Phraseology Is King
If you know how to talk to a pilot — if you know how to say it the way the FAA wants you to say it — then the pilot is going to understand you. And if something ever does go wrong, you'll never have to explain why you didn't use correct phraseology. That's why I call it what I call it: phraseology is king.
It's one of my all-time favorite subjects, and I want to break it down for you today in a way that actually helps you prepare — not just understand why it matters, but know what to do with it.
It's Not As Standardized As You Think
Here's something that surprises a lot of students: you would think phraseology would be the same everywhere. And in theory, it should be. The 7110.65 lays out exactly what the FAA wants you to say. But in practice, phraseology varies — from facility to facility, from school to school, from program to program.
The phraseology you're learning at your CTI school is going to be slightly different from what they teach at the Academy. What they teach at the Academy will be slightly different from what they use at Advanced ATC. And when you get to your first facility, it'll shift again.
I've worked at five different facilities, worked at the Academy, worked at Advanced ATC — and I can tell you from firsthand experience that every single one of them did things slightly differently.
This is actually one of the hardest things I dealt with as an instructor at the Academy.
Students who came in with prior air traffic experience — especially from the military — sometimes struggled more than students who were starting from zero. Military phraseology is different from FAA phraseology. Different structure, different habits, different muscle memory. And unlearning something is often harder than learning it fresh.
So here's the mindset I want you to carry into every stage of this process: learn the phraseology where you are.
Don't worry about how it differs from where you were before. Don't worry about how it'll differ from where you're going next. Your job right now is to pass — pass your CTI school, pass the Academy, get to your first facility, and get through training there.
Focus on what's in front of you.
It's a Language — Treat It Like One
I used to tell my students in Oklahoma City that over the course of my life, I've tried to learn about seven different languages. Spanish, French, Italian, Russian — yes, I actually took Russian in high school — Portuguese, English, and air traffic control.
And there's a reason I can only speak two of those seven fluently.
The ones I speak are the ones that meant something to me.
The others just haven't mattered enough, yet.
That framing — air traffic as a language — isn't just a metaphor. It's the most accurate way I know to describe what you're actually doing when you learn phraseology.
You're not memorizing scripts. You're learning to think and communicate in a different language, one that has its own grammar, its own rhythm, and its own consequences when you get it wrong. And just like any language, the goal isn't to think about what you're saying while you're saying it.
The goal is fluency.
You have to get to the point where the phraseology just comes out.
My primary trainer at Brownsville put it to me directly: "you want to say it right every time, and you want to get to the point where you don't have to think about how to say it right. It just comes out right."
That's the standard.
That's what you're working toward.
Why Second Nature Matters So Much
Here's why this is so important, and it goes beyond just sounding professional.
When you're in the radar lab at the Academy, it is very easy to tell who has studied and who hasn't. Who knows the phraseology for a point out and who's guessing. Who can give a clearance without hesitating and who can't.
And as an instructor watching from the other side of that room, I can tell you — the students who have the phraseology down cold have a massive advantage. Not just in how they're perceived, but in how they're actually able to perform.
When phraseology is second nature, your brain gets freed up to think about the things that are harder to automate — traffic flow, separation, the picture. The cognitive load of figuring out what to say is gone, and you can focus on what you're actually supposed to be managing.
That's the real payoff.
The reverse is also true.
When phraseology is a struggle, everything else gets harder. You're splitting your mental bandwidth between communication and decision-making at the exact moment you can least afford to. You fall behind, you start guessing, and the whole thing starts to unravel.
Good Phraseology Can Actually Protect You
Here's something I've seen firsthand that a lot of people don't talk about: good phraseology can lull an evaluator to sleep. And I mean that in the best possible way.
I've been watching a student work a problem, and they sounded so good — so clean, so confident — that I completely missed a separation error they made. It happens. When someone sounds like they know exactly what they're doing, your brain starts to relax. That's human nature.
Your job during an evaluation is to put that evaluator to sleep.
Start so clean, sound so professional, that they feel like they can relax and just observe. I've seen students come out of evals saying they had a couple of small errors that didn't get caught. That's not luck — that's what good phraseology does.
