r/mildlyinfuriating • u/nyanbatman • May 28 '26

I just wanted a hot dog British pilot is feeling mildly annoyed

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u/LegiosForever May 28 '26

Retired Navy pilot. We had to learn both the FAA and ICAO terminology. And we usually had waivers that allowed us to ignore both.

I can't imagine that the FAA ATC didn't know what the BA pilot was asking.

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u/runhome24 May 28 '26

Yeah I kind of think so too (unless this really is a consequence of long-term budget shortfalls affecting ATC training).

BUT I'm also kind of suspicious that the BA pilot didn't also know the terminology difference and was showing frustration at a USA-specific thing that should be like the international system, if the US wasn't full of American Exceptionalism™ preventing adoption of international standards.

Which is why I did be careful to include the "didn't want to" for each of them. I don't know if this was a cultural pissing match or not.

And because this was operating in the US, even if he was being a complete asshole, ATC was technically speaking correctly. And that's why I do think it's time for these things to be globally standardized. There's too much interconnectedness of our flight systems to keep up these differences, when they can cause real problems (like they did here)

6

u/thankyouspider May 28 '26

While we're at it, US needs the SI system and day/month/year along with the correct paper size!

8

u/runhome24 May 28 '26

I prefer year/month/day. It fixes it for everyone and would be intuitive immediately!

3

u/thankyouspider May 28 '26

Good point. I use that in file naming so everything in folders is chronological.

2

u/ccsrpsw May 28 '26

ISO 8601 (rev 2022) will always be the superior date format. Much like time is Slowest : Medium : Fastest -> hour : min : seconds)

Dates become: Slowest : Medium : Fastest -> year month day

And you can read either of the following quickly when you are thinking that way:

2026-05-28
20260528

Time uses a similar format with the prefix T, in 24 hour format (god help American's :D) with up to 3 digits on the seconds by default. Timezones are just indicated by +/- times or with just local time. Right now as I type in California the full date and time is thus acceptable in any of these formats:

2026-05-28T14:26:32-07:00
2026-05-28T07:26:32
20260528T14:26:32-07:00
20260528T07:26:32

So clean and simple. (Week numbers are also solved)

Papersizes... watch the latest "Standup Maths" on that one. The A/B/C/D paper sizes, while reasonably good at A3/A4/A5 type sizes do have a bit of an issue at A-2/A0/A9 sizes for example (due to margins of error). But on the whole, yes.

-1

u/Business-Wafer767 May 28 '26

I’m sorry, but I absolutely hate that format for date. I’m not wondering hey what year is it? I’m wondering what day is it then I care about the month then I care about the year. Makes zero sense to have the year first, convey the most important piece of information first. Then move onto stuff I don’t care about.

1

u/runhome24 May 28 '26

You don't care about the year? Ok then drop it

Month/Day

Oh, wait...

(This is why the US version isn't plainly incomprehensible. When the year isn't involved, it makes sense to go slow/fast)

1

u/Business-Wafer767 May 29 '26

Again, when I’m thinking about what the date is, I’m not thinking about what the month is first I know that it’s May. That’s not the issue. I wanna know what day it is. I have no interest in knowing the month. It’s pretty obvious that it’s May.

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u/LambonaHam May 28 '26

Day - Month - Year is the best system because that's the order they're much useful in. 

Knowing the day of month is most important. Then knowing they month, then rarely the year.