Position reports

This is a favourite topic of mine.  Every day that I fly to the Mara, I might hear as many as fifty position reports on the common frequency for Kenya.  In addition to that I might hear 100 small transmissions for any number of reasons.  Condense these into less than two hours of flying and throw in all the other pilot duties in the cockpit such as SOPs, standard calls, checklists, take off and landing briefings, watching out for animals on the runways and birds in the air then you'll start to get the idea of the kind of stress we experience.

Almost all the traffic in the Mara is commercial.  So most of the position reports are from professional pilots.  Therefore its quite amazing to hear the variety of the language and terminology used to make a position report, when you might expect them to be almost uniform and standard.

Phrases or expressions such as 'for lower' or 'for higher' were never taught in flying schools as standard ICAO phraseology.

Flight level 'zero nine five' is also non standard.

A squak code for the transponder is not 'coming down' or 'coming up' or 'on the box'.

There is no 'fish finder' in the cockpit (unless its a flying boat which is also used for fishing...)

Why do people say 'showing xx DME'.  Who are they showing it to?

Why do they say 'Out of eight three for eight five' when they'll be at eight five in just a few moments anyway.

Why do they say 'From [somewhere in the Mara] to Wilson via the monastery'?  Is there another way to Wilson when inbound from the Mara?

Or why do they include the word 'Mara' with 'Ol Kiombo' or some other airstrip in the Mara when there are no other airstrips in the world with those names.  'Ol Kiombo' on its own is enough, there are no other places with the same name to confuse it with.  One time I heard someone call abeam 'Naivasha Civil', no such thing of course, and there is no Naivasha military to confuse it with.

I remember one pilot who was consistently making position reports every 2 minutes and 30s.  I know because I timed it.  On his usual scheduled service flight between Wilson and Eldoret he probably made 15 position reports, in each direction!  Oh, the monotony...

And then there's the animal noises; the impromptu chats with friends; constant requests for wind checks, and the lies.

Its amazing how people stretch the definition of 'right base' out to about 5 miles from the airfield.  Monastery is sometimes around the Karen country club or the race course.  Thank goodness that the Garmin G1000 has amazingly accurate traffic position display, makes my job of finding traffic much easier!

Enough rambling for today... thanks for your patience, if you've read this far!