Why people fail RTR(A) Part 2

Almost nobody fails RTR(A) Part 2 because they did not know something. They fail because the knowledge did not come out cleanly when the examiner was pushing the exchange along. Five patterns account for most of it.

It is a technique failure, not a knowledge one

Part 1 proves you know the regulations and phraseology. Part 2 proves you can produce them in real time, in the right order, with correct readback, while something is going wrong. Candidates who "studied hard" for Part 2 by re-reading the manual often do worse than those who spent the same hours reading calls aloud. Treat it as a driving test, not a written one.

1. Incomplete readback of mandatory items

This is the big one. A clearance comes with several elements and every one of the mandatory items has to come back. The failure looks like this:

ATC:     VT-ABC, cleared to Bravo via Whiskey One, climb two
         thousand feet, squawk 4271.
PILOT:   Cleared to Bravo, VT-ABC.          <-- route detail, level
                                                 and squawk all dropped

PILOT:   Cleared to Bravo via Whiskey One, climb two thousand
         feet, squawk 4271, VT-ABC.

Read back: route clearances, level instructions, headings and speeds, altimeter settings, SSR codes, the runway-in-use, and every clearance to enter, land on, take off from, backtrack, cross or hold short of a runway, plus the frequency on a transfer. A dropped runway or take-off clearance readback is treated as a serious error because it is a runway-incursion risk in the real world.

2. Non-standard phraseology

Standard phrases exist for a reason and the examiner wants to hear them. Consistent use of "okay", "copy", "go ahead for" (instead of "pass your message"), "with you", "for the field", or reading a frequency as "one twenty four thirty five" instead of "one two four decimal three five" will cost marks even when the meaning is obvious. Learn the difference between roger (received), wilco (will comply), affirm, negative and standby, and use nothing else for those functions.

3. Rushing and clipping transmissions

Under pressure people speed up, run words together, and key the microphone a beat late so the first word is lost. Standard guidance is to speak at a rate that could be written down by hand, keep the volume constant, and pause slightly before pressing and after releasing the transmit switch. Numbers are spoken digit by digit with the ICAO pronunciations (TREE, FOWER, FIFE, NINER, DAY-SEE-MAL). A slow, clear wrong-ish call scores better than a fast unintelligible correct one.

4. Wrong structure on the emergency call

The examiner will inject at least one abnormal event. Candidates lose marks by giving the information in a jumbled order or missing elements. The distress call has a fixed structure:

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY
station addressed
callsign
nature of emergency
intentions
present position, level, heading
persons on board
callsign

PAN PAN (spoken three times) uses the same shape for an urgency condition. For radio failure, be able to rattle off: squawk 7600, continue on the last clearance or the published lost-communication procedure, transmit blind with position and intentions, listen out on the last assigned frequency and 121.5, and look for light signals on arrival. And say "aviate first", examiners want to see you fly the aircraft before you reach for the microphone.

5. Losing the call skeleton under pressure

Every routine call is who you are calling, who you are, where you are, what you want. When candidates freeze, it is almost always because they abandoned that skeleton and tried to compose a sentence from scratch. If your mind goes blank, say "standby", rebuild the four-part skeleton, then transmit.

The fix

1. Script every phase. One sheet with the standard call for start-up, taxi, departure, climb, position report, arrival, circuit and landing.
2. Read it aloud twice a day until you no longer need the sheet.
3. Record a full sortie on the radio and score yourself for pace, clipped words and missed readback items.
4. One surprise emergency per practice run, thrown by someone else.
5. Drill the viva content in the RTR(A) Part 2 question bank, light signals, Q-codes, distress and urgency, and the regulations behind it in the Part 1 bank.

Two to four weeks of daily spoken practice clears Part 2 for most people who already have the Part 1 knowledge. The Part 2 viva guide has the full phase-by-phase exchanges and model viva answers to practise against.

FAQ

AviationGrade editorial team

Written from CAR Section 9 phraseology and common examiner practice

We run the RTR(A) Part 1 and Part 2 question banks and write these guides from the same source material. Corrections welcome and credited.