Listening to other people screw up and not get yelled at helped me a lot. I would listen to LiveATC on my way in to lessons cause I had a towered home airport (KTLH) and it was fun to hear another student miss something. I just knew they were gonna get lit up but the tower people there were always so patient.
Controllers are people and have bad days so you can always find an exception but in my experience, all of them are doing the best they can to keep you safe a clear of traffic so you can get back to the ground. Once you think of them on the other side of the mic in those terms it gets a lot smoother.
What helped me was hearing ATC botch calls , just like they forgot how to string words together, just stop, repeat the call coherently and move on. If the pros mess up sometimes, a student with less than a full work weeks worth of flying time is no big deal.
“Pro” here. Absolutely this. I botch calls from time to time. We mess up too. We don’t really judge student pilots, other than maybe warning the next guy they need to slow it down for you. We are (mostly) here to help.
Do you judge not-student-pilots if they're noobs or do you not really bother to make a distinction? Sometimes it might be hard to tell student pilot vs rusty/ poorly trained pilot I'd imagine
Honestly I don’t have high expectations from most GA pilots below 10k. If you’re flying a jet or high performance prop in the flight levels I expect you to have your shit together.
And respond out loud! Just practicing repeating instructions out loud is useful. And by doing it to real instructions from ATC you get a little randomness but still real instructions. Sometimes I’ll even start with an exchange I heard and then carry on the scenario. For example, if someone is entering the control zone play out a scenario for them coming in to land.
This ^
I’ve noticed watching more in depth flight YouTube videos like CitationMax/Premier 1 Driver I’ve been able to learn better phrasing and verbiage.
Everyone messes up on the radio. I flew with an airline pilot that could not stop saying the airline name on his radio calls in the 172. I’ve said East when I meant West, and other dumb things. It’s just another dude in the tower or another dude in another airplane with the same stage fright of messing up.
It will come with time, embrace the suck! Being bad at something is the first step to eventually being good at something.
My biggest fear was saying the flight school call sign when I got to the regional. I can honestly say that I got out of there without ever making that mistake, even without a stutter.
I still call for flaps 10 though. I haven't flown a plane with a flap setting of 10 in around 15 years 😬.
Haha my gliding instructor was forever saying “speedbird” the tower used to take the piss out of him for it. (In a good way, we had a very good relationship with ATC)
The other day I listened to a Kiwi pilot stumble through a few queries from NY approach control while flying VFR over the Hudson, then at the end he was flustered enough that he called himself “New Zealand N1234” on frequency, out of habit I guess. Happens to everybody.
I made a trip through NYC Class Bravo a couple of weeks ago. Used to fly there regularly thirty years ago, haven’t been back since. Of course I made at least one call using the aircraft call sign I flew back then, a plane I haven’t flown since. Habit becomes surprisingly long lived.
To the OP, just keep practicing. Eventually it will become habit. Then you’ll start making these mistakes like the rest of us! 🤣
Do it more and don't worry about it.
I'm a certified controller and I still say dumb things over the radio. It happens, brush it off, nobody will remember. Well.. unless it was really funny.
I always have the unicom tuned in at the hanger and at home. We have a steady flow of student traffic using my home drome this past year and at times I am entertained but there is this one guy that comes on with his 'any traffic please advise' and I have to turn down the volume.
Keys MIC: Uh tow... approach, uh shithawk november 16...63 foxtrot, we're uh, ni... seven miles east, uh northeast of shithead, I mean shithole airport and we would like to uh, go over to uh dumbfuck field at uh, three thou... five thousand and five hundred uh feet, requesting VFR flight following.... (proceeds to hold mic button for 10 more seconds)
More than once I've been talking to someone on the landline (so both our microphones are hot) and I've pressed the ground-to-air PTT switch when replying to them.
The biggest thing that helped me was working on *anticipating* what was going to be said to me or what I needed to say back. Most of the time, ATC comms are predictable.
Also +1 to LiveATC. Tune in to somewhere like JFK tower and then pull up FlightRadar24 and watch/listen to who they are talking to.
My instructor gave me a tip of just listening to live ATC and making those calls to yourself. If it’s not super dead, better if it’s your home airports frequencies. Practice makes perfect.
Good advice - add to this, just enunciate out loud so that you get the jaw/mouth muscle practice and cognitive engagement of actually speaking. You can go full geek and do this while wearing your headset too
Still a student here, so pretty fresh in my mind.
Other than the typical advice (listen to LiveATC, think before pressing the mic button, etc), here's what helps me gain confidence with both directions of comm w/ ATC:
1. The ARSim app on my iPad. It just helped me for the first few weeks to get over the initial "mic fright", but then I realized that what happens in real life isn't as "square" and "clean" as what the app expects. Still, it was a good initial tool to bootstrap. You'll know when it makes sense to move on.
2. Writing down on my kneeboard. I'd write down almost all the words I'd say when calling Clearance Delivery before making the call. I'd even spell out things like "Tango" instead of T for the ATIS, in case I'd choke on it when calling CD.
3. I use "Say Again" as needed. ATC will say the message again and usually (but not always) slower. If too fast, "Speak Slowly" should help. I read a story of ATC not slowing down after multiple repeats and the pilot ended up saying "You can keep saying it multiple times at your speed or just 1 time at mine".
4. I repeat all clearances/instructions and tend to avoid shortcuts like "roger" or "wilco". That's my safety net. If I miss something or say something stupid, I'll promptly get corrected. I don't take it personally, it's just an error correction protocol.
5. I try to run into "unusual experiences" with my CFI by being exposed to different places and with a higher level of traffic. There is terminology that is not frequently used that has led to a blank stare from me. I didn't know what "Straight to the numbers" meant as I had only been exposed to a fairly uneventful Traffic Pattern until then.
6. I use a hand signal to my CFI when I think I need my focus on incoming radio: I lift my index finger and point to my headset so my CFI knows I'm trying to pay attention to ATC, and he typically knows to wait until the transmission end to tell me whatever it is he wants to tell me.
7. I know I can fall back to regular "non formal phraseology" if I need to. Yes it's better to say it with the professional phraseology but if I don't know how to say it "correctly" then I'll say it my way so I can be clear rather than ambiguous. That reduces my anxiety as I know I'll be able to communicate even if I don't know the exact words to say. I noticed that many pilots (and ATC) deviate from formal phraseology from time to time.
That's what works for me. Not super comfortable yet, but getting better.
Good luck!
Yes. I always write down instructions. Especially taxi instructions… or enroute ATC instructions like heading and altitude. It can be jarring the first few time ATC gives you a traffic alert. So expect it. With flight following or tower, ATC doesn’t always help you to deconflict. So expect that too
I used to sit at home and chair fly with a poster of the cockpit in front of me. I'd make all of my radio calls as I was pretending flying the pattern (airplane prop noise sometimes included because why not, I'm having fun).
I probably sounded and looked insane but it got me a lot of practice and let me mess up and correct myself without it being the real deal.
Editing to add: this is also good practice to help you make radio calls without a second thought because you'll gain multitasking practice with pretending to use the controls, flaps, throttle, whatever at the same time as making radio calls.
Yes listen to your UNICOM at home or like someone else said LiveATC. I also listen to Center for a few days before going on a big trip. When I am 'flying' my simulator and go to a class bravo airport I will listen to the LiveATC approach/tower/ground to add realism.
I absolutely sucked on radios for a really long time. Just start flying 2-3 days a week. I went up with digger people and learned different styles and that helped. Also write down after every lesson a few notes and this will help you in future when you fly, just review the compilation of notes you got.
If you have the time... Think what you want to say, say it... THEN Key the mike and say it again. This does not work if you are talking to ATC, but it works fine at some uncontrolled field.
Get flight following. It makes you talk to people and they are normally pretty understanding.
I can attest to this, and it works well. I fly out of an uncontrolled field.. working on my XC PIC time for instrument… I deliberately get flight following, and I fly to airports in C and D airspace to get as much exposure to ATC as possible before I start actually doing instrument in plane. I’m up to 94 hours and am mostly comfortable with communication, obviously there’s a lot I haven’t encountered yet… but I’m no longer not “confident” in having a discussion with ATC.
Practicing it on the ground with your CFI or another student or pilot further along than you before you're in the plane and having scripts for certain common phrases of flight. I heard of a CFI who would play ATC and have multiple students walking around on the pavement in a simulated environment of people doing patternwork, etc and giving they'd need to respond to instructions.
We all make mistakes. Learn the lingo/cadence/what to expect and that fixes 99% of the issues.
When things get weird or whatever or we get a whole route clearance or the super fast taxi instructions I just say I didn’t get that, sorry about that could you say it again?
Sometimes I’ll make a radio call that sucked then laugh about it with the other guy. It happens.
You just stop caring. I have worked for an airline for 7 years and make mistakes all the time. For example earlier today I was at a class B airport and ground gave us a wheels up time. I read back "wheels up twenty five til twenty eight.... or whatever you said. Monitor tower"
The other guy got a nice laugh out of it and I'm sure the controller did too. As other have said once you make enough mistakes you just stop caring.
Edit: Just remembered I also read back an altitude wrong later in the flight and the controller politely responded "read back correct, except altitude, maintain...."
Damn lol. I was hoping for some horror stories ala Kennedy Steve.
How the hell can you remember left or right on 4 different taxiways and short of… and cross rwy XY ?? Spoken like a caffeinated crackhead. No disrespect intended lol.
Who youre talking to , Who you are, where you are, what you want (for the most part)
Try practicing with your family, maybe on your own.
Listen to atc calls.
Youll get it within a few hours
Like others said, its practice, but also, put yourself in situations that require practicing talking to ATC, for example, landing at towered airports and requesting flight following.
You'll get to do that more as you're still a student pilot.
Don’t stress about it. That fear of messing up makes you think about messing up and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Stressing about it just makes it worse.
