Pilot lingo question

What does it mean when pilots tell ATC they are/have “golf to land”? Ready to land? I’ve “googled” for a precise definition without any luck?

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What does it mean when pilots tell ATC they are/have “golf to land”? Ready to land? I’ve “googled” for a precise definition without any luck?

 

 

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When you get the ATIS for your destination it will start with something like “Information Golf 2200 Zulu weather”. These are updated every hour and they go in alphabetical order: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie…

Golf is just one of those. If you call the tower and say you have “Foxtrot”, they would know that you had the previous weather report, not the current one.

Lets rewind a bit. First you would listen to an airport, with a tower, ATIS. Automated weather. or weather recorded by the ATC person. "Westfield tower observation Delta at 18:00 zulu. Wind 125 at 7. Runway 15 in use....." this is information that changes on the hour and has other information that is current for that airport.

You would never hear, "Golf to land." as the correct communication would be 1. Who you are calling 2. Who you are. 3. Where you are 4.Where you want to go. You can probably find something about the 4 w's

Say I wanted to land at Westfield in a piper Cherokee N1660J. "Westfield tower this is Piper 60 Juliette 10 miles east for full stop with information Delta." I would never just say "Delta to land", as the tower would then ask who and where I was to verify that I knew my location.

At a non towered airport you would not repeat that you have the ATIS. "Pittsfield traffic Piper 60 Juliette is 10 miles East runway 32 Pittsfield." (I never say "the active")

Fun story: On my first 3 point cross country flight as a student. I departed Barnes in Westfield to the North. A woman traveling south thought she was entitled to call her airplane 9 Delta Echelon. The correct phonetics is 9 Delta Echo. She called the tower and they responded with the proper phonetics to have her not answer.

They called me, "Cessna 5 Papa Tango descend 500 feet." I responded be removing power and descended. I saw her at 2:00 heading the other way. They would not let her enter their airspace to land, and totally flipped out on her on the importance of phonetics. So I laugh when flight sim automated ATC pronounces "Decimal" in 15 years I have never heard that.

More frequently, it'll be something like, "Jeffco Tower, Cessna 1234J 5 north with golf" or "Jeffco Tower, Cessna 1234J 5 north landing with golf" or "Jeffco Tower, Cessna 1234J 5 north landing. We have golf" but in all cases it's like Cavu says, just telling ATC that you have listened to the ATIS called "Information Golf." This is a good way to do, since if you listened to Golf and they THEN changed to Hotel, they could reply, "Cessna 1234J, Hotel is current.

So it's all shorthand (and all found in the AIM - Aeronautical Information Manual -- which pilots should be familiar with) to minimize air time, thus freeing up the frequency sooner so that someone else can use it.

Thanks. I understand now.

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