Tree? Fife?

RobertSubnet

RobertSubnet

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Robert
So I am listening to Sporty's VFR Communications. According to Sporty's, phonetically three and five are pronounced "tree" and "fife" respectively. I fly out of a class D airport and have never heard these pronunciations. I was wondering if any one else pronounces three and five as "tree" and "fife?"
 
Never heard them pronounced like that, but it does make me chuckle when I hear someone say Papa like "Paw Paw." 'Poppa' is 99% of the time the one you hear, and "Paw-paw" really sticks out. What did your video say about niner?
 
Tree, fife, and niner are the correct pronunciations. Nobody does it but it's technically correct.


faa-radiotelephony-phonetic.jpg
 
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I have heard them used when audio quality is poor and one side or t'other is trying to be understood.
 
With the exception of unicorn, the controllers around here tend to be phonetically correct. Not so much the pilots.
 
mkosmo said:
With the exception of unicorn, the controllers around here tend to be phonetically correct. Not so much the pilots.
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You got controllers on Unicom? And they're not phonetically correct?
 
RobertSubnet said:
So I am listening to Sporty's VFR Communications. According to Sporty's, phonetically three and five are pronounced "tree" and "fife" respectively. I fly out of a class D airport and have never heard these pronunciations. I was wondering if any one else pronounces three and five as "tree" and "fife?"
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Those come from the early days of radio back when comms weren't that good. It actually came from marine radio telephone before airplanes started carrying radios.

Nowadays, with aviation comms being much clearer, you really don't hear it much.

Only place I've heard it used in HF comms and some encrypted circuits in the Navy.
 
Captain said:
Tree, fife, and niner are the correct pronunciations. Nobody does it but it's technically correct.
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Over here in the states, I agree. I try to be standard but in the U.S., I tend to slip into a lot of American "pilot speak." When I'm overseas (especially in Asia), I try my best to be by-the-book Mr. ICAO radio guy. And that includes trees, niners, and kay-becs. Also "decimal" versus "point" and speaking out all my altitudes (one zero thousand four hundred). It's tough enough deciphering some of the ATC transmissions over there without Mr. USA telling Bejing that he's passing "four point two for ten-four." Worldwide, we Americans seem to be the radio criminals by a long shot.
 
RobertSubnet said:
So I am listening to Sporty's VFR Communications. According to Sporty's, phonetically three and five are pronounced "tree" and "fife" respectively. I fly out of a class D airport and have never heard these pronunciations. I was wondering if any one else pronounces three and five as "tree" and "fife?"
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Every Chinese student in the air around here does...:rofl:
 
Sluggo63 said:
Over here in the states, I agree. I try to be standard but in the U.S., I tend to slip into a lot of American "pilot speak." When I'm overseas (especially in Asia), I try my best to be by-the-book Mr. ICAO radio guy. And that includes trees, niners, and kay-becs. Also "decimal" versus "point" and speaking out all my altitudes (one zero thousand four hundred). It's tough enough deciphering some of the ATC transmissions over there without Mr. USA telling Bejing that he's passing "four point two for ten-four." Worldwide, we Americans seem to be the radio criminals by a long shot.
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Yeah, even here if I have bad comms I'll fall back on standard phonetics. They were created that way for a reason and that is clarity in poor reception.
 
Captain said:
Tree, fife, and niner are the correct pronunciations. Nobody does it but it's technically correct.
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Yep. I've heard a few controllers say tree and fife, but fr the most part they just say it normal. I always use niner for some reason but never tree of fife.
 
jordane93 said:
Yep. I've heard a few controllers say tree and fife, but fr the most part they just say it normal. I always use niner for some reason but never tree of fife.
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Same here, in the northeast this has been my experience. Flying down to FL I caught a few controllers that used tree and fife though, past Seymour Johnson Approach.
 
I've heard "tree", I don't think I've heard "fife". I know I've heard "paPAH" (and "pop").
 
Only use them when comms are scratchy. I hear people using it all the time and it actually kinda rubs me wrong. Idk why, but I think it just seems like they are trying to hard when there is no need for it.
 
