"Attention Kennedy is now Oscar...."

[rekno13]

I hear that every now and then, with different letters, what does that mean?

Thanks for your help!

[Jason]

I hear that every now and then, with different letters, what does that mean?

Thanks for your help!

New ATIS on the frequency.

[atcman23]

Definitely not the "actual" way of notifying pilots of the new ATIS, but I see why they do it that way... the radio frequencies there are already clogged.

[joebone1]

I hear that every now and then, with different letters, what does that mean?

Thanks for your help!

At JFK, when a departing flight "pushes" they notify ground - ground will give them taxi instructions and tell them the current ATIS - I believe this is just a safeguard to be sure the pilot has listened to the most recent ATIS.  When the ATIS changes, the ground will notify all the flights that are on taxiways of the change by saying "Attention, Kennedy ATIS is now Oscar". 

[sykocus]

I hear that every now and then, with different letters, what does that mean?

Thanks for your help!

The ATIS is a recording of the weather and pertinent information about the airport and local area. A new one is made every hour at the most. If there are pertinent changes in the weather, runway in use, etc. a new one is made sooner. When planes check in for taxi or with approach when landing they should advise what the most recently ATIS they received. Each new ATIS broadcast is given a sequential letter from the phonic alphabet to quickly identify what the most recently information available is.

Definitely not the "actual" way of notifying pilots of the new ATIS, but I see why they do it that way... the radio frequencies there are already clogged.

There no prescribed phraseology on how to broadcast atis changes. So there isn't just one "actual" way to say it.

[aevins]

Definitely not the "actual" way of notifying pilots of the new ATIS, but I see why they do it that way... the radio frequencies there are already clogged.

Exact phraseology from the JFK ATCT SOP is "Attention Kennedy ATIS has been changed to XXXX", so I would hope its .65 compliant.

[tyketto]

Definitely not the "actual" way of notifying pilots of the new ATIS, but I see why they do it that way... the radio frequencies there are already clogged.

Exact phraseology from the JFK ATCT SOP is "Attention Kennedy ATIS has been changed to XXXX", so I would hope its .65 compliant.

I think what he's getting at is that there isn't anything spelled out in the .65 for it to be compliant. The closest that I was able to find were the examples in 2-9-2.d, and they don't really apply to a general broadcast that a new ATIS is current..

BL.

[sykocus]

Exact phraseology from the JFK ATCT SOP is "Attention Kennedy ATIS has been changed to XXXX", so I would hope its .65 compliant.

That's surprising on two fronts: the fact that they would put phraseology for ATIS change in their SOP and that it's so damn wordy. Like tyketto said there's no phrasology in the .65, and the only examples are for 2-9-2d and it's bullet c that says to broadcast ATIS changes.

[joeyb747]

I've also heard it said "information Zulu (or whatever) is now current"...usually when an aircraft calls for taxi, say like "Kennedy Tower, Delta 123, with Yankee, ready to taxi." The above phrase usually follows that...

[rekno13]

Ah, thank you all so much for this educational information! I am now more intelligent because of you all.

[SolarEclipse]

Ditto - I've been wondering what this means too.  I'm usually listening to KBUF and they typically use the "information Zulu is now current" format and I couldn't find the "translation" anywhere.  I'm not a pilot, just listen for fun.   

[rekno13]

This is kind of related to this, since they say it when they do that.

They say altimeter is 2999, or something, and they do that when they talk to helicopters too. I thought that was the airport height, but why does it keep changing?

[atcman23]

That is the current barometric pressure for the airport.  It changes because the air pressure changes constantly.  While you won't always see it change every hour, this changes.

Pilots use this for their altitude gauge in the cockpit.  They take the current altimeter setting given by the controller (or possibly a local automated weather station) and place into their altitude gauge.  The readout on the gauge then gives the correct altitude for that airport (assuming the aircraft is on the ground).

Wikipedia has a decent post about the altimeter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altimeter

Also check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude#Altitude_in_aviation

Hope this helps!

[rekno13]

Thanks alot atcman!

It definitely helped a lot, I read the wiki article when I first heard the phrase used but I didn't understand why the controllers were saying it, your explanation completes the puzzle, thank you!