haddon90

i find it amazing how one is able to understand what goes on on channel 9. it's like a different language to me.

goalie

or something like "southwest XXX give way to company shamu passing left to right....roger give way to shamu, southwest xxx" (as this sw a/c is painted in a killer whale scheme for sea world).

xj47

Listen every flight for 100+ segments over a year or so and it'll sound like music to your ears!

hockeyguy

Or a single 3-hour ground stop at IAD (or for that matter, ORD, SFO, LAX, etc.) where the ground controllers are trying to find parking spots for dozens of planes. If you ever thought parallel parking was hard, try sequencing aircraft with little to no maneuvering room.

Last time this happened, I had my IAD airport diagram out (yes, I'm a true FT geek) and I followed along as the ground controllers tried to extricate at least two planes with medical emergencies from the long line of jets parked on the taxiways. To complicate matters, almost all the jets had their engines shut down because the ground delay was anticipated to last a long time.

goalie

yup and you will then become so in tune to your flight's call sign that something like this ("center, united 281, it appears we might have a slight problem with our pressurization system") will cause even the most extremely tired person to wake up instantly.

from this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=690358

hockeyguy

Or you're so used to flying the same flights that even though you're on one of the renumbered legs of a international connecting flight, when the captain comes on the PA and says "our call sign today will be United 8153", you're just thinking "well, duh".

FlyinHawaiian

Or, invest in a radio scanner and go out to the airport and watch planes take off and land, or listen in via websites that broadcast ATC chatter.

goalie

had that happen many times-touché

dmach

I often hear something like this when controllers refer to US planes. Many of the flights out my way seem to still use the HP "Cactus" call sign, but they will say "Cactus 412 in the new colors, ready to taxi", for example.

12172003

It is a different language but just like everything else, once you speak it it is pretty easy. Also once you speak it and therefore have a little experience, you know what they are going to say. Often not only do you know what they are going to say, but you hear what they are going to tell you 5 minutes ahead of time since they usually give the same or very similar instructions to the plane in front of you. If anything changes, usually ATC will pause and emphasize the difference so you also know it isn't an accident on the controllers behalf (you're flying a heading of 090 and ATC says "turn _RIGHT_ to heading 060"). Now doing the communications, while hand flying the plane, engine management, navigating laterally and vertically, setting up for an approach and nailing it perfectly without ever seeing beyond the wingtips is beyond exhillerating and fun.

TechOps

I was on a mileage run for about 26 hours this weekend (SFO-SEA-ORD-STL-PIT-ORD-LAX-SFO in mostly 1st class), and had a very interesting captain on the ORD-LAX segment yesterday.

I didn't write down his name, but I think it was Hernandez(?), and his first officer, who was flying the plane was Joe or Joel something.

Anyway, he came on and gave the usual greeting, then invited those interested in aviation to tune into channel 9 for more info. He proceeded to give a fascinating 10 minute lecture on all sorts of things, some of which were very basic, but he gave anecdotes such as why we were flying at 33k feet instead of 10k (the air is 1/3 as dense, such as the difference between syrup and water), why the cabin is only pressurized to about 6-7k feet instead of sea level, how they were flying a 767 but could also fly 757's such as they did that morning from SEA-ORD since they were an equivalent class plane, the range of the 767 and how it is capable of flying 18 hours nonstop but they only fly them for 12 hours for legal and other reasons, fuel info and how much fuel we were burning on that trip, the fact that each person on the flight, if they drove from Chicago to LA, would have to get 78 MPG to equal the efficiency of the plane, facts about the autopilot system and that it could fly in class 3 conditions with a minimum of 30 foot visibility (that minimum is just so that the pilots can taxi the plane off of the runway after the autopilot would land, and they need at least 30 feet visibility to do so) .... and on and on.

He was kind of humorous, and it was interesting. Never experienced anything like that before, and it made up for the dirty F cabin seat I was sitting in that obviously hadn't been cleaned since the last trip.

UNITED959

There are a few guys out there who do this, and I agree...it is quite interesting. Much better than watching yet another rerun of NBC Inflight.

SEA_Tigger

Yup. Seems to the 757/767 Captains who do it in my experience (never heard it on any other UA equipment). I always make sure to thank the Captain personally for the effort. ^

timezone_trooper

Yeah, one time on a PS flight JFK-SFO the captain gave a very lengthy lecture on the different types and causes of turbulence - it was informative and a great touch in my opinion.

goalie

you caught a gem ^ and very similar to captain goodfellow i had over here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=395132