Years ago when American Airline flew out of KFAT the controller told the pilot to "squawk a forest." The pilot ask: "Squawk a what?" Controller responded: "You know, tree, tree, tree, tree."
 
Seanaldinho said:
Only use them when comms are scratchy. I hear people using it all the time and it actually kinda rubs me wrong. Idk why, but I think it just seems like they are trying to hard when there is no need for it.
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Well, technically the official FAA phonetic pronunciation for those IS "Tree" for three, and "Fife" for five. Look it up.
 
RobertSubnet said:
So I am listening to Sporty's VFR Communications. According to Sporty's, phonetically three and five are pronounced "tree" and "fife" respectively. I fly out of a class D airport and have never heard these pronunciations. I was wondering if any one else pronounces three and five as "tree" and "fife?"
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I spent almost thirty years in ATC. Always used "niner", used "tree" and "fife" only when communications were troublesome.
 
Hawker800 said:
Years ago when American Airline flew out of KFAT the controller told the pilot to "squawk a forest." The pilot ask: "Squawk a what?" Controller responded: "You know, tree, tree, tree, tree."
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:rofl::rofl:

My tail number ends in 19N, so I use niner a LOT. I personally never use tree or fife, but occasionally will hear tree from a controller. Have yet to hear fife though.
 
I wonder if the pronunciations are more adhered to when using english in "non english speaking" territory... or if its more of a guide for non-english speakers who are utilizing English for ICAO purposes....
 
Doggtyred said:
I wonder if the pronunciations are more adhered to when using english in "non english speaking" territory... or if its more of a guide for non-english speakers who are utilizing English for ICAO purposes....
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History.

Radios used to blow. I don't mean 'sorta scratchy'...I mean hurricane force blow. It actually hurt your ears trying to understand what the other guy was saying. And we're talking corn bread American to corn bread American. No language issue...just Cat 5 hurricane force blow radio. There was a soft voice down in the side noise and to hear it you had to turn it up...loud! Even then is was broken and scratchy.

So, they came up with the phonetic pronunciation posted above (post 2 or tree) to make the numbers and letters distinguishable. With bad radios you don't want to be asking, "3? No, B. E? No B. Z? No, B. G?" Get the point?

Fast forward.

Radios are pretty darn good now. There's no real need for fife and tree. But now we also have foreign students clumped up in certain areas and that results in its own degradation to comms, so the old school trees and fifes still get used.

Personally I use trees and fifes and niners mostly to be cute now but most here could have figured that...

Break, out.
 
Captain said:
History.

Radios used to blow. I don't mean 'sorta scratchy'...I mean hurricane force blow. It actually hurt your ears trying to understand what the other guy was saying. And we're talking corn bread American to corn bread American. No language issue...just Cat 5 hurricane force blow radio. There was a soft voice down in the side noise and to hear it you had to turn it up...loud! Even then is was broken and scratchy.

So, they came up with the phonetic pronunciation posted above (post 2 or tree) to make the numbers and letters distinguishable. With bad radios you don't want to be asking, "3? No, B. E? No B. Z? No, B. G?" Get the point?

Fast forward.

Radios are pretty darn good now. There's no real need for fife and tree. But now we also have foreign students clumped up in certain areas and that results in its own degradation to comms, so the old school trees and fifes still get used.

Personally I use trees and fifes and niners mostly to be cute now but most here could have figured that...

Break, out.
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Yea this. Some letters and numbers can be misheard as other letters and numbers.
 
There used to be a flight school plane on field whose numbers ended in 899. Virtually every male student put on his best sing-song voice while saying eight niner niner. Don't know what the controllers thought of that but it gave the rest of us a lcugh.
 
FIFE TREE TWO SEVEN KILO Here.

It's amazing how well it works once you get used to saying it.
 
Captain said:
Tree, fife, and niner are the correct pronunciations. Nobody does it but it's technically correct.





faa-radiotelephony-phonetic.jpg
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Agreed. But, the only time i've used it or heard it used was in the military. Otherwise, normal pronunciation in aviation as far as I have heard.


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Controllers up here use "Sugar Pop" for the State Police aircraft.
 
