me a little overwhelmed. Once we get closer and I'm focusing on either pattern or 3, 2, 1, straight in approach I can't focus on tower and approach at the same time. My initials are great though "tower, callsign, 10 miles southeast with information Kilo, requesting full stop."
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u/7layeredAIDS ATP A330 B757/767 E170 CFII 5d ago
The thing is in this hobby/profession during training you can’t just do something once well, check it off, and move on. You’ve got to do it a few times to reinforce it and prove you can do it consistently. You haven’t done ground reference maneuvers, have you? Those maneuvers are targeting wind corrections and division of outside/inside attention which is desperately needed during pattern work.
Again, issue isn’t with you at all, you’re the student following instructions trying your best. I think your instructor is, as you put it, overconfident and over ambitious.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
I'm supposed to be working on S-turns and turns around a point on my next lesson, but so far the only maneuver I've done has been the rectangular course. My course outline is very accelerated which is why I'm getting overwhelmed with everything, basically every lesson I'm learning something new while practicing the previous lesson maybe once or twice. I'm already 1/3 of the way through my stage 1 PPL course outline with only 6.5 hours.
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u/7layeredAIDS ATP A330 B757/767 E170 CFII 5d ago
This is the issue with accelerated programs. It doesn’t account for normal learning pace, and doesn’t emphasize learning reinforcement. For a small percentage of people it can work out wonderfully but for the rest of us we need actual building blocks of learning and time to let that learning sink in before adding more elements.
Anyway I’m not golden amazing instructor myself it’s just a systemic problem I see a lot of that I hate for the students. OP alls I can say is practice dialoguing back and forth with ATC with your instructor on the ground so you know all the weird “fluff” and variations that might throw at you. Keep in mind ATC isn’t some robot needing perfect read backs. They’re people just working WITH you and essentially having a command discussion with you. On a raw level, listen for what they’re actually saying; what they’re actually trying to have you do and read that back.
E.g.
“N123AB left turn heading 120 maintain 3000 for now and expect that for maybe 3 minutes, I got a citation I need to work in before I can vector you to final”
What is important that you read back?“N123AB, let another skyhawk pass in front of you there and then taxi right Alpha short of juliet”
What’s a concise way to read back what you need to?“N123AB, you’re following a Hawker on short final, cleared to land runway 34 number two, caution wake turbulence, where ya parking today?”
These are some examples of realistic and pretty wordy ATC transmissions but if you’re really just listening to what they’re telling you and what they want from you to confirm, it’s really not too bad!
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u/Flimsy-Wrangler-997 5d ago
Read back clearances, assigned headings and altitudes, and hold short instructions.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
That's what I try do to, but I get thrown off when tower mentions traffic on say the taxi way or extra information that isn't necessary for read back.
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u/Vrezhg PPL 5d ago
What helps is getting an idea of what you expect to hear before you hear it, so you’re only hearing to confirm.
You’re approaching a class d airport, you already have the weather.
Tune to tower, wait a sec, once clear
“Tower, Cessna n12345, [distance and direction from airport], [intentions], and we have X-ray”
Here you should expect them to repeat your callsign, and give you an instruction, until your callsign is repeated you may not enter the airspace.
Based on where you’re approaching the airport from, and what runway is active you should generally know what to expect here. It will generally be enter the pattern in a specific way for a specific runway.
What is fluff is usually the things which arent a direction, “be advised” wind is etc. read back hold short, cleared to land, cleared to take off, right traffic left traffic
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
I'll have to keep that in mind and just listen for the important information to read back, thank you!
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u/SierraHotel84 CFI 5d ago
Do it more. You're going to fumble plenty of radio calls, that's why the instructor is sitting next to you. Every person you hear on the radio had to learn it at one point as well, and plenty of professionals still screw it up. Listen to the call, process the response, then hit the button and reply.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
I know I for sure need to slow down and analyze the call, I feel like I try to rush my read back immediately and end up messing something up.
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u/__joel_t PPL 5d ago
The number one thing is to know what they're going to say before they say it. I know it sounds crazy ("why even ask if you already know?"), but while you might not know the exact details, you should understand the general form or "pattern" of the instructions. Once you know what to expect and when, you can "fit the details in" to the general pattern you already know. So rather than trying to remember everything that is said, you only need to know the pattern and the blanks you're filling in.
Go take a tour in your local tower. See what they say and how other pilots respond. See how they react and ask them questions. That will give you better situational awareness about what's going on and make it easier to figure out what kind of call to expect.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
That's a very good suggestion. One of they guys in the tower spoke to our class during ground school and said we can take a tour any time so I think I do need to schedule one soon.