The opposite is equally true and equally powerful. Bad phraseology at the start of a problem puts that evaluator on full alert for the next 40 to 45 minutes. Their ears perk up. They lean in. They start watching for everything. And now every small mistake gets caught because you've told them — through your communication — that they need to pay close attention.
You don't want that.
You want them relaxed.
Good phraseology is how you get there.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
In non-radar at the Academy, a phraseology error will cost you a fraction of a point. In the radar portion, it'll cost you two points. That doesn't sound like much until you think about it this way.
Imagine you have a stack of 100 one-dollar bills. Someone comes along and takes two. You still have 98 — fine. Then another person takes two. Then another. Then another. After ten of those, you're down to 80 points maximum, and that's assuming you did everything else in the problem correctly.
And here's what I can tell you almost with certainty: if your phraseology isn't spot on, it's rarely the only thing in that problem that's off.
Weak phraseology and weak performance tend to travel together. So those two-point deductions add up fast, and they add up on top of other errors you may not even realize you're making.
The flip side is that phraseology is one of the few things in air traffic control that is almost entirely within your control before you ever set foot in the radar lab.
You don't need scenarios to practice it.
You don't need simulators.
You just need repetition.
How to Actually Practice
So how do you build that fluency?
Here's what I did when I was starting out with very little experience talking to aircraft.
I practiced the phonetic alphabet by reading license plates as I drove to and from the Academy. Every plate became an aircraft. Every car on the road was traffic. If I had someone in the car with me, we'd run point-outs back and forth the entire trip — one of us giving the point-out, the other taking it, then switching. Back and forth, over and over, until it stopped feeling like practice and started feeling automatic.
You can do the same thing.
The opportunities are everywhere once you start looking for them.
But — and this is critical — it does not help to practice bad phraseology.
Bad phraseology is as harmful as no phraseology, maybe worse, because it builds the wrong habits into your muscle memory and makes them harder to undo later.
If you're practicing with classmates, hold each other accountable. Correct each other. Keep the standard high, because the standard you practice to is the standard you'll perform to under pressure.
Phraseology and Strip Marking: Two Sides of the Same Language
One more thing I want to touch on, because it ties directly into phraseology: strip marking.
If phraseology is learning to speak the language of air traffic control, strip marking is learning to write it.
They're two sides of the same coin, and they have to develop together.
You need to be able to say the right thing and write the right thing simultaneously. That's the reality of working traffic.
The good news is that phraseology and strip marking are, in my view, the easiest things you're going to learn in this career — easier than learning a map, easier than building a mental picture of complex traffic flow.
They seem overwhelming at first, but they become manageable fast with consistent practice. And once they're solid, they become the foundation that everything else gets built on.
If you can't communicate what you're doing in a way the pilot understands, none of the rest of it matters.
You can have the perfect plan in your head, the best clearance anyone has ever constructed — and if you can't say it right, the pilot won't understand it, they'll read back with confusion, and now you're twice as busy as you were before.
The Standard to Hold Yourself To
My first trainer said it to me in a way I've never forgotten: if you sound confident, if you sound professional, that pilot will follow your instructions without question. That's the power of clear, correct communication.
Pilots trust controllers who sound like they know what they're doing. And when you get busy — really busy — that trust is everything. You cannot have pilots second-guessing your instructions at the exact moment you need them to act immediately.
I had a Seminole on short final with no gear down. I was busy, but I saw it, keyed up, and gave him the correct phraseology. He went around, came back, landed safely, and thanked me.
In a split-second situation, there's no time to think about how to say something.
It just has to come out right.
That's what all the practice is for.
So wherever you are right now — CTI school, preparing for the Academy, already in Oklahoma City — learn the phraseology where you are.
Master it.
Get to the point where it comes out without thinking.
Phraseology is king.
Always has been, always will be.
FOR HELP:
To set up a FREE call: sidebysideatc.com/scheduler/free-consult
Pre-Academy
If you are heading to the Academy in the next few months, I put together a structured 90-day preparation blueprint that walks you through exactly what to focus on each month before you go. It's designed to help reduce shock and build confidence before day one. You can download it at: sidebysideatc.com/page/blueprint .
I also have a video where I explain the different things that are on the enroute Non-Radar Map. You can get that video at: sidebysideatc.com/page/map-video .
