One of the first things which made me feel “cool” to be flying airplanes was using the phonetic alphabet. In aviation, the phonetic alphabet is the method used in order to speak different letters without causing confusion. For example, when saying the letter ‘D’ out loud, it can be misunderstood as ‘B.’ To cancel out the confusion, pilots, controllers, and people within the aviation industry use whole words for each letter of the alphabet. So to make sure ‘D’ and ‘B’ don’t get confused, we say Delta and Bravo. All 26 letters each have their own word, which doesn’t take a long time to memorize. Even when giving the tower or ground control an entire flight plan, each letter of each word must be said with its’ corresponding phonetic word. This causes a flight plan to take some time to open, but also makes it safer in that no confusion will occur.
The first time I experienced using the phonetic alphabet was on the very first lesson of flight training. I didn’t get to fly that day, but I was shown how to fill out departure paperwork. The first thing to write down on the paperwork is the tail number of the plane. At Farmingdale Aerospace, the Piper Warriors are numbered from 148 through 159 and have LH at the end. Each airplane registered in the United States always starts with an N. So when I use N153LH, I have to contact ground and tell them that “153 Lima Hotel” is ready to taxi. Because we’re operating in the United States, with a US registered airplane, the N, or November, isn’t necessary to say.
The phonetic alphabet is as follows:
A- Alpha
B- Bravo
C- Charlie
D- Delta
E- Echo
F- Foxtrot
G- Golf
H- Hotel
I- India
J- Juliet
K- Kilo
L- Lima
M- Mike
N- November
O- Oscar
P- Papa
Q- Quebec
R- Romeo
S- Sierra
T- Tango
U- Uniform
V- Vector
W- Whisky
X- X-ray
Y- Yankee
Z- Zulu
Anything from airplane tail numbers, airport identifiers (Republic is KFRG or Kilo Foxtrot Romeo Golf), taxiways, and ramp locations are designated with a letter of the alphabet. The name however, of any of these things is named after the appropriate phonetic alphabet letter. So when I leave the ramp which Farmingdale keeps its planes, I usually say something like “Farmingdale state 153 Lima Hotel is at Echo (we’re located on ramp E) with information Charlie (the name of the hourly weather report) ready to taxi to Golf (the closest taxiway to the Echo ramp).” At that point the ground control tells me what to do and where to go.
Learning the phonetic alphabet is just one of the small, but largely important, aspects of learning how the aviation industry works.
The first time I experienced using the phonetic alphabet was on the very first lesson of flight training. I didn’t get to fly that day, but I was shown how to fill out departure paperwork. The first thing to write down on the paperwork is the tail number of the plane. At Farmingdale Aerospace, the Piper Warriors are numbered from 148 through 159 and have LH at the end. Each airplane registered in the United States always starts with an N. So when I use N153LH, I have to contact ground and tell them that “153 Lima Hotel” is ready to taxi. Because we’re operating in the United States, with a US registered airplane, the N, or November, isn’t necessary to say.
The phonetic alphabet is as follows:
A- Alpha
B- Bravo
C- Charlie
D- Delta
E- Echo
F- Foxtrot
G- Golf
H- Hotel
I- India
J- Juliet
K- Kilo
L- Lima
M- Mike
N- November
O- Oscar
P- Papa
Q- Quebec
R- Romeo
S- Sierra
T- Tango
U- Uniform
V- Vector
W- Whisky
X- X-ray
Y- Yankee
Z- Zulu
Anything from airplane tail numbers, airport identifiers (Republic is KFRG or Kilo Foxtrot Romeo Golf), taxiways, and ramp locations are designated with a letter of the alphabet. The name however, of any of these things is named after the appropriate phonetic alphabet letter. So when I leave the ramp which Farmingdale keeps its planes, I usually say something like “Farmingdale state 153 Lima Hotel is at Echo (we’re located on ramp E) with information Charlie (the name of the hourly weather report) ready to taxi to Golf (the closest taxiway to the Echo ramp).” At that point the ground control tells me what to do and where to go.
Learning the phonetic alphabet is just one of the small, but largely important, aspects of learning how the aviation industry works.
