Minor Forum Peeve

Juliet Hotel

Juliet Hotel

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Juliet Hotel
Ok rant time. I absolutely hate it when pilots post about a particular location or route of flight and use 3-letter airport identifiers.

"Hey I was at KZZZ the other day and I saw this..."

"I'm planning my first solo cross country next week and I'm going to go from KAAA to KBBB to KCCC, is that going to work?"

There are several thousand airports in the US. I don't think anyone knows every identifier from memory. So now not only are you asking for free advise from strangers, you're also expecting them to go and research your cryptic codes before they can offer any input on the question you're asking. Not only do I want your knowledge for free, I also want you to go lookup what I was too damn lazy to type.

Very often it is much more informative to say I'm going to fly from Millville NJ to York PA to Hagerstown, MD...In most cases that tells everyone what they need to know to give an informed answer without having to go and lookup all the airport ID's to figure out what part of the world you're talking about.

Maybe this peeve hit closer to home for me than some others because I end up having to deal with it at work too. I work with truck drivers so I get breakdown calls that often go like this:
Driver: Hey I've got a blown tire who do I call?
Me: Where are you?
Driver: I'm on 421 about 20 miles from 217
Me: That tells me nothing. Let's start with this, what state are you in?

I know I'm not going to change anyone's habits with this but still I figured its worth mentioning. You'll get many more responses to your questions if you use cities and states rather than airport identifiers in your questions. I know you're a wicked smart pilot and you want to impress everyone else with how well you pull off your wicked smart pilot speak. But we're all pilots too so we don't care how wicked smart you are because most of us are pretty sure we're wicked smarter than you. ;)
 
Who researches them? We just type them into ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, or whatever flavor of EFB we have handy on our phones or tablets. :)

And usually only the folks that recognize them bother, since there might be local weather patterns or things folks from elsewhere don’t know. So the locals are going to know and answer it first with the rest of us poking at our EFB going, “I’d probably do X.”

Then a local will pop up and tell us that our proposed route will **** off all the local controllers, give us all halitosis, and we all need twenty licks with a switch. LOL.
 
Actually I am one that generally appreciates the use of three letter identifiers.

While you may feel the city and state would solicit more responses...I see it as the opposite...a bit of a qualifier for those that recognize the airport code and know what they are actually talking about.

To each their own.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Ok rant time. I absolutely hate it when pilots post about a particular location or route of flight and use 3-letter airport identifiers.

"Hey I was at KZZZ the other day and I saw this..."

"I'm planning my first solo cross country next week and I'm going to go from KAAA to KBBB to KCCC, is that going to work?"
Click to expand...
I absolutely hate it when pilots can’t count. Those are four-letter identifiers. ;)
 
Why not do both? I flew from KMMU (Morristown NJ) to N38 (Wellsboro PA) last weekend. Now, whether you're a local , or not; or an EFB aficionado you're in the know. Also, now I know to spell aficionado instead of affectionado.
 
Justin M said:
Why not do both? I flew from KMMU (Morristown NJ) to N38 (Wellsboro PA) last weekend. Now, whether you're a local , or not; or an EFB aficionado you're in the know. Also, now I know to spell aficionado instead of affectionado.
Click to expand...
I agree, but I don't usually brag about what a good speller I am because then, inevitabley, I will make a spelling mistake, even though I am usually a good speller (if not a good typist).
 
Like it when the post has both the identifier and location spelled out.
 
It's easy enough to implement the code and I already have the file necessary and code written if you guys want it done.
 
I prefer the three-letter identifier. If someone asks me a question I can go to sky vector and plug it in if they tell me they're flying out of Hoboken New Jersey I have no idea how to find that on skyvector
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I prefer the three-letter identifier. If someone asks me a question I can go to sky vector and plug it in if they tell me they're flying out of Hoboken New Jersey I have no idea how to find that on skyvector
Click to expand...

If you use iflightplanner you can type in the city, station, or airport name and it gives the ID to you.

And the owners dont tell you to **** off when you have an issue with the site.
 
I'm ok w/identifiers. I just open a new tab and click Skyvector from the dropdown address bar if I'm interested.

What bugs me is all the other abbreviations without first defining them. Yesterday somebody used FCLP when responding to me. Wtf? I didn't much care what it means, so the point was lost. Would have preferred "Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP)", which I just researched, as the more courteous way to initially enlighten readers. Then, if used again, just the abbreviation.
 