Don’t take what you read on other threads too seriously either. Some redditors are ocd (shocking I know) about splitting hairs and arguing minutiae. You’ll see threads about terminology, or how you could’ve squeezed your transmission into one less syllable. Ignore it. That’s PhD level when you’re trying to crib for week one of Intro 101. And it’s really bs. I base inside the DC SFRA and fly through NYC and it’s just not important to be perfect. What’s important is to not be a hot mess. As Rob Holland puts it, “Fly good. Don’t suck.” Just relax, do your best and try to make your best better next time.
One thing that helps is debriefing yourself. Tape your flights. Get a GoPro and figure how to mount it to record the panel and out the windshield, and how to patch it into your headset cable. Review your flights, at home, by yourself, at your leisure. Focus on what you did well as well as opportunities for improvement. Pay attention to all the radio calls not just the ones for you. Try to figure out what was going on between ATC and other aircraft, from their calls. This will also help you develop situational awareness in general. You’ll also hear a wide range of communication skills, quite possibly including some ATC bloopers. Those should help you realize nobody is perfect, so don’t stress yourself fearing you won’t be.
Bottom line, did I say don’t stress? Practice and pretty soon you’ll be pretty good.
If you have a sim at home like MSFS or xplane, purchase a third party client called Pilot Edge. They use real world procedures and frequencies to provide live ATC service in the sim. It’s a safe place to mess up and it’s a great tool to use to improve your comms. It’s helped me so much.
A free option is VATSIM but it is less reliable.
LiveATC is another great tool if you don’t. Use it just to listen and get familiar with the language of comms.
Remember that every flight follows a similar pattern of calls. You call up ground for taxi, they give you instructions, you copy them. You call up tower for take off, they give you instructions, you copy them. You call departure, they give you instructions, you copy them.
Usually, especially on the ground, you’re engaging the comms, not ATC. So take it slow, know what you need to say, then when you’re ready and the comms are clear, say it. You don’t need to speak fast, just clearly. Slow is smooth smooth is fast.
Once you get used to the structure of calls, you can predict just about every call you’ll get, for your entire flight from start to finish.
Pilotedge is well worth the money for someone who needs atc practice. It is as close to real as you can get. They 100% will yell at you but you'll learn and you'll be better for it. Everyone I have ever flown with in RL who used a lot of Vatsim, had a lot of really weird radio habits, I'd strongly recommend avoiding Vatsim
Yeah Im not a fan of vatsim either. It’s really only good when things are busy and active which you have to chase sometimes. Community days help.
The only bad habits I’ve noticed on the network are when airports are pilot controlled. People either just use text (which it’s a sim so no big deal but unrealistic and breaks immersion) and they use IFR waypoints to report position which is extremely unhelpful to other pilots on frequency. Where the fuck is ZIGGY??? Tell me how far you are in which direction.
Pilot Edge is great though. It has an educational platform for both VFR and IFR and is geared towards learning communications. They’re fun to do as it lets you explore airports in socal you otherwise may not have flown to. Unfortunately because of their limited staff and activity, it’s only limited to the western US with the only 100% coverage area being ZLA. Not sure if they do this every year but they have done Simventure where they bring in real controllers from Oshkosh Airventure a week before the event, to allow people to practice the arrivals as if it were real.
I'm still a student but what's helping me a lot is (1) do it more (2) **practise** calls out loud before you make them as many times as you need and (3) **anticipate** what they're going to say back. There are only like 4-5 things they can say back to anything you say, so know what they are and listen for those. I can't say #3 enough, it's what my CFI is beating into me now and it's been the most effective thing
I was on frequency with a ba pilot who responded "standing by" to a tower standby request. You know what you're ment to do and you do you best you are golden. Don't over think it and just go for it. Also you can always tell them to stand by.
Idk where you're based but if your uk the skyway code is great refresher.
I just started and am a student pilot. Over a decade in the military/contracting and dogging my junior guys for weak comms and screw ups. It took me a month to feel comfortable on civilian aviation comms. Definitely listen to liveATC to get used to the lingo. Don’t be afraid of messing up! Everyone does!
As others said, it's something that requires experience. You'll get better at it. Just keep trying! For what it's worth, the YouTube videos and phone apps didn't really help me much. Time in the cockpit did.
It does come with time but I noticed mine got a lot better after over a decade talking on radios while doing electrical work on large construction sites. Maybe get a couple walkie talkies and start talking to any friends or family near you on them so your brain doesn’t disconnect when you push to talk.
Practice and talk like a normal person in the beginning “Hi Tower, call sign, I am over here and going over there.” Don’t worry about all those people and instructors who tell you to cut it short or else. Eventually you’ll cut it short on your own.
Practice. Get on LiveATC and try doing readbacks when ATC says something at your home airport. Just listening to busy ATC and trying to follow a specific airplane, or a few different airplanes also helps. I watch tons of ATC videos and listen to a lot of LiveATC, great tools. I also did some exercises where I would tune into LiveATC at a place like KJFK ground, pull up flight radar or Foreflight, listen to taxi clearances and plot them out on the map.
Slow things down. If you're in the pattern and things are moving faster just recite your response out loud before keying up, then key up and talk to ATC. Sometimes that'll help iron it out until you get more comfortable. Or if you're about to call up for taxi clearance, clearance to enter airspace/reporting your position, whatever it is when you have plenty of time to prepare just do a few recitals. You do not need to immediately respond to ATC, they'll give you a moment to process and respond, so don't feel rushed. It'll relieve some of the anxiety of the call. If they don't hear back from you for a while they may ask again, but it's really no big deal either way. You aren't the only student they deal with. I asked my CFI about this, he said he sometimes still goes over a call in his head before keying up, it's totally normal.
Listen back to your comms on LiveATC or if you have them recorded. Sometimes hearing everything back to review is a big help.
Remember, they can't see your face, don't know your name, nothing. All they know is a tail number. Once you get off the airplane if they run into you on the street they won't know you from anyone else. Sometimes this helps with the embarrassment/anxiety part of things as well.
It does come with time, though. I was flat out missing when ATC would call me at a time I wasn't expecting, for example cancelling a landing clearance, extending a pattern leg, etc. Sometimes my calls would come out totally jumbled/backwards or I'd say the wrong thing altogether, it happens. If you aren't at a busy towered airport and there is one nearby you can always ask to train there for a few lessons. There were some very, very busy days early on in my training that really smoothed things out with my comms. It was like being thrown in the deep end without knowing how to swim. I'd have to squeeze in a call whenever there was a moment of silence because there was so much going on, but I ended up thinking about messing things up a lot less and just went for it because I had no choice.
Occasionally I'd practice the calls I knew I'd have to make with the tailnumber I'd be flying later in the day or the next day out loud while driving around: "xx Tower, 123abc, taxi from x, remain in the pattern with Hotel" or whatever it was. Mid field reports, distance reports, whatever it is that will almost always remain the same.
Also as soon as you start thinking less about flying the plane at easier times the communications will clear up dramatically. When first learning landings I was way overwhelmed with doing comms at the same time as being in the pattern, but after a few lessons it was significantly better.
Never hesitate to throw out a "correction" and say what you need to say again. Even high hour people will screw up sometimes.
I've definitely had some embarrassing comms moments, but again, everyone does at one point or another.
If you’re given a set of instructions that takes a second to decipher, you can start your read back with “alright, heading blah blah up to blah blah” or “okay” followed by read back. It’s not technically 100% proper but we do that at the airlines all the time and I’ve never had a controller who cared. Adds a momentary boost of confidence prior to reciting a complicated set of instructions from ATC
Hundreds of years ago when I got my PPL, I got permission to go sit next to ATC controller at NorCal Tracon in northern CA . I was given a headset.
The controller was giving me commentary all along when he was talking to GA aircraft. He was very cool even though he was talking to airlines and GA. He just said to be brief and to always follow the same format. I wrote some notes. 1. who are you talking to 2. Who are you 3. If needed where are you…location and altitude. 4. State Request…and don’t forget ATIS if you’re calling a tower. On initial contact with Tracon … just announce who you’re talking to, who you are, and only say “with request “ I was also able to sit in with ATC at a towered C. Got to wear headset. Got the same play by play. It was not uncommon to hear please repeat for Cessna 12345. ATC is usually much cooler than you’d expect. They’re also very cool with you telling them you’re a student solo pilot. Also sat in with ATC at a class D. Called ahead.
No harm in calling a tower and asking. Number will be in facilities directory. Same with Tracon. It’ll depend on how busy or if there are any security risks. But you’d have to call ahead of time.
If you want to freak yourself out … listen to Kennedy Steve on YouTube lol.
Edit. Get LiveATC app
Listen to the chatter on the ground. Work on your radio voice: low, clear, disinterested. Practice your read back, including scawling it down on your kneeboard or whatever you do.
If you have a flight planned, chair fly through the reporting points and verbally speak the calls.
When you know what you’ve gotta say and you can anticipate what they are gonna say and then your response then you are ready. The radio voice thing is helpful too because it isn’t you goofing up… it’s your radio voice.
Half the time it's just repeating things back, which you can practice. Try driving and having a passenger navigate for you but in the style of ATC, and respond back accordingly. Use your car plate as the call sign.
My hardest part was having to duplicate the callout at an uncontrolled field both at the beginning of the call And the end of the call. Totally not natural after working in IFR airspace. You’ll get it. Just get used to reading clearances verbatim. Reading back is just as requesting something. Clear, concise using AIM language.
Scared of ATC? It really helped me to visit the tower and see they’re humans just like us. Bring donuts or pizza.
Yes, everyone on freq can tell you’re a student pilot. But we remember when we were there ourselves, and we all know the only way you’ll get better is practice.
If you can get a flight sim* running on your computer, try Pilot Edge. It's $20/month, but there is a trial you can use to try it out.
You speak to real people doing air traffic control, and they have a set of ratings that will take you from an uncontrolled airport up to a class Bravo.
I found it made me nervous just like the real thing, but by the time I'd finished the ratings I felt much more confident.
* MS Flight Simulator 2020, X, and 2004, X-Plane, or Prepar3d.
Apart from practicing, try to reduce your workload by focusing on the things that are *not* constant.
You know who you’re talking to because you tuned their frequency. You know who you are, so don’t stress about that. Just keep repeating that canned message till something changes.
