In preparation for my next flight I was hoping to prepare and revise the exact radio calls to enter CTA. I had a look at my notes, but they not as helpful as I hoped.. For example:

Pilot: Perth Approach, Charlie Charlie Charlie 4500 Request Clearance
ATC: Charlie Charlie Charlie, Approach, Identified, Clearance - track via X, Victor XX
Maintain 2500
QNH 1019

The pilot just advised that he was at 4500ft, but ATC came back with maintain 2500. Should this not have been "descent to 2500". Also in the request there was no route / track requested. How does ATC know what path I am requesting a clearance for. Does this information come from the filed flight plan ?

If any of you have some pointers or content which could help me with my radio call, in particular in CTA it would help me a great deal.

Given that this is a VFR flight, in most cases you would be tracking via an approach point as annotated on your VTC, this helps ATC identify where you are and this would also generally correspond to an altitude constraint being the lower limit or below for that airspace. You must remember that all the "W's" need to be accounted for: Who you are, where you are, what you want <intentions> etc.

Even though you have submitted a flight plan ATC has no crystal ball and they may at times require further information from you, for example, in your notes above there is no mention of "where you are" and hence the altitude does not automatically correspond to your location in reference to the airport. I would reference the VTC for Perth before attempting the answer at least as a guide. If you don't have the VTC here is a link: www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/current...rt/vtc/Perth_VTC.pdf

Usually when requesting clearance for C class firstly check the ATIS, then call them up in this order:

Callsign, position, intentions, recieved (ATIS Identifier)......blah blah blah.

Example at YBCG inbound from the north:

"Gold Coast TWR Charlie Charlie Charlie,1500ft at Q1, inbound with 'Echo' request airways clearance"
or
"Gold Coast TWR Charlie Charlie Charlie inbound with 'Echo' 1500ft Q1 request clearance"

Typical response:

"Charlie Charlie Charlie, track over water maintain 1500"...etc etc.....
or
"Charlie Charlie Charlie, identified track via Burleigh Heads or direct/Robina Town centre, etc, maintain 1500"


Hope this helps

The examples I was given are are shown below. They have raised a number of questions:


After receiving a discrete squawk code, the pilot is given the expectation of a clearance at 2500ft, but never asked to descend. Was this implied ?
On the next call, the pilot reports at 4500ft with the second clearance request, the ATC replies with maintain 2500 ? Maybe this is just a typo int he notes. On the same call from ATC, the pilot is cleared via "the lakes mine", then Victor 66. This is the part I don't know how ATC obtained these details.


Besides listening to live ATC, are there any other guides or study material to help me improve my understanding of radio calls. I had a look at the VFRG, which is great, but doesn't seem to offer the full sequences of the interactions.