Why pilots around the world use this funny phonetic alphabet :-)

[Pawelk198604]

I know that planes registered in Poland begin with SP (Sierra Papa) prefix of Poland followed by three other letters, but why use this Alfa, Bravo, Charlie instead of A,B or C :-) ?   

[SargeRho]

Because it reduces the possibility of miscommunication, by missing letters. If you hear "...avo", you know the guy said "bravo".

[Gaarst]

Yes, if you have bad communication, it can be very hard to make the difference between "n" and "m", or "b", "c", "d", "e"...

Also, as the standard language for aeronautics is English, it can avoid confusion while pronouncing some letters for non-native English speakers: for example, in French, "j" is pronounced like "g" in English, and "i" like "e".
On the other hand, "Juliett", "Golf", "India" and "Echo" are pronounced the same pretty much everywhere.

[Pawelk198604]

6 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

Yes, if you have bad communication, it can be very hard to make the difference between "n" and "m", or "b", "c", "d", "e"...

Also, as the standard language for aeronautics is English, it can avoid confusion while pronouncing some letters for non-native English speakers: for example, in French, "j" is pronounced like "g" in English, and "i" like "e".
On the other hand, "Juliett", "Golf", "India" and "Echo" are pronounced the same pretty much everywhere.

Now i play with that alphabet like 

Kilo-Unifrom-Romeo-Whisky-Alfa or

foxtrot uniform charlie kilo

[PB666]

Romeo echo papa oscar romeo tango echo delta

[Findthepin1]

In before lock

why not morse code

[SargeRho]

Because losing a single "bit" of data can change the whole meaning of the message, or make it unintelligible.

[MircoMars]

6 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

foxtrot uniform charlie kilo

once upon a time, there was a bloodhound gang song

OT I learned the NATO-alphabet in my short military time. It's used for any radio-voice communication or situations where letter-salad is not an option. even if comm is not in english, they taught us to use this for clarity.When I need to spell something in my mother tongue, I make up fitting words as I go along. In some important radio message, sent in an stressful combat situation with distractions on both sides, this cannot work, though. It's better to have this unified and unique alphabet which is easy to notice and hard to mishear.

[Rakaydos]

Zero, One, two, tree, four, five, six, seven, eight, niner.

I dont know why it's "tree", but "Niner" is there because "nein" is confusing to german-speakers.

[Plusck]

Probably "tree" because if you try to say three properly and clearly, you spend most of the word blowing straight down into the microphone.

 

[peadar1987]

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Zero, One, two, tree, four, five, six, seven, eight, niner.

I dont know why it's "tree", but "Niner" is there because "nein" is confusing to german-speakers.

Because Irish people

[Nibb31]

There are quite a few languages that don't have the "th" sound. French people for example simply can't pronounce "three" properly.

[peadar1987]

50 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

There are quite a few languages that don't have the "th" sound. French people for example simply can't pronounce "three" properly.

I know, it's actually quite a rare sound. But it's a stereotypical thing for Irish people to say: "Tirty tree and a tird"

[magnemoe]

9 hours ago, SargeRho said:

Because losing a single "bit" of data can change the whole meaning of the message, or make it unintelligible.

This, digital communication usually use check sums or even error correction. 
Credit card numbers also contains checksums. Same with transaction id numbers on bills. 

[Stone Blue]

12 hours ago, Findthepin1 said:

In before lock

why not morse code

Besides the other reasons stated, imagine you are in an aircraft, that has just had a catastrophic failure, and you are going down, QUICKLY.... Like in under 60 secs.... Could YOU type out a Morse code message giving a mayday, even a quick explanation of the "event", and most importantly, up to 15 numerical digits giving your Lat/Long so searchers can find you?
And, again, ALL error free?...ESPECIALLY on the coords?

Edited December 11, 2015 by Stone Blue

[wizzlebippi]

Or you could switch on the ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) and draw a line to the scene of the crash on radar. Far less work when you're trying to not die.

[benzman]

12 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Zero, One, two, tree, four, five, six, seven, eight, niner.

I dont know why it's "tree", but "Niner" is there because "nein" is confusing to german-speakers.

I also think that four was pronounced 'fore-wah' but I don;t know why.

 

[JetJaguar]

3 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

Besides the other reasons stated, imagine you are in an aircraft, that has just had a catastrophic failure, and you are going down, QUICKLY.... Like in under 60 secs.... Could YOU type out a Morse code message giving a mayday, even a quick explanation of the "event", and most importantly, up to 15 numerical digits giving your Lat/Long so searchers can find you?
And, again, ALL error free?...ESPECIALLY on the coords?

There's a saying, "aviate, navigate, communicate", that serves as a reminder to pilots as to what their priorities are in an emergency.  In that scenario, the crew would be preoccupied with aviating and not doing so much communicating.

