starman wrote in message ...
Mark Keith wrote:

You may have to get used to the rapid
fire lingo... IE: a quick handoff from departure to center might go
something like "Southwest 8, contact center, thirty two point seven
seven,.... That means 132.77. They often skip the 1st number as it's a
no brainer...:/

The altitude readouts can also be confusing. If someone says "one five
thousand", it means fifteen thousand feet. The speeds are given in knots
rather than miles per hour.

Also, they can throw in wind direction and speed, which can almost
sound like mix of the other numbers...IE "310 at 8" Also, the speed
given in knots will be indicated airspeed. Once they pass 18,000 ft,
they define altitude as "flight level" rather than feet. At that
point, they also set the altimeter to 29.92.
So if they climb to say 37,000 ft, they will call it flight level
three seven -zero. Usually just three seven -zero on the radio. Also,
at cruise, they can define speed as knots, or mach speed. Usually mach
if the altitude is much over 30,000. The air up high gets thinner, and
the indicated airspeed will continue to fall as they climb higher,
while the mach speed will remain the same.
IE: the average climb might be at 250 till 10,000, then maybe
290-300-310-320 knots up to appx FL29 or so depending on the aircraft,
where the IAS and the mach speeds "merge". Once at that altitude, they
would usually switch to mach speeds which will vary to aircraft. A
learjet 31a at FL41 or higher is reading a pretty low IAS "under 250 "
,with the "average" mach 77 speed for a lear. A 747 will do a mach
speed in the low to mid 80's usually. The cessna citation X is the
fastest commercial plane flying these days. Will do mach 90-92 range
tops. Thats a fast puppy...Takes a little listening to weed out all
the different, but sometimes same sounding numbers...
I'm fairly up on it, cuz I'm a flight sim nut, and fly jets on the sim
all the time. When listening to them, it kind of helps to understand
what all they are doing, to make what you hear, make sense. MK