Talk

[Stein Carlsen]

Vatsim is a fantastic concept.

Unfortunately, I am reluctant to use it. The reason is that everyone (ATC and pilots) speaks terribly fast and indistinctly. Is it possible to make a change to it? Even if you know the phraseology and can guess what is being said, it is often difficult to understand.

[Torben Andersen]

It is very much a question of getting used to it. And the better preparred you are, the easier it gets. But granted - sometimes the talk is very fast (mostly during events, when the traffic volumen is high and a lot of planes need to get instructions within a narrow time frame). You can always ask the controller to repeat the instructions at a slower pace. At times I too tends to talk too fast. What both pilots and ATC need to consider is to give the info clearly and at normal speed. Don't rush it, as if you need to repeat the transmission the effective pace at which the instructions are delivered will be going down.

But don't give up on VATSIM because of this - eventually you'll get hold of it.

cheers

Torben

[Alistair Thomson]

A study of ATC delivery rates found the following (quoting from the report):

The ICAO recommends the rate of ATCO speech speed to not exceed 100 wpm (words per minute), which was calculated to be equivalent to 3.4 syllables per second (sps), which is rather lower than the usual speech speed of 5.1 sps measured in movies and much lower than the actual median ATCO rate of 6.1 sps.

So even professional ATC officers deliver speech well above the recommended maximum rate.

[Stein Carlsen]

Then what I am addressing is a real problem, and I am actually right in my criticism. 

But that changes will be made at Vatsim is probably too much to hope for...or what?

[Torben Andersen]

Asking VATSIM to police changes thru is probably not going to give the result you're asking for. We are only human and when things heat up, we are getting stressed and we really need to turn that plane inbound on the localizor and ....why do those pesky pilots not follow instructions... and.....

What can be done is (as you do) raise the problem and make us remember to slow down. Alistair mentions some number to go for - but if even professionals are having a hard time to make those numbers, it isn't surpricing that VATSIM controllers also might struggle to do it. 

[Stein Carlsen]

"...raise the problem and make us remember to slow down."

Yes. I will do it on a regular basis here once a week from now on. 😉

[Alistair Thomson]

The report I mentioned also had some statistics about how pilots interpreted instructions delivered at different rates. It said:

"they missed or mistook words at a rate of 4.2% at 4 sps, 12.6% at 5 sps, 21.2% at 6 sps, 32.7% at 7 sps, and 40.6% at 8sps"

So if those pesky pilots aren't following instructions, maybe it isn't entirely the pilots' fault! 🙂

Speech Speed Rates of American Air Traffic Controllers in Communications with Non-Native English-Speaking Pilots, by NITTA Haruhiko, OKAZAKI Hironobu, Walter KLINGER & KIDO Kazuhiko. (Studies in the Humanities vol.103, 351-360, 2018)

[Stein Carlsen]

That speaks for itself.

No wonder that the ATC in Vatsim is stressed by the fact that the pilots do not follow the instructions. They simply do not understand what is being said!  (And don't dare say they didn't understand.)

[Alistair Thomson]

1 hour ago, Stein Carlsen said:

don't dare say they didn't understand.

Sadly, that actually can be said in some cases. I said that the pilot is not entirely at fault, but they are not faultless! 🙂

[Dustin Rider]

Never underestimate the power of the simple, "Say again?" It's easy and, best of all when in a busy environment, quick. When a pilot asks me for a repeat, I automatically slow down my rate of speech--which isn't all that rapid anyway--just to make sure I'm speaking clearly.

[Alistair Thomson]

I don't know if the FAA has something similar to the UK's "speak slower" but using that tells ATC exactly what the problem was with their transmission, otherwise it might have been caused by interference.