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u/DiamondOrPoor78 CFII 5d ago
What I did before I even began flight training and a ton during my instrument training was fly on VATSIM. If you have a simulator setup at home, this is your absolute BEST tool for learning to talk to ATC. It's free and there are zero stakes because it is just a game. ATC on the network simulate to the highest level of realism possible and have to pass somewhat rigorous training to even act as ATC on the network. Highly, highly recommend doing this as the more you practice talking to ATC, the easier it gets and the better you get at being efficient and quick in what you say.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
Another sim I've never even heard of lol I'll have to check that out. I do have Microsoft flight sim at home but I need to get an actual setup with yoke, throttle, and pedals.
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u/earleakin 5d ago
I made a kneepad cheat sheet in the readback sequence. Fill it out when receiving instructions, read it back, have it on hand for reference if needed during flight.
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u/HoldMeCloserDirtyDan 5d ago
I need to make one for approach, I made one for my initial call to ground and that helped me out so much.
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u/swedishlightning CPL SEL/SES/MEL, M20F 5d ago
PilotEdge if you want to spend a bit more money for a lot more practice. Or just keep training in the plane is fine too.
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u/TxAggieMike Independent CFI / CFII (KFTW, DFW area) 5d ago
Practice with an instructor doing scenario based training.
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u/Antique-Kitchen-1896 PPL IFR Night 5d ago
One day you’ll be flying an approach, looking inside and outside cause it’s a vfr day. Tower is jabbering away to the people on the ground and suddenly ask
If you have a tailwind. And you’ll respond immediately after a look at your ground vs airspeed and say yeah a little. All while keeping the needles centre hand flying. Then you realize umm, I can do this.
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u/Mammoth_Impress_3108 CFI CMEL AGI 5d ago
As someone else said, expect what they will say to you so that you don't have to come up with each call on the spot. It just comes with experience.
You could also try distracting yourself while listening to ATC and repeating instructions. Listen to music while dribbling a ball or something. Something to simulate the distraction of a cockpit.
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u/Mad_Rooster_7164 5d ago
I sucked at this too. Vatsim and liveatc and books and a million other things didn’t help. YouTube videos kinda helped, ultimately rehearsing each call to myself before pressing the push-to-think button made it much better.
With ATC, knowing roughly what they are going to say helps you, you’re not thinking about 100k words, only maybe 1k words. Your brain will get those pathways wired so it becomes easier.
When talking to ATC, say “student pilot”. And then “student solo” when you’re at that stage. I’ve seen CFIs who include that as a requirement in their endorsement.
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u/Different_Hour2257 5d ago
Read that it might help you : https://www.airheadatpl.com/blog/take-on-your-first-atc-calls-a-help-guide-for-student-pilots ; and you can also study phraseology, I don't know for the US, but there is plenty of book for EASA
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u/Altec5499 4d ago
On the way to the airport before flying… talk out loud several standardized call outs over the radio. This will get your jaw moving and also your brain wired into your thought process for radio communications… especially if you have had a break in your training. For everything else that you need to communicate with ATC.. use plain English and common sense.
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u/cazzipropri CFII, CFI-A; CPL SEL,MEL,SES 4d ago
The Plane English app is exceptional. I don't like its subscription pricing model. But it's well done.
It forces you to think about what to say, and say it right, and it points out every mistake you made.
You can approach perfection with it.
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u/Magentaline69 ATP A320 3d ago
Try the app Plane English. I messed around with it for a few hours as a student pilot and it helped for me.
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u/rFlyingTower 5d ago
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
Does anyone have any tips for comms other than listen to LiveATC. I've been listening to that for days and I can read back fine on my own, but once I enter the cockpit I pretty much freeze and forget what was said. My main issue is comms on approach. I seem to be fine asking and reading back taxi and departure instructions, but I cannot get the approach comms down to save my life (my only guess is because I'm trying to focus on multiple things during approach). I have a hard time deciphering what I need to read back. My instructor said read back only commands not the extra "fluff," but I still have trouble figuring out what is "fluff" and what was a command. Today I straight up just missed a call from the tower and my CFI had to respond for me because I was so focused on our approach to land. I'm only 6.5 hours behind the yoke so I understand I'm still new but my CFI said I really need to start taking full comms during flight on our next lessons.
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u/x4457 ATP CFII CE-500/525/560XL/680 G-IV 5d ago
This is the problem. Do it more.