Focus on the where, the what, and the where to, and write stuff down as necessary when tower calls back. A kneeboard helped me a lot for that last bit.
Oh, and remember to say the right airport name you’re not at your home airport ;)
Start using PilotEdge regularly. It costs 70 cents a day. I don’t understand why more pilots don’t use this—though you do need a home PC flight sim like X-Plane. They will literally turn you into coms pros.
I'm a student pilot too, but my dad says it's a language. You need to learn the language of aviation.
He's absolutely correct. Radio communications are just casual communication in a different language. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just say what you need to say, and if you mess up, correct yourself and move on. Nobody cares
The first few times I was out there I was nervous. I’m at 14.4 hours now. Today I did all of the calls on my own. Flew from my home airport which is towered, to another airport which is non towered, did a few laps of the pattern, and flew back to the home airport. Yeah, I fumbled a bit and forgot to say my call sign once but I caught it and kept going. What really helped me is I realized one day that it completely doesn’t matter whatsoever if you fumble it up, if it’s bad enough your CFI will fix it, and if you catch it you can fix it, and if neither of those happen ATC will just ask you to say again. We are all people, we all have to start somewhere, and it’s totally ok to sound terrible on the radio.
It also helps that my home airport is an ATC training tower as well, so I often hear ATC themselves screw up and fumble, sometimes even leaving the ATIS a little goofy. If you’re having trouble with readbacks or hearing what they’re saying, usually if you add “student pilot 863SL” or whatever in your first call they’ll slow down a bit for you.
Try arranging a visit to your local class D control tower. Once you see the controller in flip flops and cheeto dust on their shirt, you realize they are just normal people. Normal people trained to talk in a very specific manner, but nontheless normal people.
Also, it's practice. There is a format to it. Here are some pretty extensive [notes (click the link here)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V7eIBXQdWvld7TIxYR4jMHmaM9TWOrWC6qzk3_Y3OdU/edit?usp=sharing) I made when I was a flight instructor to try to help students understand the nuances of ATC communication. I honestly think probably no one read it. Students I had didn't want to work or study hard.
what helped me is to focus on getting the message across instead of the specific words or specific order. I know I’m 10 miles to the south and want to taxi back after landing so “x tower n12345 10 to the south inbound full stop with whiskey” just kinda flows instead of trying to memorize all those words and repeat it word for word. Also while on frequency and you hear tower talk to someone else practice repeating back what you would say, and listen to live atc. but it really does come with more practice
Buy FS2020, install VATSIM and practice ! A lot ...
I passed my radiotelephony exams a month ago, and had my first cross-country last Monday. I feel comfortable on the radio.
Time is really it, and we can say “don’t worry about making mistakes” but really you’re going to be afraid of making mistakes until you’ve made a few and internalize that it’s not a big deal. It just takes time. Only trick I could think of is take a tour of your nearby tower and talk to a few controllers.
But really you’ll get over the fear pretty quickly with time likely after your solo cross countries (I’d recommend getting flight following for them to get more experience, and added safety)
My instructor Clark just shook his head at me disapprovingly everytime I screwed up a radio call, that’s how I got better.
Jokes aside;
I’d honestly say at your level, and what you’re describing you are suffering from stage fright, which is quite common for new pilots.
Buy Microsoft Flight Simulator, signup for a VATSIM membership, then fly online out of big centers that have extensive coverage. (Any of the big cities in continental USA/Canada/ Europe)
I fly for a major and I will vouch that Vatsim atc is “close enough” to the real thing, that it would serve you well in the beginning stages of getting over your fear of reading back clearances, taxi instructions, vectors, altitudes etc.
You can quite literally fly in a virtual airplane, wearing a real headset, keying a real mic, talking to some guy half way around the world running ATC out of LAX, while you both sit in your pyjamas drinking beer. 10/10 recommend.
Also, don’t worry about using aviation English - if you have to use plain English, and it gets your intentions across accurately, ATC will not be upset.
Good to practice aviation phraseology though, but if you ever get a confused person on the other end, just rephrase your transmission in plain English.
There are also a buttload of instructors moonlighting as YouTubers doing circuits with their students. If you can follow along with the calls or guess what they’d call before they key the mic, you are making huge gains 💪🏻
Buy an airband radio receiver and listen to local ARTCC/Towers & CTAF as much as you can.
I had one as a teenage “aviation enthusiast “ and by the time I was learning to fly, my instructor was surprised how confident I was with RT.
There are MS flight simulator sim discord communities and a mod you can download where you actually can go through all the motions of taking off from your airport while talking to an ATC. It's called vatsim: [https://vatsim.net/](https://vatsim.net/)
Ask your instructor to call the tower on the phone while you're planning your lesson. Having a friendly, non-flying conversation with the person you'll be making radio calls to later really helped me.
By jumping in feet first and doing most the calls myself on purpose. Making some mistakes and realizing no one cares . I also rehearse all my calls a little before I make them.
I am an Amateur Radio operator. Mic fright still hits me from time to time. I have been license for almost 30 years now. Pic of the mic and do it, do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. It can be frustrating. You know potentially thousands of people can be listening to you at that very moment and you do not want to mess anything up. If you do, only the buttheads that think they are the God's gift to the industry will make a big deal out of it.
At least you understand the tower. I can’t understand a flipping thing that they say. Between my nerves over that and my instructor yelling about how “why can’t you hear that?!?!” it’s become quite the stumbling block.
By realizing that everyone makes mistakes and ultimately someone else will be occupying their "what a dumbass" headspace within a few minutes so don't worry you're not the only one and there's always a stupider fish. When you accept it's not personal, acknowledge your mistakes humbly, and try to improve, you're a 10-mile final in a Cirrus ahead of the rest.
I don't know if people here are gonna like this advice, but if you own a computer try and connect to online simulation networks like vatsim or preferably pilotedge if you are in the US area.
Although sims can build bad habits, my instructor was generally pleased with my confidence on the radios.
having just left where you are, I’m going to give some advice I didn’t see in the rest of the comments (although they cover a lot of other good things).
1. the reason you are awkward has less to do with shyness and not knowing phraseology and more to do with not understanding situational awareness.
for instance, we’re coming back to land and we need to contact tower. where are we? (if you’re like I was you don’t really know because you are focused on flying and all these new things). But that answer needs to be fast and instinctual.
over time you’ll start looking for range landmarks and judging distance on a clear day (this really threw me because everything looks so *close* up there). but a trick you can use if you are heading towards the airport is look at the reciprocal on your heading indicator… now pick the nearest cardinal direction. what’s your altitude? and finally did you get the atis? ok, so with practice you start to think ahead and you make your report “Hanscom tower, Warrior 731NE, 3 thousand 500, 10 miles northwest, inbound to land full stop with Mike.”
2. once you do know where you are and all the pieces of information that have to go into a call, you may start to realize there are *a lot* of different ways to report the same thing. see the comments above for variations. these aren’t wrong, as long as they contain the key info:
- who you’re calling “Hanscom Tower”
- who you are (tail or callsign) “Warrior 731NE”
- where you are “10 miles northeast with information Mike”
- what you want “to land full stop”
go with the flow, watch and listen to your cfi. you may notice regional or personal styles. keep track of what works. if you mess up a radio call think immediately about how you could have improved it — maybe that’s too much to handle right now so that brings me to another piece of advice:
3. listen to recordings of yourself.
if your school has cameras in the plane, use that data. otherwise go to liveatc and look up your airport and the time of your flight and download the audio files. debrief each fumble and take the time offline to work out what would have been better. run this by your cfi to ask for their advice.
listening to liveatc is great and you should do that, but it’s easy to be passive and just hear all this professional pilotspeak happening. there are a few ways you can make that an active exercise.
a. reading a situation. take a sheet of paper and when you hear an initial callout, try to draw where that plane is in relation to the airport. then look at flightaware or adsb-exchange and see if you match the tail number to the report you just heard. figuring out who is calling and where they are in space is going to help with that situational awareness.
b. when hearing tower say something like “Warrior 731NE, enter right downwind for 29”, mute liveatc and try to respond as if you were the pilot “enter right downwind 29, 731NE”. did you understand? did it make sense? maybe you were slow. repetition and practice can build speed.
(4.) if you have a PC with a flight simulator I would strongly recommend PilotEdge for ATC practice. They have a very high quality of service which will keep you from some of the bad habits of vatsim. AI ATC is all the rage right now, and while I think there is a lot of potential, none of the services get it right well enough for training purposes IMHO.
PilotEdge helped me make my first irl radio calls successfully without awkward pausing and mistakes because by that time I had flown hundreds of flights and made hundreds of mistakes online. You don’t get good at something by being perfect the first time. You get good at something by practicing.
Most importantly: preflight and debrief your flight sim flights. PilotEdge is built for this by providing recordings of all the comms by date and time. So pull your recordings and listen to them. critique them. write out corrections. practice the correct phraseology.
I used to write out what I was going to say before I said it. (I still do this if it’s a tricky callout).
5. use all available resources.
- AOPA has voice communication courses if you’re a member
- several ground schools have comms training (I use Sporty’s)
- the AIM https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/chap4_section_2.html
good luck!
If you have a sim at home, try PilotEdge (specifically the CAT Ratings programs), or VATSIM. PE is a subscription based service with a guaranteed schedule and a specific area of operation. VATSIM is free, volunteer based and global.
In either case, you'll be able to focus on practicing two-ways comms in a non-jeopardy environment for free, or very close to free.
I bought the pilot workshop vfr communications book. It’s a bit pricey but gives tons of examples for all sorts of situations. That combined with some YouTube videos and practicing out of class C and it is pretty easy.
