Foreigner woman - Private pilot license

Half Fast said:
It will be simplified somewhat because you will be flying under visual flight rules. Much of what sounds like gibberish on Live ATC are instructions for those on instrument flight. VFR instructions are more straightforward, and except when flying in a towered airport's airspace, you don't even have to be talking with ATC at all.
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Interesting... So are you saying that when you fly in the country (which will be my case) and not close to cities which have communication towers, you spend most of your time not talking to anybody?
 
Half Fast said:
It will certainly be an asset that most (not all) controllers are male, and the sound of a feminine French voice will ensure they want to speak with you....

Context will help with most phrases and sentences, but you may have trouble with things like tail numbers and airport designators. Have you learned the standard NATO phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta,...) yet? If not, start working on it and make sure you can pronounce each word very clearly.
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I am actually familiar with this alphabet because during my studies, I had an opportunity to spend 2 weeks with the French army and I quickly got used to those words. That’s a good point I guess.
 
Marion said:
Interesting... So are you saying that when you fly in the country (which will be my case) and not close to cities which have communication towers, you spend most of your time not talking to anybody?
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Personally, I usually request radar advisories ("flight following") from ATC when flying cross country, but there is no requirement to do so. For that matter, there are still pilots flying planes that don't even have a radio.
 
Get your ear used to listening to ATC. There is a nice website where you can actually listen to live ATC communications.

https://www.liveatc.net/

After a while, you'll get used to the lingo, and you will also expect the usual sequence of questions and instruction coming on the radio as you get ready for the different usual situations such as taxiing, holding short, lining up, taking off, entering and departing the control zone, being handled to the terminal, etc. I'm sure you will be just fine.
 
kath said:
The website that streams Air Traffic Control frequencies from different airports all over the country: https://www.liveatc.net/.
Find a small airport on this site (maybe even yours, if it has a tower?) and listen to the chatter of the pilots and controllers talking to each other. It *will* sound like complete nonsense, but that is totally normal at first, for everyone!!
You'll notice (after a while, and with some practice) that a lot of the same things, the same words, get said over and over again.
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I have listened around an hour today the KATL Approach (Final) just for fun and even though I did not understand, I indeed noticed that some terms are always used.
But one question, when you search ATL on LiveATC, there many options to listen to (tower, ground, approach, etc) but when I look for JAN which is Jackson MS the biggest airport in Mississippi, there only one frequency you can click on.
Is that because it is a small airport so the frequency is the same for all communications?
 
The hardest part with understanding ATC is anticipating what they are going to say. I’m a 300 hour pilot (I know, very dangerous) and I finished my IFR a little less than a year ago. I’ve used flight following long before the IFR. I think the biggest challenge early on was every single ATC query was a complete surprise. You were having to process and remember every single word. After a while you naturally are able to tune out the filler context and simply remember the key aspects of communication.

Knowing when and what to expect will come with time and really simplify it. The accent won’t matter except in uncommon scenarios, and in those cases just ask for repeat.
 
Marion said:
I have listened around an hour today the KATL Approach (Final) just for fun and even though I did not understand, I indeed noticed that some terms are always used.
But one question, when you search ATL on LiveATC, there many options to listen to (tower, ground, approach, etc) but when I look for JAN which is Jackson MS the biggest airport in Mississippi, there only one frequency you can click on.
Is that because it is a small airport so the frequency is the same for all communications?
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Yes, that is why. ATL has many frequencies because there are too many planes for fewer. As an airpprt gegs busier, it must acquire additional frequencies, so the tasks are split up. Smaller towered fields may have 2 or 3 frequencies, but only one person during times thst are usually not busy.
 
Yes, the bigger/busier the airport, the more different controllers they have.
Some airports have no controllers at all.
Some have a Ground controller (who tells people how to taxi around) and a Tower controller (who clears people to take off and land). Sometimes one person does both jobs, depending on the time of day.
Bigger airports like ATL will also have an Approach controller, or two or three of them, that guide planes in and out of the general area.

...and not all of these frequencies participate in the LiveATC website. Only a subset of them do. So if LiveATC doesn't have it, that doesn't mean the frequency doesn't exist.

If you want to do some LiveATC listening, I would start by listening to a moderate size airport that just has a Tower and Ground. As a student pilot, the Tower controller is the one you'll be using the most as you train. So maybe someplace like Athens, GA (KAHN). They've got a Tower frequency on LiveATC.
(I only picked Athens because it's close to ATL... I don't know that area at all and there are many other options!)
 
Hippike said:
Interesting idea, although I found it totally opposite in my case.

I am Hungarian who completed the Cambridge University English proficiency class during my 3 years in England, so without much pride, I thought my English was pretty good when I came to the US.

When I started training, all radio chatter seemed totally foreign to me. It took a while to get used to it and being able to communicate on the radio. It’s like a brand-new language.

Jump forward, I have my PPL, I fly a lot and during a visit to Hungary I thought it would be great to fly a little around my hometown. Not having a local license, I couldn’t rent a plane so I went up with a CFI. For the life of me I could not say a word in Hungarian on the radio. I could understand everything they said but the phraseology was new and very different than what I was familiar with. It was so weird, I tried to speak my native language but I didn’t know what to say, so I kept communicating in English, which they understood perfectly.

In addition, I got a hold of a copy of the text book that all Hungarian students use for their PPL. Oh dear… total nightmare. I flipped thru the pages but there were so many subjects that I could not understand even though it was in my native language. If I ever wanted a HU PPL, I would need to spend months on learning the vocabulary.

