Improving radio communication in General Aviation : a preliminary investigation

English Language Proficiency (ELP) has been identified as an integral part of international aviation safety (MacBurnie, 2004). As such, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has mandated that all new pilots and Air Traffic Control (ATC) personnel pass an ELP test prior to obtaining their qualifications. Although this is widely expected to have a positive impact on safety, there is yet limited evidence in General Aviation (GA) to suggest that improvements in communication have been forthcoming. Therefore, the main aim of the present research was to investigate the impact of ELP on communication in GA. In a preliminary study, 36 pilots of varying flight experience and from 9 different language backgrounds completed an anonymous questionnaire regarding their experience with radio communication. Qualitative comments from pilots indicate that the use of English as a second language contributes to communication difficulties in GA. A series of planned Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Tests revealed ‘Understanding other pilots’ to be the most challenging task in radio communication, followed by ‘Remembering what you have to say’, ‘Reading back’, ‘Saying what you have to say’ and ‘Understanding ATC’. A series of Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric analyses revealed that all pilots, irrespective of flight experience and native language, ranked the challenges in radio communication similarly. The preliminary conclusion is that pilots, irrespective of language background, find communication with other pilots significantly more challenging than with ATC. This challenge is not mitigated by flying experience and is further increased when communicating with pilots whose native language is not English. These results suggest that improvements in ELP are only part of the solution. Future research is required to determine the impact of other contributing factors, e.g. quality of aircraft radio transmissions, pilots’ comprehension skills, and pilots’ mental model (expectation), on effective communication in GA