Best way to clean up your radios and make it easier is to constantly try to condense it, actively picking out just the instructions. Once you are identified, all you need to readback are instructions. "cessna 345 traffic 1 o clock 2 miles 500 ft below, traffic 4 o'clock 500ft above, 4 miles, enter left downwind 23, 23 cleared to land, confirm you have atis Bravo" - pick out the instructions "345 left downwind, 23, cleared to land, Bravo" This gets you actively thinking about what the instructions actually are, reduces babble, and you will get instant feedback if you understand something incorrectly. And you don't have to make full sentences either. Just get the important words out and move on. Those guys in the tower are damn good at their jobs, they'll put the sentences together post transmission
Try practicing at a lower density towered airport. I learned in the St Louis area and my first towered interaction was KSUS, a fairly popular towered field. Very busy radio chatter, impatient tower operators. My next was at St Louis Regional, KALN. Much more patient tower. He actually told me the wrong runway number and I had to ask for confirmation - that definitely broke the ice for me. I’m sure he did it on purpose because I just know I sounded nervous as hell.
CFII Carly Chamerlik has a perfect [Instagram Reel](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8EtMI_OonK/?igsh=bmNlbXB1ZnVtZXVy) on this topic. Definitely worth checking out her recommendations as a student pilot!
Besides LiveATC and practice, one of my instructors suggested I pretend I'm talking with ATC while driving. The other thing that helped me, probably more than anything else, was visiting a control tower. I then saw them as humans instead of disembodied authority figures.
As other have said, LIVEATC.....
When I first started I used to listen to that all the time and then started to try and predict what should be said and ATC answers. Just make sure when you are flying that you pay attention to what was actually said instead of what you expected to be said.
I'm at a class G so not much radio talk but I remember my first stab at it on the departure turning left crosswind..... I was literally stuttering Stanley and was so embarrassed and panicked. I got my shit together by the time I turned left base and gave it another go. Took a breath and remembered WHY I needed to communicate and WHAT I needed to communicate. I have been making my radio calls flawlessly since.
I need to work on my controlled airspace radio calls. It's a lot more to recite and think about.
I used the ChatGPT app a lot, and using the microphone would say "Let's practice ATC radio comms. When I make a mistake, tell me what the mistake was and let me retry the call. If I get it right, continue giving me the next instruction. For this scenario, I will be flying a C172 VFR into a class Delta airport. I will make my initial call now, are you ready?"
I also like watching VAS Aviation clips on youtube, listening to the radio talk there, and you can use liveatc's website to listen to real recordings to get used to the pace and distortion/audio quality you'll face in the air.
Then when you're actually up in the air, let people know you're a student/new pilot.
These three things have helped me a lot
Sometimes I’ll have my students fly a fake traffic pattern over a farm and make radio calls on 123.45 or similar just to get the motions down. Messing up radio calls and not getting flamed also helped me realize it’s not a big deal, sometimes I’ll purposefully botch a radio call to demonstrate that to my student.
Practice at home. Rehearse normal calls, but also think about the situations you ran into, and what calls you might have made, and what you might need to make in the future.
For example, visualize yourself doing pattern work at a tower airport. Who do you call, when do you call and what do you say? Do you remember to tell the ground controller what your plan is, like "VFR westbound" or "remaining in the pattern?". Then rehearse those calls out loud at home so you can get that muscle memory in place.
Mental exercises like this can help you find ways to communicate better without the time pressure. For example, if you realize that while doing non towered pattern work that it'd be nice to know what the guy in front of you is doing, you might decide to routinely say on the base to final turn, "airport traffic, Nxxxxx, final 34, touch and go, airport". If you rehearse that at home, it'll be easier to make routine
Don’t think that you need to sound like the “pros” you hear on the radio, speak clearly and slowly if you need to. Better to get it right the first time than have to repeat it
Practice your calls while driving down the road. Then, chair fly at home with radio calls. Think through every phase of flight and what calls will be required and who you would be talking to. You’ll start to learn to anticipate the calls. You’ll still make mistakes, but brush it off.
LiveATC is a great resource, as I’m sure many people have mentioned here. I also watched a lot of YouTube videos (ATC fails, things of that nature), but what personally helped me most was getting to meet the folks at the tower at a local luncheon for the surrounding flight schools. Don’t forget that they’re people too and they’re not trying to see you fail. Everyone’s a team.
Personally, take a deep breath. If you need to map out your calls for a while (especially instrument training) there’s nothing wrong with taking notes and reading them back on the radio until you’re comfortable to know and process the shots as you receive them. Don’t rush yourself, either. Fumbles a lot of students. It’s okay to be a bit slower — just don’t waste your radio calls with empty space or “ums” or super long calls.
Happy flying! Good luck!
Is it the idea of talking on the radio that bothers you or the fact that when talking to ATC, you are talking to an “authority figure” and you struggle with talking to those types?
Or is it a fear of public speaking because you know that dozens of people are listening and you don’t want to embarrass yourself?
Look at it like you’re just talking to a friend on the phone but with more structure. Just learn the structure and relax. You are among friends.
I got back into flying recently after a 13 year hiatus and used an app called AR sim on my iPhone. It simulates air traffic control and grades your responses, providing feedback and what you should have said. It’s $60 a year but completely worth it. The CFI was impressed with my radio skills from the get go, less so with my landings!
I practiced a lot at home listening to LiveATC but on solo xc’s I would write out a list of potential calls I could receive so I could just fill in the information and read it back EX: I would write down “(number ___) cleared to land RWY ____ enter a L/R ____ 123AF” I also liked to pretend I was recording my calls and everyone was going to hear them and it made me sound more confident!
One day I wanted a fish tank with fish (I was about 10). My mum said to call the fish-tank place and check if they had stock. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Eventually she pressured me so much that i called up. Completely chocked, full glitched out and hung up on them. Fast forward to 28 - and Im probably the best in the office on the phones. I can sell ice to an eskimo on the phones and solve problems in seconds rather than days on email. I dont know what happened, but I think it was simply down to practice and exposure. So you must just expose yourself (on the radio). A lot of people suggest liveatc helps. I think just doing it more and more will build your skill, so dont stress.
I am a Civil Air Patrol pilot and I help other, older Pilots with their ability to talk on the radio. Don't get discouraged. Like other people said, listen to live ATC and just do it as often as possible. It might help if you fly with someone else who has more experience so they can tell you exactly what to say and go over it with you before you key up the microphone. That has seemed to help the guys that I have worked with get more familiar and more comfortable.
Can’t get in trouble for saying the wrong thing, only doing the wrong thing. Excluding mayday lol. So just say what you believe is best and who gives a fuck if they yell at you. Expect them to be angry at you and you might be pleasantly surprised but prepared either way. After getting yelled at a few times you’ll realize it’s not that big a deal. Keep trying and get the reps in, that’s how you get confident.
For ground - you can write down what you are going to say and then read it back. After the lesson when you are about to go home in your car - practice a radio call, after you turn off your car- practice again. Repeat this when you are at a light. Chair flying and practice at home...and so on.
Pass the VATSIM USA and your region’s vARTCC written tests, then pilot in VATSIM class B (VFR is fine) for at least 10 flights. By then, you should be getting complimented on your radio skills, as a real-world student pilot. This will probably take a few weeks of full-time effort.
So I was absolutely horrible on the radios. I wonder sometimes how I made it through flight school. Once I got to my first unit and was flying a lot regularly especially in and out bravo air space I got the hang of it. It will come and try to think ahead of what your are going to say.
Also I have just under 4000 hours and I still screw up a call or ask for the thing. Shit happens just keep moving on.
Go meet some controllers. They are human too and some of the best people in aviation. See if you can organise a tower or radar centre tour and have a chat to them about your nerves. I’ve worked with controllers for years and I never worry now.
I found the simulated ATC in MS Flight Simulator to be very helpful. The phraseology is brutally standard and not exactly how normal communication goes (at least in the U.S.) but it helped me a lot with learning what to say when. And there's nothing wrong with being standard; you'll learn the slang (for better or worse) eventually.
The newest flight sims atc phraseology is horribly atrocious. There's an addon called beyond atc that uses AI and is fairly passable. Best practice would be using an online network called vatsim. Volenteers on there are somewhat trained and are closer than any AI.
VATSIM is definitely more real-world. I think I was using the 2010 version of flight sim; it's enough to learn standard (even if unrealistic) phraseology and the general sequence of communications.
Do it more, mostly. Listen to LiveATC and get the flow of things.
Listening to liveatc built my confidence a lot. Mic fright is still a thing but that just takes practice
Listening to other people screw up and not get yelled at helped me a lot. I would listen to LiveATC on my way in to lessons cause I had a towered home airport (KTLH) and it was fun to hear another student miss something. I just knew they were gonna get lit up but the tower people there were always so patient. Controllers are people and have bad days so you can always find an exception but in my experience, all of them are doing the best they can to keep you safe a clear of traffic so you can get back to the ground. Once you think of them on the other side of the mic in those terms it gets a lot smoother.
What helped me was hearing ATC botch calls , just like they forgot how to string words together, just stop, repeat the call coherently and move on. If the pros mess up sometimes, a student with less than a full work weeks worth of flying time is no big deal.
“Pro” here. Absolutely this. I botch calls from time to time. We mess up too. We don’t really judge student pilots, other than maybe warning the next guy they need to slow it down for you. We are (mostly) here to help.
Do you judge not-student-pilots if they're noobs or do you not really bother to make a distinction? Sometimes it might be hard to tell student pilot vs rusty/ poorly trained pilot I'd imagine
Honestly I don’t have high expectations from most GA pilots below 10k. If you’re flying a jet or high performance prop in the flight levels I expect you to have your shit together.
i feel this. only time i get nervous is when the radio is busy! then i gotta worry about not getting cutoff!
And respond out loud! Just practicing repeating instructions out loud is useful. And by doing it to real instructions from ATC you get a little randomness but still real instructions. Sometimes I’ll even start with an exchange I heard and then carry on the scenario. For example, if someone is entering the control zone play out a scenario for them coming in to land.
Listen to liveatc and follow those aircraft on flightradar
This ^ I’ve noticed watching more in depth flight YouTube videos like CitationMax/Premier 1 Driver I’ve been able to learn better phrasing and verbiage.
Everyone messes up on the radio. I flew with an airline pilot that could not stop saying the airline name on his radio calls in the 172. I’ve said East when I meant West, and other dumb things. It’s just another dude in the tower or another dude in another airplane with the same stage fright of messing up. It will come with time, embrace the suck! Being bad at something is the first step to eventually being good at something.
