Immersion is great. When I was learning how to fly, one of the critical thing is to understand how to communicate and understand over radio to the towers. One widely accepted trick was just like learning new language is to listen to LiveATC, which is online, and free and public. Did you know you can listen to any Air Traffic Control of any airport anytime you like?
I still have that habit sometime. When my wife travels, which is quite frequent, I always like to hear her airplace asking for clearance to land at Houston Intercontinental......
Funny you reminded me on how I got this habit.
I actually had no idea about this (liveATC) and you got me super pumped! Especially since I was aware that there's a sort of universality in airways communication among the pilots.
Gotta say though dada, listening to her plane landing? You're quite the romantic!
Oh Well! I will tell her you said that :)
It's an old habit. Old habits die hard they say. I don't fly an airplane for years. But hopefully I will pick it up again, as I find time in hopefully not so distant future.
Just turn on any busy airport, like NYC JFK or BKK Thailand, and you will see what I mean. You won't understand anything in the beginning :) Then slowly you get used to it. Some of it is just listening through the crackle of the static though. Its fun :)
I tried a few stations to see how things are and this whole thing has a certain charm to it, like eavesdropping of a sort, or spying on a police radio network haha! At first, I was confused as the station was quiet, as no data was on the air.
I wish they had French airport listed there though!
I vaguely remember you sharing photos taken from a Cessna like aircraft, not sure if that's from back then. Flying a plane must be a very liberating experience. Ah well, so many things bar my way here...
Well ATC communications is all English! Well if you can call that English. It’s like math, or codes.
I never tried to look up Europe. Looks like Paris de gulle is not available. Some other European airport are there though
https://www.liveatc.net/feedindex.php?type=international-eu
Yes mostly it is lot of silence unless it is a major airport like LAX or JFK or IAH. The first two never stops
Yep, I've noticed, but I'm not familiar with the air controller jargon, I suppose I need to educate myself on it first. Is this similar to military command codes?
Even though there are no French airports, I see one from Quebec. Then again if its all in English, different airports wont matter much.
It’s all English. It’s actually hilarious to listen to Russians talking in ATC :)
Yes it’s a lot of jargon and acronyms, but all English.
As you can imagine there are lot of online resources and courses :)
You can search, but here are some basics
https://www.aopa.org/training-and-safety/students/presolo/special/new-pilots-guide-to-atc-communication
These are the most popular ATCs
https://www.liveatc.net/topfeeds.php
I just heard Air India 307 asking for permission to land Tokyo control :) :)