R L Royle

Hello all,

I was wondering if you could be so kind as to cast your esteemed eyes over this paragraph and tell me how far off the mark I am with regards to the comms dialogue here, spoken very shortly after take off. The plane is a DC10-30 heavy, departing from Heathrow on the Great Circle Route heading to SFO. Robert is the captain and Michael is the FO, the year is 2008. This is part of a fiction novel with a fictional airline, but I'm trying to get the departure from Heathrow as accurate as possible.


‘Positive rate, gear up,’ Robert said.
In response to this, Michael raised the landing gear handle, repeating, ‘gear up.’
‘Flaps.’
‘Flaps set.’
‘Never get tired of that sound,’ Robert smiled in a lighter tone, referring to the power behind the DC-10 at takeoff. ‘Tower, Cali Two Zero Seven, we are airbourne.’
‘Cali Two Zero Seven,’ Tower acknowledged, ‘contact Departure on one one nine decimal seven two. Have a great flight, goodbye.’
‘Switching to Departure, one one nine decimal seven two. Thank you. Bye bye, now.’
Michael switched frequency, enabling Robert to speak to their third ground-based communication team.
‘Departure, good evening,’ Robert said warmly, ‘Cali Two Zero Seven, climbing through eight hundred feet to four thousand feet, approaching LON Delta Seven on WOBUN Three Foxtrot departure heading to Bovingdon, with you.’
Another voice greeted the cockpit via the radio: ‘Cali Two Zero Seven, Departure, good evening. At LON Delta Seven turn right onto MID VOR Romeo Three Five Seven. Climb and maintain four thousand feet at LON Delta Ten.’
‘Roger, Cali Two Zero Seven, at LON Delta Seven turn right onto MID VOR Romeo Three Five Seven. Climb and maintain four thousand feet at LON Delta Ten.’



Any advice on what's wrong here would be deeply appreciated as I'm having a bit of a nightmare understanding which waypoints they'd refer to and the like. Also, am I right in thinking that both the PF and PM would apply the throttle - a hand each - at take off, in this aircraft?

Thank you for any advice or re-write you can possibly give, and I hope I don't cause offence if it's wildly inaccurate at this stage! There is more where this came from if you enjoyed putting your magic to that.

Warmest Regards,

Rebecca
(author)

freightdawg

For starters, most of it looks pretty good - I'll let a DC10 guy comment on flap settings. Otherwise;
Squawk, not squark
They'd contact Departure, not Approach, despite it being the same person and frequency

R L Royle

Brilliant, thank you very much - those changes have been made. I puzzled over 'approach' for ages and knew it couldn't be the right terminology - spent forever delving into London Control, but it turns out it's closed and moved and the third ground comms team (ground - tower - ?!) just kept alluding me and... yeah, you get the point! Departure being at the same frequency explains a lot. Thanks again, much appreciated.

USMCFLYR

Probably wouldn't be given a IFF code on departure and told to ident unless they forgot to turn it on
Also - don't know if it is used in the airline world or not - I'll let others respond - but if ATC asks for me to "ident", my response is "flash"

USMCFLYR

CaptainCarl

I'm not 100% sure what the procedure is across the pond, but State-side we would have already received a "squawk" code from Clearance Delivery while we were sitting at the gate.

Also, I'm unsure of the procedure over there for being told to join a radial, but that's not how you would hear it here. When I get to a real computer, I'll give you a proper rewrite if someone doesn't beat me to it.

R L Royle

Okay great, thank you. I've changed the response to 'Squawk zero four seven nine and flash,' but will take out the ident bit completely if you guys think that's best. I'm showing myself up here, but which part of the dialogue is the IFF code? Is that the 'squawk zero four seven nine' bit? Would it be better not having squawk in at all?

R L Royle

Awesome! Okay, I'm thinking to definitely take it off then because you're the second person to question it. My good friend is a SIM enthusiast and did warn me that his advice with regards to that might not hold up in the real world. A re-write would be AMAZING - no matter from how many people - and all this help means that I can do you guys justice fact-wise (and story-wise, of course!) in the book that I'm writing here at sea level.

N9373M

The 4 transponder digits are from 0-7, so 0479 is invalid. Just make the niner 7 or less. USMC, I've never heard flash, always ident, and I reply with the code and ident. I like it though and may try it! IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe) is the same as the squawk code.

Take out the "with you" part when talking to departure. That bugs a lot of pilots as unnecessary and unprofessional. It wastes precious radio frequency time and is redundant.

For a US departure you would talk to:

ATIS (automated terminal information service) - local radio station broadcasting constant weather info for that particular airport. Pilots just listen as it the frees up the same info being transmitted repeatedly to each departing (or arriving) flight. Often called "the numbers", although it's really identified with a letter, as in, Dulles Clearance, Mooney N9373M instruments to Charlie Alpha Echo (my destination airport CAE),with Bravo. Where Bravo is the current weather from ATIS.

Clearance Delivery to get your flight plan approved (cleared as filed, or an amended routing) and what runway and departure procedure to expect.

Ground Control - to taxi to the appropriate runway. "Taxi to runway 33, via Alpha, Delta, and Whiskey. where Alpha, Delta and Whiskey are the taxiways.

Tower - to receive take off clearance.

Departure - once airborne

In the US next would be "Center". The international airline guys are the experts here - I'm a US private pilot.

I'm not sure if the actually say "feet" as in "climb and maintain 4000 feet", it would just be "climb and maintain 4000". Again brevity is key for congested radio frequencies. MAYBE they do use it "over there" to distinguish between feet and meters. Again a real international guy would be able to answer that.

Good Luck!

USMCFLYR

It probably is military based comm brevity. I've never had a controller question it though. I'm still working on purging a lot of the military jargon out of my vocabulary. I used the word 'duty runway' just a few days ago and was looked at funny by my PIC (former USAF) Ah......some habits are just hard to break!

To the OP - I wouldn't use the term 'flash' and just take it out all together in that particular scenario personally, but then again I haven't flown across the Atlantic either unless being dragged

USMCFLYR

Twin Wasp

Never seen a DC-10-80 but you never know. Most Tens used auto throttles for takeoff so the Captain would push the throttles up to spool up the engines, push the autothrottle button on the throtles and then keep his hand on the throttles till the plane reached the "takeoof decision speed" or V1. At that point they're going to fly so he'd remove his hand from the throttles. The F/O would keep his hands to his self. Most airlines have the non flying pilot make the "positive rate" call and the flying pilot replies "gear up." Departure out of LHR uses "London Control" as their callsign and a current chart for the WOBUN 3F shows 119.77 as the freq. Tens can use 5, 15 or 22 degrees of flaps for takeoff, going LHR to SFO I'd guess they'd use 5 so the pilot flying would call "flaps up" and the non-flying pilot would repeat the command and move the flap lever. London has radar so they know where you are and what you're doing. The whole reason for have departures is so the controller doesn't have to tell you to turn at the London 7 DME to join the Midhurst 357 radial. The check in might go something like:

Michael switched frequency, enabling Robert to speak to their third ground-based communication team.
‘Control, good evening,’ Robert said warmly, ‘Cali Two Zero Seven, climbing through eight hundred feet to four thousand feet, on the WOBUN Three Foxtrot departure.’
Another voice greeted the cockpit via the radio: ‘Cali Two Zero Seven, Departure, good evening. Cross 14 DME from London at flight level six zero.’
‘Roger, Cali Two Zero Seven, Cross the London 14 DME fix at flight level six zero.’