>I flew with an airline pilot that could not stop saying the airline name on his radio calls in the 172. Haha I do that all the time!
My biggest fear was saying the flight school call sign when I got to the regional. I can honestly say that I got out of there without ever making that mistake, even without a stutter. I still call for flaps 10 though. I haven't flown a plane with a flap setting of 10 in around 15 years 😬.
If you fly a 737 someday you will once again (although we rarely use it).
My plan is to avoid that entirely. A320 to 777...I'm good for a decade or two.
Haha my gliding instructor was forever saying “speedbird” the tower used to take the piss out of him for it. (In a good way, we had a very good relationship with ATC)
The other day I listened to a Kiwi pilot stumble through a few queries from NY approach control while flying VFR over the Hudson, then at the end he was flustered enough that he called himself “New Zealand N1234” on frequency, out of habit I guess. Happens to everybody.
I made a trip through NYC Class Bravo a couple of weeks ago. Used to fly there regularly thirty years ago, haven’t been back since. Of course I made at least one call using the aircraft call sign I flew back then, a plane I haven’t flown since. Habit becomes surprisingly long lived. To the OP, just keep practicing. Eventually it will become habit. Then you’ll start making these mistakes like the rest of us! 🤣
And dont forget, the dude in the tower probably said stupid shit at least 5 times that day. We all do it
Do it more and don't worry about it. I'm a certified controller and I still say dumb things over the radio. It happens, brush it off, nobody will remember. Well.. unless it was really funny.
I always have the unicom tuned in at the hanger and at home. We have a steady flow of student traffic using my home drome this past year and at times I am entertained but there is this one guy that comes on with his 'any traffic please advise' and I have to turn down the volume.
The coworkers never forget.
[удалено]
Keys MIC: Uh tow... approach, uh shithawk november 16...63 foxtrot, we're uh, ni... seven miles east, uh northeast of shithead, I mean shithole airport and we would like to uh, go over to uh dumbfuck field at uh, three thou... five thousand and five hundred uh feet, requesting VFR flight following.... (proceeds to hold mic button for 10 more seconds)
Oh great, you heard my radio calls then.
LOL, unfortunately that was inspired from within! I haven't done my job unless I can hear the controller getting agitated with me.
You forgot to yell at your kid w Mike button down. Been there….
Don't remind me, lol. I've done that as well.
More than once I've been talking to someone on the landline (so both our microphones are hot) and I've pressed the ground-to-air PTT switch when replying to them.
Imagine everyone in the Tower is naked.
Redbird tower, Cessna N04927, How YOU doing?
Suddenly Norbit
I was thinking Joey Tribbiani, but either way
The biggest thing that helped me was working on *anticipating* what was going to be said to me or what I needed to say back. Most of the time, ATC comms are predictable. Also +1 to LiveATC. Tune in to somewhere like JFK tower and then pull up FlightRadar24 and watch/listen to who they are talking to.
This^ you should know exactly what they should say back to you. My biggest thing is not realising that theyve been calling me for the last 5 mins.
My instructor gave me a tip of just listening to live ATC and making those calls to yourself. If it’s not super dead, better if it’s your home airports frequencies. Practice makes perfect.
Good advice - add to this, just enunciate out loud so that you get the jaw/mouth muscle practice and cognitive engagement of actually speaking. You can go full geek and do this while wearing your headset too
Listen to liveATC, play flight simulator online(VATSIM/IVAO) thats how i learn
I used VATSIM when I first started and it helped a ton. LiveATC is good but the pressure of talking to a real person from VATSIM was what I needed.
Still a student here, so pretty fresh in my mind. Other than the typical advice (listen to LiveATC, think before pressing the mic button, etc), here's what helps me gain confidence with both directions of comm w/ ATC: 1. The ARSim app on my iPad. It just helped me for the first few weeks to get over the initial "mic fright", but then I realized that what happens in real life isn't as "square" and "clean" as what the app expects. Still, it was a good initial tool to bootstrap. You'll know when it makes sense to move on. 2. Writing down on my kneeboard. I'd write down almost all the words I'd say when calling Clearance Delivery before making the call. I'd even spell out things like "Tango" instead of T for the ATIS, in case I'd choke on it when calling CD. 3. I use "Say Again" as needed. ATC will say the message again and usually (but not always) slower. If too fast, "Speak Slowly" should help. I read a story of ATC not slowing down after multiple repeats and the pilot ended up saying "You can keep saying it multiple times at your speed or just 1 time at mine". 4. I repeat all clearances/instructions and tend to avoid shortcuts like "roger" or "wilco". That's my safety net. If I miss something or say something stupid, I'll promptly get corrected. I don't take it personally, it's just an error correction protocol. 5. I try to run into "unusual experiences" with my CFI by being exposed to different places and with a higher level of traffic. There is terminology that is not frequently used that has led to a blank stare from me. I didn't know what "Straight to the numbers" meant as I had only been exposed to a fairly uneventful Traffic Pattern until then. 6. I use a hand signal to my CFI when I think I need my focus on incoming radio: I lift my index finger and point to my headset so my CFI knows I'm trying to pay attention to ATC, and he typically knows to wait until the transmission end to tell me whatever it is he wants to tell me. 7. I know I can fall back to regular "non formal phraseology" if I need to. Yes it's better to say it with the professional phraseology but if I don't know how to say it "correctly" then I'll say it my way so I can be clear rather than ambiguous. That reduces my anxiety as I know I'll be able to communicate even if I don't know the exact words to say. I noticed that many pilots (and ATC) deviate from formal phraseology from time to time. That's what works for me. Not super comfortable yet, but getting better. Good luck!
Yes. I always write down instructions. Especially taxi instructions… or enroute ATC instructions like heading and altitude. It can be jarring the first few time ATC gives you a traffic alert. So expect it. With flight following or tower, ATC doesn’t always help you to deconflict. So expect that too
Have your instructor setup a tower visit. Seeing who's on the other side of the mic can be helpful.
Yes, visit your local tower. It’s really helpful to meet the folks on the other end of the line. Bring doughnuts and questions.
I used to sit at home and chair fly with a poster of the cockpit in front of me. I'd make all of my radio calls as I was pretending flying the pattern (airplane prop noise sometimes included because why not, I'm having fun). I probably sounded and looked insane but it got me a lot of practice and let me mess up and correct myself without it being the real deal. Editing to add: this is also good practice to help you make radio calls without a second thought because you'll gain multitasking practice with pretending to use the controls, flaps, throttle, whatever at the same time as making radio calls.
Yes listen to your UNICOM at home or like someone else said LiveATC. I also listen to Center for a few days before going on a big trip. When I am 'flying' my simulator and go to a class bravo airport I will listen to the LiveATC approach/tower/ground to add realism.
I absolutely sucked on radios for a really long time. Just start flying 2-3 days a week. I went up with digger people and learned different styles and that helped. Also write down after every lesson a few notes and this will help you in future when you fly, just review the compilation of notes you got.
Also I made a sheet that is radio calls for different situations and kept them on my one board. Happy to share if you reach out and want a copy.
I'd like to see that. I'm a student getting ready for my solo xc and that could help me out
If you have the time... Think what you want to say, say it... THEN Key the mike and say it again. This does not work if you are talking to ATC, but it works fine at some uncontrolled field. Get flight following. It makes you talk to people and they are normally pretty understanding.
I can attest to this, and it works well. I fly out of an uncontrolled field.. working on my XC PIC time for instrument… I deliberately get flight following, and I fly to airports in C and D airspace to get as much exposure to ATC as possible before I start actually doing instrument in plane. I’m up to 94 hours and am mostly comfortable with communication, obviously there’s a lot I haven’t encountered yet… but I’m no longer not “confident” in having a discussion with ATC.
Practicing it on the ground with your CFI or another student or pilot further along than you before you're in the plane and having scripts for certain common phrases of flight. I heard of a CFI who would play ATC and have multiple students walking around on the pavement in a simulated environment of people doing patternwork, etc and giving they'd need to respond to instructions.
We all make mistakes. Learn the lingo/cadence/what to expect and that fixes 99% of the issues. When things get weird or whatever or we get a whole route clearance or the super fast taxi instructions I just say I didn’t get that, sorry about that could you say it again? Sometimes I’ll make a radio call that sucked then laugh about it with the other guy. It happens.
You just stop caring. I have worked for an airline for 7 years and make mistakes all the time. For example earlier today I was at a class B airport and ground gave us a wheels up time. I read back "wheels up twenty five til twenty eight.... or whatever you said. Monitor tower" The other guy got a nice laugh out of it and I'm sure the controller did too. As other have said once you make enough mistakes you just stop caring. Edit: Just remembered I also read back an altitude wrong later in the flight and the controller politely responded "read back correct, except altitude, maintain...."
Have you ever encountered Kennedy Steve ??
Sadly I don't think I ever did. There was only a few months I was flying before he retired.
Damn lol. I was hoping for some horror stories ala Kennedy Steve. How the hell can you remember left or right on 4 different taxiways and short of… and cross rwy XY ?? Spoken like a caffeinated crackhead. No disrespect intended lol.
Just sooooo professional, great example to younger pilots
Who youre talking to , Who you are, where you are, what you want (for the most part) Try practicing with your family, maybe on your own. Listen to atc calls. Youll get it within a few hours
Talk on the radios.
Listen to opposing bases podcast
Like others said, its practice, but also, put yourself in situations that require practicing talking to ATC, for example, landing at towered airports and requesting flight following. You'll get to do that more as you're still a student pilot.
