It's six characters, ferchrisakes!
Would it kill them to speak all 6 characters rather than just the first 3?
It just seems so silly to have the ATC communicate with ships via a supposedly unique ident' but then not use it sufficiently to properly identify a ship. [sad]
ATC Union Regulations. If they speak over 3 Characters they have to be paid at a higher rate.
ATC does that all the time. CF-WJP becomes "WJP" at my home airport.
"All the time"?
Surely you mean "on some occasions, where it's justifiable"?
Besides, at least they're smart enough to focus on the unique part of the ident.
If the ED ATC worked for the US Navy, they'd just be referring to every ship as "U.S.S."
It's six characters, ferchrisakes!
Would it kill them to speak all 6 characters rather than just the first 3?
It just seems so silly to have the ATC communicate with ships via a supposedly unique ident' but then not use it sufficiently to properly identify a ship. [sad]
It's amazing where on the internet North America's notoriety in the aviation industry for non-standard ICAO RT phraseology crops up.
I guess if all ATC requests and responses were on a Common Frequency (Players hearing the Audio of all ATC activities), keeping things abbreviated would be in order.
It's one of the key rules of aviation after all. C3 Comms... Clear, Crisp and Concise.
But since it's per-Player and isolated (like a Single-Frequency Approach), technically I guess they could read out more characters indeed and it wouldn't do any harm.
To be honest, this really seems like it's meant to be a half step. Maybe they're working on text to speech so that the ATC say our full ship names eventually?
So when you change your ship name and ID ATC change too? I hadn't noticed, I thought they just always used the first three letters of the commander name all the time. I will listen next time I arrive at a station in a ship with changed ID/Name.
Still learning after all this time with ED.
So when you change your ship name and ID ATC change too? I hadn't noticed, I thought they just always used the first three letters of the commander name all the time. I will listen next time I arrive at a station in a ship with changed ID/Name.
Still learning after all this time with ED.
I once owned a Cessna. Tail number was N5252H. But to time constrained controllers at my home field, I was just "Cessna Five Two Hotel".
They all knew me as an ex-tactical driver, so I got my share of "personal experience" from them- watching me like a hawk, waiting for a chance to fill their quotas (just like cops). Only perfect landings escaped ridicule.
They forgot I knew the code to the tower door...![]()