Already at the Academy
If you are already in the enroute radar portion of the Academy and feeling a little behind or lost, I have a 72-Hour Radar Recovery Plan that will help you get past those feelings and start building confidence. You can download that at : sidebysideatc.com/page/72-hourplan .
If you are interested in my Coaching Programs, you can get information at :
or
sidebysideatc.com/page/radar-recovery if you are needing help with the beginning of enroute radar.
Mentorship Program
For information about my mentorship program : https://sidebysideatc.com/page/mentorship
Questions
You can email me questions, or comments, at: tomhanes@sidebysideatc.com .
The Six Drivers of ATC Success: Driver #1 — Purpose
I want to talk about something that almost nobody discusses when it comes to getting through the FAA Academy.
Not phraseology. Not radar. Not the map. I'm talking about purpose — your why — and it might be the single most important thing that determines whether you make it through or not.
This is the first of "The Six Drivers of ATC Success." These are the six areas that, in my experience as a controller and as a classroom instructor at the Academy, make the biggest difference in whether a student struggles or succeeds — not just at the Academy, but at your first facility and beyond.
The six drivers are:
- Purpose
- Plan
- Phraseology
- Practice
- Picture
- Performance
Each one matters. But we're starting with purpose, because without it, the other five are a lot harder to hold onto.
What Purpose Actually Means
I want to borrow a quote here from Nick Saban — and before you think I'm some huge Alabama fan, I'm not. But the man says things worth repeating. He said, "You have to know what you want to accomplish and have the determination to follow through."
That's what purpose is.
It's not just knowing you want to be an air traffic controller.
It's knowing why you want to be one.
Everyone shows up to Oklahoma City excited. The first few weeks have energy. People are motivated, they're studying, they're getting into it. But not everyone finishes. And one of the biggest differences between the students who push through and the ones who don't isn't raw intelligence or prior aviation experience. It's having a strong foundation of why they're there in the first place.
I'll be honest — this doesn't get talked about much. I didn't see it discussed a lot on Discord. We didn't even spend much time on it in the classroom when I was an instructor. And that's a mistake, because it matters more than almost anything else.
What Happens When You Don't Have It
Here's what I saw over and over again in students who struggled.
They came in thinking the Academy would be like college. And I'll tell you — Basics actually is a bit like college. But once you get past Basics, that comparison falls apart completely.
After Basics, you start getting bombarded with information.
Especially in the en route option, where they throw the map at you, give you an enormous amount of material, and you're expected to absorb all of it — even when you don't yet understand how it all fits together.
The first few weeks of non-radar are genuinely disorienting. You're getting information you know you need, but you can't yet see why you need it or where it's going.
And that's when it starts.
The discouragement. The self-doubt. The question creeping in: Is this really for me? Am I the kind of person who can actually do this job?
Once that voice starts talking, everything gets harder. You start focusing on the mistakes instead of the learning. You stop recovering quickly. And without something solid to come back to — a real reason, a genuine foundation — it's very easy to start slipping and very hard to get back on track.
I've watched it happen in students' eyes in real time. We'd finish a lesson, open it up for questions, and sometimes the questions wouldn't come for a day or two because it takes time to process. And as you're waiting for it to click, you can feel the weight of everything piling up.
That's the moment purpose either holds you up or lets you fall.
Purpose Is What Keeps You Showing Up
Here's what I've seen in students who do make it through — including some who struggled significantly along the way. They have something to hold onto.
A real reason.
Not a vague idea of a good job, but a genuine, personal answer to the question of why they drove or flew to Oklahoma City and put themselves through this process.
That purpose doesn't make the Academy easier. I want to be clear about that. It won't make the scenarios less demanding or the information less overwhelming. But it makes you stronger. It keeps you coming back to the table even on the days when your brain hurts and you're not sure you understood anything that happened in class.
It helps you understand that mistakes are part of the process — that they're how you learn — instead of treating every mistake as evidence that you don't belong there.
Something like 90% of students who go through the en route portion of the Academy feel overwhelmed at some point. Ninety percent. So if you're feeling that way, you are not alone and you are not failing. But the ones who get through it are usually the ones who have something pulling them forward when the motivation runs dry. And motivation always runs dry at some point.
