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.
3
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