I can no longer speak french – my mother thongue – with ATC on radio. Not only because I now live in Germany, but also because of new ICAO rules. A lot has already been said on that (check by aviatrix or askacfi.com), and I won’t list all the details again.

FOCA generously gave me a Level 4 in English, but nothing in french, because I’ve never underwent any examination. No comment on that, nor on the fact that it’s not even possible yet to attend such an examination.

My two cents on this topic are more about what the standard language of aviation is. French readers are allowed to express their indignation in comments. Even if each country publishes AIP in its own language(s), when you start flying internationally you simply have to be able to use english. As a swiss pilot I got used to it rather quickly: I can’t understand swiss-german (german is something else… but out of scope).

Not only publications are in english, but most of the terminology can hardly be translated, mostly because it is not daily language, but something very specific. On at least one particular occasion, flying IFR in France, I switched from french to english, simply because I could not understand what the controller asked for ! When he started using standard english phraseology, everything became cristal clear.

In another occasion, I’ve been “Autorisé à la variation et à l’approche” (cleared for variation and approach). I’ve never heard that before, and I asked my french instructor of the day what was that all about. The variation is a self-positioning, flown under pilot responsibility within the MSA protection. The objective is to be already established on outbound leg before, thus making a reversal procedure useless.

The principle is smart, no question about that. But it’s not standard, and I never heard it again. It’s apparently a french speciality on non-radar equipped airports. A shame that this is not part of ICAO standards – yes, flying in France also has a lot of positive aspects.

There is no doubt that a common language is required for aviation. And in today’s world, this can only be english. May be next generation will learn chinese, and it will become the new de-facto standard. I’m not particularly pro-english, I’m pro-standard. And to say be fair, I think that ICAO Level 4 is relatively low… It’s fine for normal operations, but what if you have to describe a complex emergency to ATC ?

Communications have been a causal factor in many incidents. True. But most of time the problem come from a wrong phraseology, not from a low enough level of english. Said with different words, pilots and controllers did not used the standard wordings, but plain english, leading to some misunderstandings. Even a pure Oxford english would not solve this problem (American, Kiwis, Oz, Scottish, Wales, Irish and Canadian readers are allowed to express their indignation in comments).

In a world where common sense becomes the exception, we sadly have to expect more and more things like this to pop-out. Why not require a full mechanic certification to top-up the tanks, or add a quarter of oil ?