It's not a question of if — it's when.
Purpose is what's still there after the motivation is gone.
You Can't Do This Alone
I want to talk about something connected to this, and that's the role of your classmates.
Because purpose doesn't just affect how you show up individually — it affects how your entire class functions together.
No one — and I mean no one — has ever passed the Academy on their own. Not one student who made it through did it in isolation. The classes that succeed are always the ones that work together. And when an entire class has a strong sense of why they're there, something remarkable happens: a steadiness sets in. A confidence. An ability to absorb the hard days without falling apart, because when one person is struggling, someone else is holding steady, and that steadiness is contagious.
If you're one of the students who comes in with more experience — whether that's military, aviation, or anything else — understand that your classmates are watching you. They're learning from how you carry yourself.
That's not pressure; it's opportunity. You have a chance to raise the level of the entire class just by staying engaged and being part of the team.
And here's the humbling truth: there will be a moment, guaranteed, when you're stuck on something and the classmate you thought was behind you knows the answer. It happens all the time. The Academy has a way of equalizing people in unexpected ways.
Stay humble.
Stay connected.
Work together.
How to Actually Build Your Purpose
Now let's get practical, because this isn't just a concept — it's something you can and should do deliberately.
Write it down.
There is something that happens when you commit your reason to paper that doesn't happen when you just think about it.
It becomes real.
It becomes specific.
Take a few minutes — before you get to Oklahoma City if you can, or right now if you're already there — and write down honestly why you started this journey.
And I want to be direct here: don't write down the money. I know that's part of it for a lot of people, and there's nothing wrong with wanting financial stability. But at the Academy level, and as a new graduate, the money isn't there yet. It will come. But it is not a purpose that will carry you through the days when the Academy kicks you in the face — and it will kick you in the face. That's just the reality.
Write something real. Write something personal. Write the thing that, if someone asked you at your lowest point why you were still there, would actually be the honest answer.
Then keep it somewhere visible. Put it on your bathroom mirror. Tape it to your backpack. Put it somewhere you'll see it every day — including weekends, because the mental work doesn't stop on Saturdays or Sundays. The more you're reminded of your why, the more it becomes part of how you think. And when you hit a rough scenario or a day when your brain just won't cooperate, seeing that reason gives you something to come back to.
This Foundation Doesn't Stop at the Academy
I want to leave you with this. The Academy is where your purpose gets tested for the first time. But it won't be the last time.
When you get to your first facility — and you will get there — you're going to need that foundation again.
The challenges are different, but the pressure is real, and the days when you wonder if you're cut out for it don't disappear once you have your certification. Having built that strong sense of purpose at the Academy means you arrive at your facility with something already in place. A framework for handling difficulty. A habit of coming back from mistakes instead of being defined by them.
So before we get into the other five drivers — plan, phraseology, practice, picture, and poise — I want you to sit with this one.
Ask yourself the honest version of the question.
Why are you doing this?
Not the polished answer you'd give in an interview.
The real one.
The one that gets you out of bed on the morning after a hard day.
That's your purpose.
Write it down.
Hold onto it.
It might be the most important thing you bring with you to Oklahoma City.
FOR HELP:
To set up a FREE call: sidebysideatc.com/scheduler/free-consult
Pre-Academy
If you are heading to the Academy in the next few months, I put together a structured 90-day preparation blueprint that walks you through exactly what to focus on each month before you go. It's designed to help reduce shock and build confidence before day one. You can download it at: sidebysideatc.com/page/blueprint .
I also have a video where I explain the different things that are on the enroute Non-Radar Map. You can get that video at: sidebysideatc.com/page/map-video .
Already at the Academy
If you are already in the enroute radar portion of the Academy and feeling a little behind or lost, I have a 72-Hour Radar Recovery Plan that will help you get past those feelings and start building confidence. You can download that at : sidebysideatc.com/page/72-hourplan .
If you are interested in my Coaching Programs, you can get information at :
or
sidebysideatc.com/page/radar-recovery if you are needing help with the beginning of enroute radar.
Mentorship Program
For information about my mentorship program : https://sidebysideatc.com/page/mentorship
Questions
You can email me questions, or comments, at: tomhanes@sidebysideatc.com .