Justin M said:
Why not do both? I flew from KMMU (Morristown NJ) to N38 (Wellsboro PA) last weekend. Now, whether you're a local , or not; or an EFB aficionado you're in the know. Also, now I know to spell aficionado instead of affectionado.
Click to expand...
I appreciate it when folks do that. I can quickly follow along with someone's adventure, or have a mental picture of where in the country they're talking about without having to go to airnav or some other site to look it up.
 
Justin M said:
Why not do both? I flew from KMMU (Morristown NJ) to N38 (Wellsboro PA) last weekend.
Click to expand...
This. I know the identifiers from memory for probably 25% of the airports I've been to. For the other 75% even though I've been there, just putting the identifier tells me nothing.
 
I understand the mini-rant, and confess that my initial reactions to seeing identifiers (and other sometimes unfamiliar acronyms) was similar, but my thinking has changed depending upon context. When asking about routing, courtesy cars, places to eat, and other local info, the identifier makes sense. If you don't recognize the identifier, you most likely wouldn't be interested or have much to contribute anyway. If you do recognize it, it's kind of nice to see someone else interested in your "home turf" or past stomping grounds.

When asking about approaches, though, since anyone with a lot of IFR experience could probably help, it's nice to include the plate, or at least a link to it, in the questioning post.

On the other hand, following some of these threads and questions has been an enjoyable way to get help get up to speed on a different EFB as I make the switch.
 
Justin M said:
Why not do both? I flew from KMMU (Morristown NJ) to N38 (Wellsboro PA) last weekend. Now, whether you're a local , or not; or an EFB aficionado you're in the know. Also, now I know to spell aficionado instead of affectionado.
Click to expand...


Both is good. That way when I want to do some research on a planned trip, I can search the identifier code to find old posts discussing a new to me airport and learn from the collective wisdom previously collected. And if I am reading in real time/browsing, a city and state lets me know right away whether I am interested in the thread.
 
Does anyone at T67 know what Opie is frettin' about?

Just the other day, in the chat room, someone said Lancaster and I assumed Lancaster, CA which was in the news last week. Nope, they meant Lancaster, PA.

Imagine how much clearer it would be if they wrote KLNS. I wouldn't have thought they meant KWJF.

[Extra points to Ravioli for being silly and using no gender specific pronouns]
 
Both is best for everyone other than the person typing.
However, if someone is too lazy to type that, the other information will likely be incomplete anyway.

But it's all about me, so yeah, use both ;)
 
dtuuri said:
Speaking of pet peeves... can't we just have a new rule that "he" is understood to include "she" too, without have to type "s/he" or "he or she" or "she" and make everybody guess if "she" is really a he?
Click to expand...

Is anything really real?
 
Suggestion: save a few keystrokes by omitting the leading "K" from USA airport IDs. It irks me because they sound like western USA radio or TV station call letters. Although once in a while it can be mildly amusing as in KRAP.
 
flyingbrit said:
Suggestion: save a few keystrokes by omitting the leading "K" from USA airport IDs.
Click to expand...

How jingoistic can you be? America includes many more countries than the USA. Heck, last I heard there were 3 countries in North America, 7 in Central America, and 12 in South America.

This here ain't the Pilots of the USA, this is AMERICA damn it!
 
MauleSkinner said:
I absolutely hate it when pilots can’t count. Those are four-letter identifiers. ;)
Click to expand...
There are 3 kinds of people: Those that can count and those that can't.


I don't mind the identifiers but I do like the city/state names to go along with them. It saves me the trouble of looking it up. I do like to keep track of different places, both just out of curiosity with where forum members are located, but also to learn a little more about other pilots' experiences.
 
dtuuri said:
Speaking of pet peeves... can't we just have a new rule that "he" is understood to include "she" too, without have to type "s/he" or "he or she" or "she" and make everybody guess if "she" is really a he?
Click to expand...
No...and to be completely PC, we now have to type he/she/its.

