Short Final

Editorial Staff

Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

U.S. air traffic controllers are often unfamiliar with Canada's alphabetic aircraft registration system (e.g., C-ABCD).
This unfamiliarity leads to confusion and communication difficulties for controllers when Canadian aircraft operate in U.S. airspace.
The article illustrates this issue with an example of a Canadian pilot repeatedly failing to get a clear response from a U.S. tower due to the callsign format.

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Not many controllers away from the northern border of the U.S. are familiar with Canada’s alphabetic aircraft registration system and it can cause confusion.

C-ABCD: XXXX tower this Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta. Request runway in use.

No response

C-ABCD: Again XXXX tower Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta requesting runway in use.

No response

C-ABCD: Wichita tower,Canadian Civil Charlie Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta requesting runway in use.

XXXX Tower: Canadian alphabet soup aircraft calling XXXX tower please say again.

Pete Simpson