DeadlyVoid wrote:
I departed Le 2k just behind you yesterday Peter
So just in front of me then. Piper Lance?
Silvaire wrote:
Did I hear you were cleared for something number two (?) Lima Tango, report something (established?).
I hear " number two, proceed on course to Lima Tango, and report…."
But not very clear indeed…
Interesting responses!
Obviously I would not have made the original post if I thought that Lille were even remotely acceptable on legibility / ELP, or if this was unusual.
Other Lille sectors have in the past been OK e.g. flying back from EDNY and coming from the south. But that was a different ATCO, and in this (LFAT) case the signal was not weak.
I have lived in England since 1969 but I think that if I met that lady ATCO in the street and spoke to her about something, I would have great difficulty understanding anything.
“Lima Tango” is kind of half expected coming into LFAT, because it lies on the LOC inbound, but one needs a bit more context to be sure, so I didn’t change my track just because I could work out the “LT”.
Also remember that “you” can play that bit over and over…
There are a couple things at work here, in descending order of importance.
1) the atrocious audio quality
2) her accent
3) she’s a woman
In general, I find female controllers harder to understand than men. Must have something to do with the frequency of their (in general higher-pitched) voices over R/T. The main thing here, IMHO, however is the quality of the transmission which is really, really bad. I doubt anyone would have much of an issue with her accent if the transmission would have been of the same quality as the London one. As a side note – I find it much harder to listen to ATC on the computer (think LiveATC) than in the air on my headset.
Sorry to break from the trend but I don’t think Lille sounded that bad. A typical French controller. You need to know what you expect to hear to an extent but I could follow what she said.
The problem is not the controller. She sounded just fine to me (not in the recording) and I almost volunteered to relay to Peter.
The problem is really the audio quality as reflected in Peter’s recording for one reason or another. If Peter had met her in the street he would have understood her just fine.
I find female controllers harder to understand than men
For me it’s the other way round, especially in a high background noise environment.
A typical French controller.
Sure, but that’s not good…
You need to know what you expect to hear
I think aviation radio communication would collapse if that was not the case, due to the often poor quality. So in all of flying one is constantly working out the missing bits, from the context.
But sometimes there is simply too much missing… One solution is to read back what one thinks one has heard but that is really dangerous because if ATC ELP is marginal to start with, they won’t understand your (incorrect) readback either… that is really common. I often hear London Control picking people up on incorrect readbacks and making damn sure they (ATC) get the correct readback, but I have never heard any other country’s ATC doing that.
A few years back I was based in Lille flying an A320 and commuting to the UK in my DR400 I had no problems with Lille who on the whole were very helpfull.
All foreign accents are more difficult to understand that your own nationals but I had no problems with Lille…………. But then I have to deal with the likes of Banjul & Cairo.
If the transmission was clear then I probably would have understood everything she said. As it stands I only got “number 2…. lima tango”. I experienced similar issue a week ago flying to Le 2K and had to ask the controller to repeat themselves as struggling to hear clearly.
Also remember that “you” can play that bit over and over…
The Garmin 1000 has a playback function for previous transmissions and so do other modern avionics, i assume.
Came in handy for me on more than one occasion..
