The FAA may change position and hold to line up and wait.  I think it is crazy. Line up and wait sounds un-professional.  It sounds like what a kid with a small vocab would say.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/PositionAndHoldChangeExpectedSoon_201830-1....

steelerspilot wrote on Jan 15^th, 2010 at 6:51pm:


Both phrases are as daft as each other - personally I can't see what's so much more unprofessional sounding about one than the other.

"Position and hold" was silly in the first place. "Position" what?

"Line up and wait" is in some ways just as silly. "Line up and hold" might be considered marginally better.

Until recently (when they adopted civil procedures) the RAF did it the best way. When calling for departure you got one of three replies:

"Hold". Hold at the required holding point. Don't enter the runway - easy.

"Line Up". Enter the runway and line-up (no need to be told to hold, as you haven't been cleared to take off, so you shouldn't be intending to go anywhere anyway). Clear as water.

"Clear take off". Self explanatory.

Sadly we've now regressed to the daft civvy speak, and find ourselves lining up and waiting, and doing "touch and goes" (the word "roll" was so much less effort!)...

DaveSims wrote on Jan 15^th, 2010 at 8:11pm:


It makes it a lot less confusing for the people who don't have English as their first language. Create a worldwide standard, and it makes life easier for everyone in the long term (even if some of the terminology is a bit rubbish, and the fact that French will always use French!)

"Position and hold"  is short for "(Taxi into takeoff) position and hold (that position until told otherwise)"...I've actually heard controllers say "taxi into position and hold".  I don't see what's unclear about that, even the more common shortened version.

"Line up and wait" suggests, to me, that you are joining a queue, "lining up" behind another aircraft... although I realize it means "line up with the runway and wait there for instructions". That's just how it sounds to me. Maybe it's an American thing: we don't join queues, we line up. 

At any rate, if there are pilots who don't get "position and hold" I don't see how they are going to do any better with "line up and wait", especially with all the older pilots asking "line up behind what?"   

beaky wrote on Jan 15^th, 2010 at 10:13pm:


Bleedin' colonials!  Two nations separated by a common language etc! To us "line up" is perfectly obvious (on the runway, in the direction of take off). As I've said before, I think the wait/hold bit of both is spurious; after you've positioned/lined up, what else exactly would you do?

Quote:


They'll have to learn. It is in an attempt after all to get the US to fit in with the international standard, and avert that nastiest type of accident, caused by the runway incursion. Having experienced a fair amount of foreign ATC, and foreign (non English speaking) users of ATC, the more "standard" it gets the better (although of course you'll never win in certain headstrong countries where ATC and domestic aircraft insist on talking in  their own tongue, which is certainly non ICAO and exceptionally dangerous).

olderndirt wrote on Jan 16^th, 2010 at 12:37pm:


There shouldn't be any need for any "hold" or "wait" command (when entering the runway) in an ideal world. Position, or line up is clearance to enter the runway, and gives no indication that you are cleared to do anything else.

I suspect the reason they want to remove the word hold is more to remove any confusion/miss-comprehension of the clearance with respect to holding points. What you then get is a system of "language" where the same words aren't used within the different clearances. As I said before, not everyone flying in the world has as good a command of English as native speakers do, and even those that do, you have to work to the lowest common denominator.