What does with "lima" or "alpha" mean (AVIATION)?

Question

I hear it a lot in fsx with atc

Answer 1

Anytime ATC or a pilot has to use a letter in a transmission they use the ICAO word for the letter. If your plane has the registration N955A, you would tell ATC you are November niner five five Alpha. One quirk in FSX is that that ATC never pronounces fixes or intersections, it always spells them. So if you are on an approach and you are cleared to "QWERTY", instead of saying qwerty, AC will clear you to Quebec whiskey echo, romeo tango yankee.



Another common use to in identifying the ATIS recording you got information from - the first recording of the day is "alpha" and it gets updated throughout the day. When you contact ATC if you tell them you have Information bravo, and the current info is charlie, they have to provide you with altimeter settings, winds, etc.

Answer 2

Most airports with a control tower broadcast a looped message called an ATIS, which includes weather and important airport info (such as the active runway). The first ATIS of each day starts at Alpha, then Bravo, Charlie etc... as it is updated every hour (or whenever there is a significant change). When you make contact with a control tower, you always say which ATIS you have listened to, so they know if you have the most up to date info.



For example, if I listen to ATIS Delta as I am approaching an airport, I will tell the tower on initial contact that I am "with information Delta".

Answer 3

There is two explanations 1. Any aircraft over 250,000 pounds is considered heavy 2. Any aircraft that is with an airline like united, american, etc is considered heavy because those airplanes need to be separated from the others, others such as small planes or privately owned airplanes. They refer to those planes as "heavy" because they have the right away or are first in line for takeoff or sometimes landing. Unless you are at an airport like LAX or JFK there are a lot of "heavy" aircrafts therefore it is first come first serve for takeoff or landing. Hope that answered your question.

Answer 4

it's NOT military, it's NOT aviation... it's PHONETIC alphabet used in both military and civilian life, wherever communicating through radio (where common spelling would be confusing)



so, whenever the ATC needs to spell something, he would use this phonetic alphabet. there are national phonetic alphabets too, often using commonly used first names



so, a single letter stands for a ATIS information.

three letters, used for NDBs, VORs and such

five letters, significant points



letters, or letters and numbers, imantriculation codes for individual aircraft that have no other callsign (G-ABCD, OK-JET, whereas the routine flights of certain companies would have their dedicated callsign like Delta, renowned Speedbird etc)

Answer 5

You probably hear, "With Lima" or "With Alpha", meaning they have information "Alpha" or "Lima".



It can be anything in the phonetic alphabet, sheer coincidence that you hear those more often.



"Indianapolis Automated Traffic Information System Lima, Winds 040 at 15..." (Example)

Answer 6

It's the aviation alphabet.

Alpha

Bravo

Charlie

Delta

Echo

Fox-trot

Golf

Hotel

India

Juliet

Kilo

Lima

Mike

November

Oscar

Peru

Quebec

Romeo

Sierra

Tango

Uniform

Victory

Whiskey

X ray?

Zulu

Answer 7

Lima usually stands for the letter L or left, Alpha is usually said for letter A

Answer 8

You will also hear heavy use of phonetics when tower gives taxi instructions, as well runway exiting instructions.



"IF ABLE TURN LEFT AT TAXIWAY BRAVO, CONTACT GROUND ON 148.5, WHEN OFF"



"RUNWAY 2-5-RIGHT, TAXI VIA BRAVO, ECHO-ONE, ZULU, TANGO-TWO, ROMEO."



"RUNWAY 1-8 LEFT, TAXI VIA FOXTROT, ECHO, DELTA, HOLD SHORT OF RUNWAY 1-8 RIGHT"



The phonetics refer to the taxiway designation, they are given letters instead of numbers or names to ease confusion and shorten the length of transmissions. It also easier for pilots to remember letters and glance down at airport diagrams to find them. You will also hear controllers sometimes give progressive taxi instructions to the runway to unfamiliar pilots:



"SWA1762 RUNWAY 2-5, TAXI VIA ECHO, TURN RIGHT ON ZULU-ONE, THEN LEFT ON TANGO."



"SWA1772 FOLLOW THE CONTINENTAL 757 AT YOUR TWO O'CLOCK TO RUNWAY 2-7-LEFT."



People cited the ATIS as being a major phonetic use and it really isn't. The controller will say things like:



"CONTACT GROUND, 132.8, WHEN YOU HAVE INFORMATION MIKE."



"INFORMATION YANKEE NOW CURRENT, ALTIMETER 29.81."

Answer 9

It is the military alphabet. Lima is L, while alpha is A. Most likely they are talking about Los Angeles airport (LA).

Answer 10

Amber Nigam:



You forgot 'Y'

Answer 11

tango