Unfortunately it’s not PC to verbalize that. :rolleyes:
 
I want to agree with you, but I end up using the identifiers here anyway.. it's just easier, and honestly (A) most people are going to pop it into Foreflight if they care enough to be part of the thread and/or (B) might not know the town names either.. IE, if you are not from California me posting on here "planning a flight from Ramona to Imperial" that would mean nothing to most people.. and then if we start writing out states, etc., the whole thing goes downhill

What we SHOULD do.. is have the system recognize the identifiers and hovering over it would pull up the place, or provide an Airnav link or something

But I digress.. I just toss the route into Foreflight if I care enough
 
Tantalum said:
I want to agree with you, but I end up using the identifiers here anyway.. it's just easier, and honestly (A) most people are going to pop it into Foreflight if they care enough to be part of the thread and/or (B) might not know the town names either.. IE, if you are not from California me posting on here "planning a flight from Ramona to Imperial" that would mean nothing to most people.. and then if we start writing out states, etc., the whole thing goes downhill

What we SHOULD do.. is have the system recognize the identifiers and hovering over it would pull up the place, or provide an Airnav link or something

But I digress.. I just toss the route into Foreflight if I care enough
Click to expand...

Like I said, I already have the code written for this.
 
dtuuri said:
Yeah, really! (And ANOTHER peeve — it's "Yeah" and not "Yea". Sheesh, got me goin'.) I'm leavin' before I loose it.
Click to expand...
Don't "loose" it... You lose it. Unless you are loosing the hounds.

Ya know?

Clim, clam, clum. The latter bring the past tense of climb. "I clum up the tree, and could see KMOR from there!"

Ya
Ye
yea
yep
yeah
yo
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Ok rant time. I absolutely hate it when pilots post about a particular location or route of flight and use 3-letter airport identifiers.

"Hey I was at KZZZ the other day and I saw this..."

"I'm planning my first solo cross country next week and I'm going to go from KAAA to KBBB to KCCC, is that going to work?"

There are several thousand airports in the US. I don't think anyone knows every identifier from memory. So now not only are you asking for free advise from strangers, you're also expecting them to go and research your cryptic codes before they can offer any input on the question you're asking. Not only do I want your knowledge for free, I also want you to go lookup what I was too damn lazy to type.

Very often it is much more informative to say I'm going to fly from Millville NJ to York PA to Hagerstown, MD...In most cases that tells everyone what they need to know to give an informed answer without having to go and lookup all the airport ID's to figure out what part of the world you're talking about.

Maybe this peeve hit closer to home for me than some others because I end up having to deal with it at work too. I work with truck drivers so I get breakdown calls that often go like this:
Driver: Hey I've got a blown tire who do I call?
Me: Where are you?
Driver: I'm on 421 about 20 miles from 217
Me: That tells me nothing. Let's start with this, what state are you in?

I know I'm not going to change anyone's habits with this but still I figured its worth mentioning. You'll get many more responses to your questions if you use cities and states rather than airport identifiers in your questions. I know you're a wicked smart pilot and you want to impress everyone else with how well you pull off your wicked smart pilot speak. But we're all pilots too so we don't care how wicked smart you are because most of us are pretty sure we're wicked smarter than you. ;)
Click to expand...

"The" 5, 20 miles south of "the" 80, is not ambiguous, state wise.
 
Tantalum said:
I want to agree with you, but I end up using the identifiers here anyway.. it's just easier, and honestly (A) most people are going to pop it into Foreflight if they care enough to be part of the thread
Click to expand...
Ok so you're going to pay for a foreflight subscription for me then? And that runs on an ipad right? I don't have an ipad so you'll need to get me one of those too. Any color will be fine. I'm not picky.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Ok so you're going to pay for a foreflight subscription for me then? And that runs on an ipad right? I don't have an ipad so you'll need to get me one of those too. Any color will be fine. I'm not picky.
Click to expand...
Insert efb/chart of choice. Airnav is free. Also, some towns may have more than one airport.. "need help with approach planning into Vegas" .. okay, where? HND, LAS, VGT?
 
flyingbrit said:
save a few keystrokes by omitting the leading "K" from USA airport IDs
Click to expand...
We had a controller here come give a talk once and asked us to stop saying "Kilo Charlie Romeo Quebec" and just say "Charlie Romeo Quebec" for example.. his point was "we get it, you're in the US"
 
Sac Arrow said:
"The" 5, 20 miles south of "the" 80, is not ambiguous, state wise.
Click to expand...
Yep, I guess I'd live near the 40 if we did that here in NC. (cringes hearing self say 'the 40')
 
flyingbrit said:
Suggestion: save a few keystrokes by omitting the leading "K" from USA airport IDs. It irks me because they sound like western USA radio or TV station call letters. Although once in a while it can be mildly amusing as in KRAP.
Click to expand...

You might get routed to a VOR...
 
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