Hello! I’m a total beginner and wanted to know what do you recommend to train your ear to atc and if there are any resources to study how to learn the atc jargon. I want to start using atc on MSFS but don’t know how to talk. Thanks!
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I recommend starting with LiveATC.net. Pick an airport and tune it in. Airports have separate frequencies for tower and ground. It helps to have an airport diagram to follow along with the instructions. Larger airports like KJFK and KLAX are mostly airlines and airliners. Smaller airports have a mix of GA, business, and airliners.
Sometimes there may be no sound because there is no traffic. Also, the speaking rate is often much faster compared to MSFS so it may be difficult to hear everything at first. Best of all it is free except for the ads.
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I use this all the time in real life. a very small manageable book. It is all that you will ever need.
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Moved to Aviate, Navigate, Communicate as this was originally posted in Home Cockpit Builders
The thing you won’t get in the sim compared to real-life is someone sitting in the right seat feeding you lines and clarifying the things you miss. I recommend working with a flight or ground instructor, if possible, as they can give you feedback as you go (yes, even for a sim, especially if you are ever going to make the jump to real-world flying).
But if you’re set on self-study, some of the rote-memorization things you can do at home before you dive deeper into things and make them seem less foreign are:
- memorize and practice the phonetic alphabet
- memorize the name and location of the elements of a traffic pattern
- memorize your “o’clocks,” that is, the position of things relative to you - 12 o’clock being straight ahead, 3 o’clock to the right, etc
- memorize the compass headings in relation to cardinal directions 360° = north, 090° = east, 180° = south, 270° = west.
- then step that up to knowing where all 36 of the major headings (basically leave off the ones digit) point. This is how runways are numbered and also gives you a good general concept of orientation
- Once you get good at headings, start to learn the reciprocal and perpendicular to any major heading (ie reciprocal of 210 is 030, etc)
These are all intrinsic to aviation, but many are generally handy if you’re into orientation or navigation. But there is no magic bullet - there are a lot of things that are aviation-specific that will come with studies a person would take concurrent with their journey to become a private pilot: weather, airspace, procedural navigation, and a bunch of others.
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Atc is quite simple even in real life at least during your training. Someone suggest live atc here. That definitely helps.
A helpful tip Where you are, who you are, what your intentions are and you’re reading back what tower tells you to do. The rest is up to you knowing the aircraft comms and airport layout, airspace.
I may be missing somethings. Haven’t flown in a while.
Trying my best not to make this complicated.
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There’s this guy Kelsey, who’s a 747 pilot, and his channel is 74Gear in YT. He does a series known as Pilot vs ATC, where he basically grabs audios where pilots and atc have some issues (and others where there are no issues and they’re helping i.e. in an emergency) and explains what’s happening.
The good thing is that he explains each little thing that for the outsider to aviation might be difficult. For example, there’s a video where a pilot violates Bravo class airspace, and not only explains the violation and its meaning, but also what’s each type of airspace, how flights are cleared through, etc. On another video, there’s an issue with a departure and he explains what’s a departure, how departures are managed, the role of ATCs, the difference between ground, tower and departure ATC, etc.
There are probably other better resources in terms of an actual course, but since these are real life situations it makes things a lot more entertaining. Here’s a link to a playlist, but I encourage you to browse his videos since he explains a lot of things that after are useful in FS (and IRL).
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There’s also the online training tool PlaneEnglishSim.com. It is a paid service but it is pretty cheap. It uses voice recognition to grade your responses. Supposedly it is used by some aviation colleges in the US.
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Thanks so much for this
Wow thanks for this resource!!
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Subscribed! Thanks!
I found this video for you
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This is a good one!
When I was learning it, any time I had some downtime, I would focus on an object and spell it out. Brushing your teeth? Spell out the toothpaste brand name. Commercial break on TV? Spell out the product they’re selling. Etc.
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Later that day…
“Confirmed approach via CGKD, Colgate G-Shock Kellogg’s Danone”
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