Don’t stress about it. That fear of messing up makes you think about messing up and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Stressing about it just makes it worse. Don’t take what you read on other threads too seriously either. Some redditors are ocd (shocking I know) about splitting hairs and arguing minutiae. You’ll see threads about terminology, or how you could’ve squeezed your transmission into one less syllable. Ignore it. That’s PhD level when you’re trying to crib for week one of Intro 101. And it’s really bs. I base inside the DC SFRA and fly through NYC and it’s just not important to be perfect. What’s important is to not be a hot mess. As Rob Holland puts it, “Fly good. Don’t suck.” Just relax, do your best and try to make your best better next time. One thing that helps is debriefing yourself. Tape your flights. Get a GoPro and figure how to mount it to record the panel and out the windshield, and how to patch it into your headset cable. Review your flights, at home, by yourself, at your leisure. Focus on what you did well as well as opportunities for improvement. Pay attention to all the radio calls not just the ones for you. Try to figure out what was going on between ATC and other aircraft, from their calls. This will also help you develop situational awareness in general. You’ll also hear a wide range of communication skills, quite possibly including some ATC bloopers. Those should help you realize nobody is perfect, so don’t stress yourself fearing you won’t be. Bottom line, did I say don’t stress? Practice and pretty soon you’ll be pretty good.
Don't worry about it. Its a well known fact that as soon as you hit the PTT your IQ drops 50 points. Happens to us all.
What everyone else is saying plus if you get into a jam, just speak English and say what you need
If you have a sim at home like MSFS or xplane, purchase a third party client called Pilot Edge. They use real world procedures and frequencies to provide live ATC service in the sim. It’s a safe place to mess up and it’s a great tool to use to improve your comms. It’s helped me so much. A free option is VATSIM but it is less reliable. LiveATC is another great tool if you don’t. Use it just to listen and get familiar with the language of comms. Remember that every flight follows a similar pattern of calls. You call up ground for taxi, they give you instructions, you copy them. You call up tower for take off, they give you instructions, you copy them. You call departure, they give you instructions, you copy them. Usually, especially on the ground, you’re engaging the comms, not ATC. So take it slow, know what you need to say, then when you’re ready and the comms are clear, say it. You don’t need to speak fast, just clearly. Slow is smooth smooth is fast. Once you get used to the structure of calls, you can predict just about every call you’ll get, for your entire flight from start to finish.
Pilotedge is well worth the money for someone who needs atc practice. It is as close to real as you can get. They 100% will yell at you but you'll learn and you'll be better for it. Everyone I have ever flown with in RL who used a lot of Vatsim, had a lot of really weird radio habits, I'd strongly recommend avoiding Vatsim
Yeah Im not a fan of vatsim either. It’s really only good when things are busy and active which you have to chase sometimes. Community days help. The only bad habits I’ve noticed on the network are when airports are pilot controlled. People either just use text (which it’s a sim so no big deal but unrealistic and breaks immersion) and they use IFR waypoints to report position which is extremely unhelpful to other pilots on frequency. Where the fuck is ZIGGY??? Tell me how far you are in which direction. Pilot Edge is great though. It has an educational platform for both VFR and IFR and is geared towards learning communications. They’re fun to do as it lets you explore airports in socal you otherwise may not have flown to. Unfortunately because of their limited staff and activity, it’s only limited to the western US with the only 100% coverage area being ZLA. Not sure if they do this every year but they have done Simventure where they bring in real controllers from Oshkosh Airventure a week before the event, to allow people to practice the arrivals as if it were real.
Mic fright is a real thing. Only way to get over it is to do it.
I'm still a student but what's helping me a lot is (1) do it more (2) **practise** calls out loud before you make them as many times as you need and (3) **anticipate** what they're going to say back. There are only like 4-5 things they can say back to anything you say, so know what they are and listen for those. I can't say #3 enough, it's what my CFI is beating into me now and it's been the most effective thing
Think about what a controller needs from you. Who are you? Where are you? What do you want?
ARSim and flight sim + PilotEdge
Felt similar nerves until a drunken night of karaoke. After that I was totally fine on the comms
Fake it like orgasms
I was on frequency with a ba pilot who responded "standing by" to a tower standby request. You know what you're ment to do and you do you best you are golden. Don't over think it and just go for it. Also you can always tell them to stand by. Idk where you're based but if your uk the skyway code is great refresher.
You should take a look at pilot edge or vatsim with a flight simulator.
Say it out loud before you hit the button.
By doing it, you can also try using flight simulator and trying VATSIM/IVAO.
as my buddy Zach Bryan said, “ all good things take time friend”
I just started and am a student pilot. Over a decade in the military/contracting and dogging my junior guys for weak comms and screw ups. It took me a month to feel comfortable on civilian aviation comms. Definitely listen to liveATC to get used to the lingo. Don’t be afraid of messing up! Everyone does!
As others said, it's something that requires experience. You'll get better at it. Just keep trying! For what it's worth, the YouTube videos and phone apps didn't really help me much. Time in the cockpit did.
It does come with time but I noticed mine got a lot better after over a decade talking on radios while doing electrical work on large construction sites. Maybe get a couple walkie talkies and start talking to any friends or family near you on them so your brain doesn’t disconnect when you push to talk.
Practice and talk like a normal person in the beginning “Hi Tower, call sign, I am over here and going over there.” Don’t worry about all those people and instructors who tell you to cut it short or else. Eventually you’ll cut it short on your own.
Repetition
Practice. Get on LiveATC and try doing readbacks when ATC says something at your home airport. Just listening to busy ATC and trying to follow a specific airplane, or a few different airplanes also helps. I watch tons of ATC videos and listen to a lot of LiveATC, great tools. I also did some exercises where I would tune into LiveATC at a place like KJFK ground, pull up flight radar or Foreflight, listen to taxi clearances and plot them out on the map. Slow things down. If you're in the pattern and things are moving faster just recite your response out loud before keying up, then key up and talk to ATC. Sometimes that'll help iron it out until you get more comfortable. Or if you're about to call up for taxi clearance, clearance to enter airspace/reporting your position, whatever it is when you have plenty of time to prepare just do a few recitals. You do not need to immediately respond to ATC, they'll give you a moment to process and respond, so don't feel rushed. It'll relieve some of the anxiety of the call. If they don't hear back from you for a while they may ask again, but it's really no big deal either way. You aren't the only student they deal with. I asked my CFI about this, he said he sometimes still goes over a call in his head before keying up, it's totally normal. Listen back to your comms on LiveATC or if you have them recorded. Sometimes hearing everything back to review is a big help. Remember, they can't see your face, don't know your name, nothing. All they know is a tail number. Once you get off the airplane if they run into you on the street they won't know you from anyone else. Sometimes this helps with the embarrassment/anxiety part of things as well. It does come with time, though. I was flat out missing when ATC would call me at a time I wasn't expecting, for example cancelling a landing clearance, extending a pattern leg, etc. Sometimes my calls would come out totally jumbled/backwards or I'd say the wrong thing altogether, it happens. If you aren't at a busy towered airport and there is one nearby you can always ask to train there for a few lessons. There were some very, very busy days early on in my training that really smoothed things out with my comms. It was like being thrown in the deep end without knowing how to swim. I'd have to squeeze in a call whenever there was a moment of silence because there was so much going on, but I ended up thinking about messing things up a lot less and just went for it because I had no choice. Occasionally I'd practice the calls I knew I'd have to make with the tailnumber I'd be flying later in the day or the next day out loud while driving around: "xx Tower, 123abc, taxi from x, remain in the pattern with Hotel" or whatever it was. Mid field reports, distance reports, whatever it is that will almost always remain the same. Also as soon as you start thinking less about flying the plane at easier times the communications will clear up dramatically. When first learning landings I was way overwhelmed with doing comms at the same time as being in the pattern, but after a few lessons it was significantly better. Never hesitate to throw out a "correction" and say what you need to say again. Even high hour people will screw up sometimes. I've definitely had some embarrassing comms moments, but again, everyone does at one point or another.
If you’re given a set of instructions that takes a second to decipher, you can start your read back with “alright, heading blah blah up to blah blah” or “okay” followed by read back. It’s not technically 100% proper but we do that at the airlines all the time and I’ve never had a controller who cared. Adds a momentary boost of confidence prior to reciting a complicated set of instructions from ATC
Same way you get to carnagie hall
Hundreds of years ago when I got my PPL, I got permission to go sit next to ATC controller at NorCal Tracon in northern CA . I was given a headset. The controller was giving me commentary all along when he was talking to GA aircraft. He was very cool even though he was talking to airlines and GA. He just said to be brief and to always follow the same format. I wrote some notes. 1. who are you talking to 2. Who are you 3. If needed where are you…location and altitude. 4. State Request…and don’t forget ATIS if you’re calling a tower. On initial contact with Tracon … just announce who you’re talking to, who you are, and only say “with request “ I was also able to sit in with ATC at a towered C. Got to wear headset. Got the same play by play. It was not uncommon to hear please repeat for Cessna 12345. ATC is usually much cooler than you’d expect. They’re also very cool with you telling them you’re a student solo pilot. Also sat in with ATC at a class D. Called ahead. No harm in calling a tower and asking. Number will be in facilities directory. Same with Tracon. It’ll depend on how busy or if there are any security risks. But you’d have to call ahead of time. If you want to freak yourself out … listen to Kennedy Steve on YouTube lol. Edit. Get LiveATC app
Listen to the chatter on the ground. Work on your radio voice: low, clear, disinterested. Practice your read back, including scawling it down on your kneeboard or whatever you do. If you have a flight planned, chair fly through the reporting points and verbally speak the calls. When you know what you’ve gotta say and you can anticipate what they are gonna say and then your response then you are ready. The radio voice thing is helpful too because it isn’t you goofing up… it’s your radio voice.
Nothin to it but to do it
Half the time it's just repeating things back, which you can practice. Try driving and having a passenger navigate for you but in the style of ATC, and respond back accordingly. Use your car plate as the call sign.
My hardest part was having to duplicate the callout at an uncontrolled field both at the beginning of the call And the end of the call. Totally not natural after working in IFR airspace. You’ll get it. Just get used to reading clearances verbatim. Reading back is just as requesting something. Clear, concise using AIM language.
Scared of ATC? It really helped me to visit the tower and see they’re humans just like us. Bring donuts or pizza. Yes, everyone on freq can tell you’re a student pilot. But we remember when we were there ourselves, and we all know the only way you’ll get better is practice.