Both of my local airports are accessible on LiveATC and it helped me a lot to listen to the familiar voices. You can also watch YT videos of ATC communications that are subtitled. So if you miss a word you can read what was said.

Also, Bob's book is a must read!

Welcome to POA!
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Yes, we seem to have very different experiences :) Except the "new language" thing, THAT I'm experiencing exactly the same.
It's more like a weird dialect, with a very forced grammer...which ought to make it easy, but seems the opposite.

Here in Norway though it allowed to speak norwegian in communication, I almost never hear it unless it is on the common freq. two pilots talking.

As a native english speaker (reader, writer) I also find that I seem to have a harder time understanding "English with a norwegian accent" than europeans do with each other speaking english. Some coworkers, norwegian and dutch, all speaking english understand the other, while I'm wondering what was just said. It's strange. So radio here can be tricky as its english with varying degrees of accent.

My main point really though was only that for ground school, I mentioned it was very necessary to me to be able to also refer to an english student pilot ground school book, as for Marion it might be beneficial for her to get one or two in French. There is a lot of terminology, technical and legal terms that are new to anyone with no background in aviation, physics, etc. No matter what language, but with a second language you are not certain of a term, phrase, etc.
 
As a non-native English speaker, I highly recommend you listen to live at aand, if you can, use xplane or another sim and fly connected to vatsim. I did both and that helped me get used to phraseology and also to remove my "mic fright" when I started training at a towered airport.
 
Hi Marion, my wife and I are from Germany, earned our pilot's certificates during a vacation in the US, without experiencing any significant problems. If you live here, it'll be even easier.
It will probably take you a few flights to get used to what's going on on the radio, but it certainly is nothing to be afraid of.

Btw: I find LiveATC much harder to understand than the real thing. Don't be discouraged if you struggle to understand what's being said. That you are not yet familiar with the content and context of the conversations, will make it even harder for you to follow.
Personally, I would therefore not spend too much time listening to LiveATC but instead just get started with the flight training.
 
I know this isn't quite what you asked, but you should take a look at this siite and read the FAQ section. If you're not a US citizen, you can't do any flight training other than a discovery flight until you've been approved by the TSA via this website, and it takes 7-8 weeks the first time you do it. So you might want to get things moving early so that you're not delayed.
 
injb said:
I know this isn't quite what you asked, but you should take a look at this siite and read the FAQ section. If you're not a US citizen, you can't do any flight training other than a discovery flight until you've been approved by the TSA via this website, and it takes 7-8 weeks the first time you do it. So you might want to get things moving early so that you're not delayed.
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Good morning, yes I know that. Thanks!
 
I moved to the US 18 years ago when I was 28. My first language is Korean. I have less than 10 hours of flight time now and the radio communication is one of the most stressful aspects in flying to me. My hobby now is to listen to liveatc.net radio communications in my home airport. There are only a few people rotating the shift so you can get used to their voice. Also after flying, I go to liveatc.net and download the mp3 files and search up the times when I did ATC communication. It is the most depressing moment when I hear my voice in the record, but hopefully it will get better as time goes on. Good luck!
 
Waow, I just found that post I wrote exactly 3 years ago!

Well, a lot of time has passed but I can happily say that I am currently working on my PPL. I started 4 months ago, did my first solo X-Country yesterday and hoping to get my license sometime early Spring.
I did not imagine I would enjoy learning to fly that much.

As to my initial concern of communication with ATC, I fly out of a class D airport in TN and it is actually going pretty good! Thanks again!
 
I understand the language pretty well but say something stupid all the time. Don't worry about it. If you speak English half as well as you write you'll be fine.
 
So nice to have you give us an update!
Congrats on the solo XC!
 
Three things:
Learn to say:
(I'm a) Student Pilot. It puts ATC on notice that you may need extra time to understand and digest instructions
and
Ask them to "Say again, slowly". When ATC gets busy, many of them start talking very rapidly. They understand that and will slow down for you.

Also, Be polite to ATC and they will almost always be polite and helpful to you.

Good luck with your training.
 
Marion:

Thanks for coming back - you just made my day!

Do, please, keep us posted on your progress. We'll all look forward to meeting you in person one day soon, perhaps at a fly-in.

Where are you doing your training, and in what aircraft? Tell us more!

Marion said:
Waow, I just found that post I wrote exactly 3 years ago!

Well, a lot of time has passed but I can happily say that I am currently working on my PPL. I started 4 months ago, did my first solo X-Country yesterday and hoping to get my license sometime early Spring.
I did not imagine I would enjoy learning to fly that much.

As to my initial concern of communication with ATC, I fly out of a class D airport in TN and it is actually going pretty good! Thanks again!
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Thanks, will do!

I am flying a 172 out of KMQY in TN :)
 
You'll be fine. Not a native English speaker, here a story for your entertainment.

One day I was doing pattern work and after my first landing the controller ask: sayintentions?

I say: yes N1234

He repeat: sayintentions?

I replay: yes N1234

The 3rd time he slow down and spoke clearly and slowly: N1234 say your intentions.

I say taxi back for take off N1234.

He crack a laugh on the radio and gave me instructions.
 
My favorite foul up with ATC was a few weeks ago, going into KHWO Class D near Miami. 7 miles out I called tower.

"North Perry, N50274, 7 miles west, full stop, have Romeo."

"274whereareyouparked?"

"Umm, I'm not parked, I'm in the air, I want to land."

"Yes, and after you land, where will you park?"

So even us native speakers screw it up.
 
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