Lotsa trees here in the Northwest. And there's a town called Fife just east of Tacoma (if you're driving through to Seattle, be warned it's the worst speed trap on I-5 ... north of Coburg, Oregon, anyway).

No known connection, but I do notice "trees" and "fifes" fairly regularly from ATC up here.
 
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I hear them occasionally. I will only say tree and fife if my callsign is "SOMETHING 35" just to be cute. Other than that I say three and five.
 
Niner is not unusual, and normally I'll say it in a readback if the controller used it. Tree is less common, and I have only heard fow-er and fife a few times. I don't recall the exact situation, but I remember one controller who would not accept my readback unless I used tree and fife in it--Three and five resulted in a "negative" followed by repeating the instructions. Guy managed to waste a lot of air time as I read it back twice before I realized what he was up to; certainly pedantic but it was easier to give him what he wanted!
 
TUPilot said:
Niner is not unusual, and normally I'll say it in a readback if the controller used it. Tree is less common, and I have only heard fow-er and fife a few times. I don't recall the exact situation, but I remember one controller who would not accept my readback unless I used tree and fife in it--Three and five resulted in a "negative" followed by repeating the instructions. Guy managed to waste a lot of air time as I read it back twice before I realized what he was up to; certainly pedantic but it was easier to give him what he wanted!
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That's when "Cancel, continue VFR" comes into play, if weather permits. I've never had a problem with ATC about pronunciation, unless I mispronounced "tree" as "too" or something.

Maybe I'm just a lunkhead GA pilot, but why play games on the radio like that? Controller must have been really, really bored.

I'm used to hearing ATC say both "tree" and "fife," but personally I do not. Seems like "niner" is almost universal, except my durn i-correct keeps changing it to "inner." Didn't realize that "four" is supposed to be "fo-wer" until just now, don't recall ever hearing it. But then again, in the Deep South we frequently add syllables to many words anyway, so I may just not have noticed.
 
Come on out and fly the desert southwest sometime. There was at least 100 miles each way where ATC couldn't even break my squelch without manually opening it and they know it. Same thing with radar coverage on VFR flight following and yes, for most of those miles I was above the MEA or MCA on the IFR charts.

ABQ Center seems to know very well where it happens also... "79M remain on your squawk code, I'm going to lose both radar and Comm with you for about the next 40 miles. Give me a call when you're ten miles from X. Radar contact lost, say altitude."

Then through there you'll hear nothing but airplanes responding to him or her and not ATC themselves unless you open the squelch and listen to the weak stuff.

About five miles from where you're about to call them, you'll hear "79M radar contact, say altitude."

You'll do this two or three times on a route from GJT to Vegas. Having done the similar route to PHX, it'll happen twice on that route.

Meanwhile back to the OPs topic, most of the ABQ Center controllers used the "proper" phonetics constantly. Probably as a result of so much airspace with so crappy ratty Comms.

Denver also knows they'll lose you between Raton Pass area and Pueblo. They get you back about five miles before they have to hand you off to DEN TRACON who covers KPUB, interestingly. You'd think COS would. Then back to COS and then they hand you back to Denver Center and then back to DEN TRACON. But even with the airspace coverage weirdness, they don't have as many gaps as the ABQ folks and they don't often used the "tree" and "fife".

Personally I just mimic whichever one the controller is using most of the time.

During this last trip I was given a handoff and flipped and called and got absolutely nothing on one of them. Not even hearing other aircraft. Went back and confirmed the frequency with the previous controller and he said, "Oh yeah. He won't be able to hear you there for another ten miles." "No problem, just checking, thanks... 79M." Heh.

Ratty Comm is quite common out here in the unpopulated desert southwest.
 
ATC around here uses Tree and Fife. I guess I thought it was more common. Maybe it is a regional thing.
 
What did your video say about niner?
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Nine is pronounced "Niner" and that I do hear regularly.

"Fow-er" is another I have not hear. But with only 14 hours of flight time it is not as though I have spoken to every controller out there!
 
I've never heard any of the DEN controllers use tree or fife. Niner, quite often. At home field, we got one pilot who insists on "tree" all the time. Not even the retired military around here or the controllers, use tree or fife.
 
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