Short Final

Editorial Staff

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

Verified

Key Takeaways:

U.S. air traffic controllers near the Canadian border are often unfamiliar with Canada's alphabetic aircraft registration system.
This unfamiliarity leads to confusion and communication difficulties for Canadian pilots when contacting U.S. towers.
The provided dialogue illustrates a Canadian pilot struggling to get a response from a U.S. tower that doesn't recognize their alphabetic 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