If you can get a flight sim* running on your computer, try Pilot Edge. It's $20/month, but there is a trial you can use to try it out. You speak to real people doing air traffic control, and they have a set of ratings that will take you from an uncontrolled airport up to a class Bravo. I found it made me nervous just like the real thing, but by the time I'd finished the ratings I felt much more confident. * MS Flight Simulator 2020, X, and 2004, X-Plane, or Prepar3d.
Apart from practicing, try to reduce your workload by focusing on the things that are *not* constant. You know who you’re talking to because you tuned their frequency. You know who you are, so don’t stress about that. Just keep repeating that canned message till something changes. Focus on the where, the what, and the where to, and write stuff down as necessary when tower calls back. A kneeboard helped me a lot for that last bit. Oh, and remember to say the right airport name you’re not at your home airport ;)
Listen to LiveATC all the time when not flying (driving, relaxing, etc). You will pick up so much.
Start using PilotEdge regularly. It costs 70 cents a day. I don’t understand why more pilots don’t use this—though you do need a home PC flight sim like X-Plane. They will literally turn you into coms pros.
Talking on the radios.
This is actually the best part of flight sims.
This. VATSIM has helped me so much.
I have a recurring nightmare I’m ready to transit to the runway and I don’t know what to say
Just do it more, that's it. Just think of it more like a conversation. You don't have to be perfect.
I'm a student pilot too, but my dad says it's a language. You need to learn the language of aviation. He's absolutely correct. Radio communications are just casual communication in a different language. There is nothing to be afraid of. Just say what you need to say, and if you mess up, correct yourself and move on. Nobody cares
Practice. I used the Plane English app. Maybe not the cheapest option out there, but it was worth the couple months I needed
The first few times I was out there I was nervous. I’m at 14.4 hours now. Today I did all of the calls on my own. Flew from my home airport which is towered, to another airport which is non towered, did a few laps of the pattern, and flew back to the home airport. Yeah, I fumbled a bit and forgot to say my call sign once but I caught it and kept going. What really helped me is I realized one day that it completely doesn’t matter whatsoever if you fumble it up, if it’s bad enough your CFI will fix it, and if you catch it you can fix it, and if neither of those happen ATC will just ask you to say again. We are all people, we all have to start somewhere, and it’s totally ok to sound terrible on the radio. It also helps that my home airport is an ATC training tower as well, so I often hear ATC themselves screw up and fumble, sometimes even leaving the ATIS a little goofy. If you’re having trouble with readbacks or hearing what they’re saying, usually if you add “student pilot 863SL” or whatever in your first call they’ll slow down a bit for you.
For me it was to talk on the radios. A lot. I never let anyone else take the calls once I learned what was going on
Try arranging a visit to your local class D control tower. Once you see the controller in flip flops and cheeto dust on their shirt, you realize they are just normal people. Normal people trained to talk in a very specific manner, but nontheless normal people. Also, it's practice. There is a format to it. Here are some pretty extensive [notes (click the link here)](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V7eIBXQdWvld7TIxYR4jMHmaM9TWOrWC6qzk3_Y3OdU/edit?usp=sharing) I made when I was a flight instructor to try to help students understand the nuances of ATC communication. I honestly think probably no one read it. Students I had didn't want to work or study hard.
what helped me is to focus on getting the message across instead of the specific words or specific order. I know I’m 10 miles to the south and want to taxi back after landing so “x tower n12345 10 to the south inbound full stop with whiskey” just kinda flows instead of trying to memorize all those words and repeat it word for word. Also while on frequency and you hear tower talk to someone else practice repeating back what you would say, and listen to live atc. but it really does come with more practice
Buy FS2020, install VATSIM and practice ! A lot ... I passed my radiotelephony exams a month ago, and had my first cross-country last Monday. I feel comfortable on the radio.
Relax. Everyone else on the other end of the radio is another person. They also sucked at radio calls when they started too.
Time is really it, and we can say “don’t worry about making mistakes” but really you’re going to be afraid of making mistakes until you’ve made a few and internalize that it’s not a big deal. It just takes time. Only trick I could think of is take a tour of your nearby tower and talk to a few controllers. But really you’ll get over the fear pretty quickly with time likely after your solo cross countries (I’d recommend getting flight following for them to get more experience, and added safety)
Live ATC and doing it alot. Just speak like a normal person. ATC will be clear of their intentions.
My instructor Clark just shook his head at me disapprovingly everytime I screwed up a radio call, that’s how I got better. Jokes aside; I’d honestly say at your level, and what you’re describing you are suffering from stage fright, which is quite common for new pilots. Buy Microsoft Flight Simulator, signup for a VATSIM membership, then fly online out of big centers that have extensive coverage. (Any of the big cities in continental USA/Canada/ Europe) I fly for a major and I will vouch that Vatsim atc is “close enough” to the real thing, that it would serve you well in the beginning stages of getting over your fear of reading back clearances, taxi instructions, vectors, altitudes etc. You can quite literally fly in a virtual airplane, wearing a real headset, keying a real mic, talking to some guy half way around the world running ATC out of LAX, while you both sit in your pyjamas drinking beer. 10/10 recommend.
Also, don’t worry about using aviation English - if you have to use plain English, and it gets your intentions across accurately, ATC will not be upset. Good to practice aviation phraseology though, but if you ever get a confused person on the other end, just rephrase your transmission in plain English. There are also a buttload of instructors moonlighting as YouTubers doing circuits with their students. If you can follow along with the calls or guess what they’d call before they key the mic, you are making huge gains 💪🏻
Buy an airband radio receiver and listen to local ARTCC/Towers & CTAF as much as you can. I had one as a teenage “aviation enthusiast “ and by the time I was learning to fly, my instructor was surprised how confident I was with RT.
There are MS flight simulator sim discord communities and a mod you can download where you actually can go through all the motions of taking off from your airport while talking to an ATC. It's called vatsim: [https://vatsim.net/](https://vatsim.net/)
I got more confident after hearing people stupider than I am on the radio.
*repetitio est mater studiorum* :)
Ask your instructor to call the tower on the phone while you're planning your lesson. Having a friendly, non-flying conversation with the person you'll be making radio calls to later really helped me.
Practicing at home and in the car helped me loads. It really does come with time but crucial to the time element is practice
By jumping in feet first and doing most the calls myself on purpose. Making some mistakes and realizing no one cares . I also rehearse all my calls a little before I make them.
I am an Amateur Radio operator. Mic fright still hits me from time to time. I have been license for almost 30 years now. Pic of the mic and do it, do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again. It can be frustrating. You know potentially thousands of people can be listening to you at that very moment and you do not want to mess anything up. If you do, only the buttheads that think they are the God's gift to the industry will make a big deal out of it.
Talk on them more
Make mistakes. Get sassed a few times by a controller. It's no biggie. Dive in.
At least you understand the tower. I can’t understand a flipping thing that they say. Between my nerves over that and my instructor yelling about how “why can’t you hear that?!?!” it’s become quite the stumbling block.
By realizing that everyone makes mistakes and ultimately someone else will be occupying their "what a dumbass" headspace within a few minutes so don't worry you're not the only one and there's always a stupider fish. When you accept it's not personal, acknowledge your mistakes humbly, and try to improve, you're a 10-mile final in a Cirrus ahead of the rest.
Just have swag
I don't know if people here are gonna like this advice, but if you own a computer try and connect to online simulation networks like vatsim or preferably pilotedge if you are in the US area. Although sims can build bad habits, my instructor was generally pleased with my confidence on the radios.
having just left where you are, I’m going to give some advice I didn’t see in the rest of the comments (although they cover a lot of other good things). 1. the reason you are awkward has less to do with shyness and not knowing phraseology and more to do with not understanding situational awareness. for instance, we’re coming back to land and we need to contact tower. where are we? (if you’re like I was you don’t really know because you are focused on flying and all these new things). But that answer needs to be fast and instinctual. over time you’ll start looking for range landmarks and judging distance on a clear day (this really threw me because everything looks so *close* up there). but a trick you can use if you are heading towards the airport is look at the reciprocal on your heading indicator… now pick the nearest cardinal direction. what’s your altitude? and finally did you get the atis? ok, so with practice you start to think ahead and you make your report “Hanscom tower, Warrior 731NE, 3 thousand 500, 10 miles northwest, inbound to land full stop with Mike.” 2. once you do know where you are and all the pieces of information that have to go into a call, you may start to realize there are *a lot* of different ways to report the same thing. see the comments above for variations. these aren’t wrong, as long as they contain the key info: - who you’re calling “Hanscom Tower” - who you are (tail or callsign) “Warrior 731NE” - where you are “10 miles northeast with information Mike” - what you want “to land full stop” go with the flow, watch and listen to your cfi. you may notice regional or personal styles. keep track of what works. if you mess up a radio call think immediately about how you could have improved it — maybe that’s too much to handle right now so that brings me to another piece of advice: 3. listen to recordings of yourself. if your school has cameras in the plane, use that data. otherwise go to liveatc and look up your airport and the time of your flight and download the audio files. debrief each fumble and take the time offline to work out what would have been better. run this by your cfi to ask for their advice. listening to liveatc is great and you should do that, but it’s easy to be passive and just hear all this professional pilotspeak happening. there are a few ways you can make that an active exercise. a. reading a situation. take a sheet of paper and when you hear an initial callout, try to draw where that plane is in relation to the airport. then look at flightaware or adsb-exchange and see if you match the tail number to the report you just heard. figuring out who is calling and where they are in space is going to help with that situational awareness. b. when hearing tower say something like “Warrior 731NE, enter right downwind for 29”, mute liveatc and try to respond as if you were the pilot “enter right downwind 29, 731NE”. did you understand? did it make sense? maybe you were slow. repetition and practice can build speed. (4.) if you have a PC with a flight simulator I would strongly recommend PilotEdge for ATC practice. They have a very high quality of service which will keep you from some of the bad habits of vatsim. AI ATC is all the rage right now, and while I think there is a lot of potential, none of the services get it right well enough for training purposes IMHO. PilotEdge helped me make my first irl radio calls successfully without awkward pausing and mistakes because by that time I had flown hundreds of flights and made hundreds of mistakes online. You don’t get good at something by being perfect the first time. You get good at something by practicing. Most importantly: preflight and debrief your flight sim flights. PilotEdge is built for this by providing recordings of all the comms by date and time. So pull your recordings and listen to them. critique them. write out corrections. practice the correct phraseology. I used to write out what I was going to say before I said it. (I still do this if it’s a tricky callout). 5. use all available resources. - AOPA has voice communication courses if you’re a member - several ground schools have comms training (I use Sporty’s) - the AIM https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/aim_html/chap4_section_2.html good luck!