BTW, another example of adjustments for non-English speakers is the phonetic for "J" is usually written out as "Juliett" with two t's at the end rather than the single t as the name would normally be spelled, because French speakers would treat a single t as silent and drop it.

[Hcube]

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

There are quite a few languages that don't have the "th" sound. French people for example simply can't pronounce "three" properly.

French can get the "th" with time and practice. What french can't do is the weird throat sound in "Earth". 

(I tried so hard though, and these Americans always making fun of me ^^ )

[Plusck]

French aren't good at saying "law" either tbh

But this is getting off topic

[KAL 9000]

Kilo Echo Romeo Bravo Alpha Lima Space Sierra Papa Alpha Charlie Echo Space Papa Romeo Oscar Golf Romeo Alpha Mike is Kerbal Space Program in pilot!

[swjr-swis]

22 hours ago, Gaarst said:

On the other hand, "Juliett", "Golf", "India" and "Echo" are pronounced the same pretty much everywhere.

As long as 'everywhere' is defined as 'English-speaking'.

<pleghm*>ooliet, ehtjawh - Spanish (*sorry, English doesn't have the hard G/J sound at all so just fibbing it here)

yeuleet, <pleghm>awlf, e<pleghm>ow - Dutch

And those are the ones that are still slightly close linguistically.

It's good that we have a standard to communicate, but please stop saying that 'everyone pronounces it the same' was one of the reasons to settle on that alphabet, guys. Seriously.

 

[AngelLestat]

That language is not just for pilots, in fact was invented since the invention of radio communications.
The audio of long frequencies is always bad, so the only way to ensure good understanding was with this.

I made a curse of ham when I was little. They give me a licence that was "Delta Papa Bravo - Whisky Sierra Eco". 

[Gaarst]

15 minutes ago, swjr-swis said:

As long as 'everywhere' is defined as 'English-speaking'.

<pleghm*>ooliet, ehtjawh - Spanish (*sorry, English doesn't have the hard G/J sound at all so just fibbing it here)

yeuleet, <pleghm>awlf, e<pleghm>ow - Dutch

And those are the ones that are still slightly close linguistically.

It's good that we have a standard to communicate, but please stop saying that 'everyone pronounces it the same' was one of the reasons to settle on that alphabet, guys. Seriously.

Even if the pronounciation is not exactly the same, you not going to have a language where "Alfa" is pronounced the same as "Foxtrot". And the fact that this alphabet is easy and intuitive to pronounce for most languages was on of the reasons to settle on it.

23 hours ago, Gaarst said:

Also, as the standard language for aeronautics is English,

As most communications where this alphabet is used are done in English, even non-native English speakers have to know a little English to operate these communications. You are not going to put someone that pronounces, for example, Juliett as "<pleghm*>ooliet" (whatever this sounds like) for communications.
Of course someone that doesn't speak English at all will not pronounce these words correctly, but that person is not going to be in charge of communications in English. Whereas someone who speaks English, even with a strong accent, will make these words recognisable.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Gaarst

[swjr-swis]

(Understand that I am not arguing against the current international phonetic spelling method or English as standard language for flight communications. A standard was needed, one was picked, one language is as good as another as far as I'm concerned, it would be insane to try change it now for any reason, case closed.)

 

57 minutes ago, Gaarst said:

And the fact that this alphabet is easy and intuitive to pronounce for most languages

Tell me how for a Japanese it is 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce ALPHA the way you do. Tell me how for YOU it is 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce アルファ the way the Japanese do.

My previous post gave you two examples of closely related languages in which, even using the same alphabet, it is not 'easy and intuitive' to pronounce those words the same way English speakers do, because the sounds they connect to some of those same characters are very different. There are hundreds of other languages in which those characters are not even part of their alphabet, let alone that they would know 'intuitively' what sounds are connected to them.

Of course people can learn to pronounce a series of random characters in a certain way by hearing it and repeating it often enough. That does not make it 'easy and intuitive'; that just means they had to learn it, and to a lucky few it comes almost naturally since it happens to be in their native tongue. It is 'easy and intuitive' only to those who already know what they (should) sound like. Ask anyone who has ever had to learn another language once beyond child's age.

Just please stop touting that very misinformed line that 'it is how everyone pronounces it' line, which is simply not true, not even by a long shot. Hell, I have to chuckle at the irony that one of the least phonetic western languages was picked for a phonetic standard in the first place... tell me how 'intuitive' it is to know how to pronounce THOUGH, THROUGH, ROUGH.

That it is not so intuitive as you state is perhaps clearer if you consider that many if not most native English speakers that are not in some way active in military, aviation, etc, in other words, that have not LEARNED to use that specific set of words for spelling, would struggle to get it right and probably make up other words that to them would be much more intuitive to use.

Now I wonder... how many of the words used in the phonetic spelling are part of the 'ten-hundred most used words' of the English language...?