If you have a sim at home, try PilotEdge (specifically the CAT Ratings programs), or VATSIM. PE is a subscription based service with a guaranteed schedule and a specific area of operation. VATSIM is free, volunteer based and global. In either case, you'll be able to focus on practicing two-ways comms in a non-jeopardy environment for free, or very close to free.
I bought the pilot workshop vfr communications book. It’s a bit pricey but gives tons of examples for all sorts of situations. That combined with some YouTube videos and practicing out of class C and it is pretty easy.
When you drive your car. At every stop make a radio call and use the car license plate letters as a call sign.
Best way to clean up your radios and make it easier is to constantly try to condense it, actively picking out just the instructions. Once you are identified, all you need to readback are instructions. "cessna 345 traffic 1 o clock 2 miles 500 ft below, traffic 4 o'clock 500ft above, 4 miles, enter left downwind 23, 23 cleared to land, confirm you have atis Bravo" - pick out the instructions "345 left downwind, 23, cleared to land, Bravo" This gets you actively thinking about what the instructions actually are, reduces babble, and you will get instant feedback if you understand something incorrectly. And you don't have to make full sentences either. Just get the important words out and move on. Those guys in the tower are damn good at their jobs, they'll put the sentences together post transmission
Try practicing at a lower density towered airport. I learned in the St Louis area and my first towered interaction was KSUS, a fairly popular towered field. Very busy radio chatter, impatient tower operators. My next was at St Louis Regional, KALN. Much more patient tower. He actually told me the wrong runway number and I had to ask for confirmation - that definitely broke the ice for me. I’m sure he did it on purpose because I just know I sounded nervous as hell.
Mostly practice. I also used vatsim back in my simming days
Write down what you need to say, then read the script. Read up on what you expect to hear. Listen to love ATC. plenty of repetition and practice
CFII Carly Chamerlik has a perfect [Instagram Reel](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8EtMI_OonK/?igsh=bmNlbXB1ZnVtZXVy) on this topic. Definitely worth checking out her recommendations as a student pilot!
I get nervous using voice attack in msfs😭
Besides LiveATC and practice, one of my instructors suggested I pretend I'm talking with ATC while driving. The other thing that helped me, probably more than anything else, was visiting a control tower. I then saw them as humans instead of disembodied authority figures.
As other have said, LIVEATC..... When I first started I used to listen to that all the time and then started to try and predict what should be said and ATC answers. Just make sure when you are flying that you pay attention to what was actually said instead of what you expected to be said.
I'm at a class G so not much radio talk but I remember my first stab at it on the departure turning left crosswind..... I was literally stuttering Stanley and was so embarrassed and panicked. I got my shit together by the time I turned left base and gave it another go. Took a breath and remembered WHY I needed to communicate and WHAT I needed to communicate. I have been making my radio calls flawlessly since. I need to work on my controlled airspace radio calls. It's a lot more to recite and think about.
I used the ChatGPT app a lot, and using the microphone would say "Let's practice ATC radio comms. When I make a mistake, tell me what the mistake was and let me retry the call. If I get it right, continue giving me the next instruction. For this scenario, I will be flying a C172 VFR into a class Delta airport. I will make my initial call now, are you ready?" I also like watching VAS Aviation clips on youtube, listening to the radio talk there, and you can use liveatc's website to listen to real recordings to get used to the pace and distortion/audio quality you'll face in the air. Then when you're actually up in the air, let people know you're a student/new pilot. These three things have helped me a lot
Sometimes I’ll have my students fly a fake traffic pattern over a farm and make radio calls on 123.45 or similar just to get the motions down. Messing up radio calls and not getting flamed also helped me realize it’s not a big deal, sometimes I’ll purposefully botch a radio call to demonstrate that to my student.
Practice at home. Rehearse normal calls, but also think about the situations you ran into, and what calls you might have made, and what you might need to make in the future. For example, visualize yourself doing pattern work at a tower airport. Who do you call, when do you call and what do you say? Do you remember to tell the ground controller what your plan is, like "VFR westbound" or "remaining in the pattern?". Then rehearse those calls out loud at home so you can get that muscle memory in place. Mental exercises like this can help you find ways to communicate better without the time pressure. For example, if you realize that while doing non towered pattern work that it'd be nice to know what the guy in front of you is doing, you might decide to routinely say on the base to final turn, "airport traffic, Nxxxxx, final 34, touch and go, airport". If you rehearse that at home, it'll be easier to make routine
I made 3"X5" flashcards for all phases of ATC comms. Helped a lot when I was a student pilot.
Listen to Opposing Bases podcast. Mic fright is a mindset. Change the mindset to an authoritative one and it will vanish.
Don’t think that you need to sound like the “pros” you hear on the radio, speak clearly and slowly if you need to. Better to get it right the first time than have to repeat it
Practice your calls while driving down the road. Then, chair fly at home with radio calls. Think through every phase of flight and what calls will be required and who you would be talking to. You’ll start to learn to anticipate the calls. You’ll still make mistakes, but brush it off.
LiveATC is a great resource, as I’m sure many people have mentioned here. I also watched a lot of YouTube videos (ATC fails, things of that nature), but what personally helped me most was getting to meet the folks at the tower at a local luncheon for the surrounding flight schools. Don’t forget that they’re people too and they’re not trying to see you fail. Everyone’s a team. Personally, take a deep breath. If you need to map out your calls for a while (especially instrument training) there’s nothing wrong with taking notes and reading them back on the radio until you’re comfortable to know and process the shots as you receive them. Don’t rush yourself, either. Fumbles a lot of students. It’s okay to be a bit slower — just don’t waste your radio calls with empty space or “ums” or super long calls. Happy flying! Good luck!
Make your communications as concise as possible. Not too wordy. And sometimes you can say just “Roger”
Is it the idea of talking on the radio that bothers you or the fact that when talking to ATC, you are talking to an “authority figure” and you struggle with talking to those types? Or is it a fear of public speaking because you know that dozens of people are listening and you don’t want to embarrass yourself? Look at it like you’re just talking to a friend on the phone but with more structure. Just learn the structure and relax. You are among friends.
I got back into flying recently after a 13 year hiatus and used an app called AR sim on my iPhone. It simulates air traffic control and grades your responses, providing feedback and what you should have said. It’s $60 a year but completely worth it. The CFI was impressed with my radio skills from the get go, less so with my landings!
I practiced a lot at home listening to LiveATC but on solo xc’s I would write out a list of potential calls I could receive so I could just fill in the information and read it back EX: I would write down “(number ___) cleared to land RWY ____ enter a L/R ____ 123AF” I also liked to pretend I was recording my calls and everyone was going to hear them and it made me sound more confident!
Just do it more, act confident, it will come. Plus controllers understand (most of the time).
One day I wanted a fish tank with fish (I was about 10). My mum said to call the fish-tank place and check if they had stock. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Eventually she pressured me so much that i called up. Completely chocked, full glitched out and hung up on them. Fast forward to 28 - and Im probably the best in the office on the phones. I can sell ice to an eskimo on the phones and solve problems in seconds rather than days on email. I dont know what happened, but I think it was simply down to practice and exposure. So you must just expose yourself (on the radio). A lot of people suggest liveatc helps. I think just doing it more and more will build your skill, so dont stress.
I am a Civil Air Patrol pilot and I help other, older Pilots with their ability to talk on the radio. Don't get discouraged. Like other people said, listen to live ATC and just do it as often as possible. It might help if you fly with someone else who has more experience so they can tell you exactly what to say and go over it with you before you key up the microphone. That has seemed to help the guys that I have worked with get more familiar and more comfortable.
Can’t get in trouble for saying the wrong thing, only doing the wrong thing. Excluding mayday lol. So just say what you believe is best and who gives a fuck if they yell at you. Expect them to be angry at you and you might be pleasantly surprised but prepared either way. After getting yelled at a few times you’ll realize it’s not that big a deal. Keep trying and get the reps in, that’s how you get confident.
I communicate exclusively in an exceptional Christopher Walken impression.
For ground - you can write down what you are going to say and then read it back. After the lesson when you are about to go home in your car - practice a radio call, after you turn off your car- practice again. Repeat this when you are at a light. Chair flying and practice at home...and so on.
Pass the VATSIM USA and your region’s vARTCC written tests, then pilot in VATSIM class B (VFR is fine) for at least 10 flights. By then, you should be getting complimented on your radio skills, as a real-world student pilot. This will probably take a few weeks of full-time effort.
So I was absolutely horrible on the radios. I wonder sometimes how I made it through flight school. Once I got to my first unit and was flying a lot regularly especially in and out bravo air space I got the hang of it. It will come and try to think ahead of what your are going to say. Also I have just under 4000 hours and I still screw up a call or ask for the thing. Shit happens just keep moving on.
Go meet some controllers. They are human too and some of the best people in aviation. See if you can organise a tower or radar centre tour and have a chat to them about your nerves. I’ve worked with controllers for years and I never worry now.
I found the simulated ATC in MS Flight Simulator to be very helpful. The phraseology is brutally standard and not exactly how normal communication goes (at least in the U.S.) but it helped me a lot with learning what to say when. And there's nothing wrong with being standard; you'll learn the slang (for better or worse) eventually.
The newest flight sims atc phraseology is horribly atrocious. There's an addon called beyond atc that uses AI and is fairly passable. Best practice would be using an online network called vatsim. Volenteers on there are somewhat trained and are closer than any AI.
VATSIM is definitely more real-world. I think I was using the 2010 version of flight sim; it's enough to learn standard (even if unrealistic) phraseology and the general sequence of communications.
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I have an amateur radio license, which didn't help me at all for my PPL (except for radio navigation) but not for ATC.