Last week we covered talking and writing, and listening and writing, at the same time. In the en route portion of the Academy, you have to do that. It also works so much better when you can, and the ability to listen and write is a tool you need at every level of your ATC journey.

This week we're building on that with what I call the rate of speech tool. 

This tool is about rhythm. 

It's about pace. 

And most of all, it's about not rushing.

I want to start with something that isn't really a quote. 

It comes from the classrooms, mainly the non-radar classrooms of the en route Academy. 

It goes like this:

If you're not at the Academy yet, or you're headed down a different path, you might think, "Tom, this doesn't really matter to me." Actually, it does.

The one thing you don't want when you get busy, and I've said this multiple times on my podcast and in this blog, is to start talking so fast that you get a lot of "say again." 

You can take something that's busy and make it undoable just by talking too fast and collecting say agains.

There are parts of the country where people talk faster than they do here in the South. 

In the Northeast, the controllers talk faster, the pilots talk faster, and the pilots listen faster. If you work there, you have to listen faster too.

I got to see that firsthand. 

I was on a familiarization flight in the cockpit, flying from DFW to LaGuardia. You could tell when we crossed the Mississippi River. The crew tightened their seatbelts a little more and got ready, because the airspace gets much more condensed as you approach New York, DC, Boston, Philly, and Pittsburgh. That's a lot of major airports, a lot of traffic, and fairly small sectors. 

Everyone is talking all the time, and they're talking fast.

Coming the other way, once you cross back over the Mississippi heading west, things calm down. Not necessarily in traffic volume, but in communication. 

It's slower communication-wise.

But it doesn't matter whether you're in the Northeast, the deep South, or the West. It's all about rhythm.

Let's take it back to the Academy. I've told you before that your goal, no matter which option you're in, is to put the evaluator to sleep.

You can't do that if you're talking a hundred miles an hour. If you are, the evaluator will be on edge. They'll be catching everything you do wrong, and believe me, if you're talking that fast, you're going to do something wrong. 

You can't keep up, so you have to get into a rhythm.

It's amazing how much you can get done when you do. 

This podcast runs a little over 30 minutes, which is about the same amount of time as a radar run in the en route radar labs, 40 to 45 minutes. You'd be amazed how much time you actually have. 

The FAA gives you, at least in the en route portion, more chances to sit back and watch your classmates work.

One thing I used to tell my classes was to pay attention to how much time those students have. It's easy to see when you're watching someone else. When you're the one doing it, you don't feel like you have the time. 

You have to keep telling yourself, I have time to get things done.

The common mistake at the Academy is thinking, I'm getting behind. I have to talk faster. I have to do everything faster. 

That's when you start making errors. 

That's when you start missing traffic. 

Talking faster doesn't get you caught up or ahead.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen this. There's usually at least one student in every class who talks really fast. We get into the non-radar lab, and invariably, just about every grade sheet that student gets says the same thing: slow down. Slow down.

This is where last week's tool pays off. 

You can't write as fast as you talk. 

I'm not sure I know anyone who can. 

So writing makes you slow down, and that's a good thing.

Another thing you've heard me say on my podcast, and in this blog, is that accuracy is so much more important than speed. 

Speed you will develop. 

It's accuracy that's going to help you pass: saying things correctly, writing things correctly, and doing your priorities in the order you need to do them.

Fast is not the same as efficient. 

It feels like it is, but it's not. 

The goal isn't to get the words out as quickly as possible. 

The goal is to say the phraseology right every time. 

The goal is to read the clearance you pre-planned correctly.

I can't tell you how many students I've seen pre-plan the right restriction, and then give the wrong mileage or the wrong direction while giving the clearance. 

That isn't just a phraseology error. 

It ends up being a separation error, because the pilot is going to fly exactly what you tell him to fly. 

All the preparation you did gets undone if you rush saying it.

This is also where your pen comes in. 

I've seen students give the wrong call sign. 

Point to the strip. 

Point to the call sign. 

You can do that in the tower, and you can definitely do it in radar, where you're looking at the data block. 

One thing we told students in the radar lab was to be looking at, and talking to, that aircraft's data block. 

If you're going through the TRACON portion of the Academy, talk to the data blocks. 

You're not talking to someone in the next room. 

You're not even really talking to a pilot yet. 

You're talking to the data block. 

Look at it and make sure you get the call sign right. 

That's so important, and it's why the rate of speech tool matters so much.

Think about a single transmission. 

"American 2424, turn right heading 310, vector for spacing." 

That takes maybe two or three seconds. 

You can rush it and save maybe a second.

But if you say it fast enough that the pilot, who didn't know you were about to talk to him, doesn't catch it, he says, "Say again." 

Now you have to do it again. 

It takes twice as long. 

Realistically, it ends up taking about three times as long once you count the lost time and the extra frequency congestion.

You saved a second and spent three. 

That's why you want a good rate of speech.

It's important at the Academy. 

It's vitally important at your first facility. 

And once you've been a CPC for a while, you'll develop your own rate of speech, and it will be different depending on the sector you're working. 

I guarantee it. 

I've seen it, and I did it myself. 

Some sectors were very slow. 

Others you barely had time to catch a breath.

But it's still not about speed. 

Speed comes. 

I know it may not feel like it at times, but it does. 

It's about efficiency and clear transmissions. 

It's about standard phraseology and having a cadence. 

You can be working some of the busiest traffic around, and when you get into a cadence, everybody on that frequency gets into it too. They know when you're going to talk. 

If you're working a radar facility and taking handoffs, you know when other people are going to check on, so you leave a little more space between transmissions. You want those aircraft to check on, so you can do what you need to do.

You're not an air traffic monitor. 

You're an air traffic controller, and that means you control more than the airplanes. 

Controlling the frequency is one of the hardest things for a new controller to learn. 

Even with nine or ten years of experience, it was still difficult for me to get into that habit when I went from tower to a busy center. 

I'm in control of when I take the handoff. 

I'm in control of when people check on. 

I'm in control of how fast everything is going. 

I'll go as fast as I can go and still be accurate and still be clear. 

I won't go faster than that, because when I do, things start to break down.

If you find yourself getting a couple of say agains, that's your signal. It's telling you to slow down and watch your speech rate.

I know we're moving away from strips, and in some ways that's better, especially in en route. 

But one thing strips did was force you to write, even as a radar controller. 

Ask a bunch of controllers and they'll tell you they never wrote on a strip. 

They're lying. 

If something happens to an airplane, you're going to listen to the tape and write on that strip anyway. 

Why not do it up front? It doesn't take much time at all.

Writing on the strip keeps your speech rate matched to your writing rate. 

At the Academy you'll still have strips, except probably in the TRACON portion, and having to write on them keeps you from going too fast. In en route non-radar, you've pre-planned everything, so you're just circling it in black as you say it. 

It's a small thing, but it keeps you in check.

Here's something else to realize. 

When you're working traffic, you're not just talking. 

You're listening, thinking, and writing, even if you're only taking notes. 

You're updating each aircraft against every other aircraft. 

You're sequencing. 

Who am I turning in next? 

Who after that? 

Do I need to vector these guys who just entered my sector so I can turn them back in later? 

Your brain is going a mile a minute, and your rate of speech has to fit into that whole process.

Your brain is going to want to go faster than your mouth can. 

What I've found, working traffic and watching others work it, is that when your brain gets ahead and leaves your mouth by itself, your mouth says all sorts of things your brain never intended.

So keep your brain where your mouth is. 

Keep your mouth where your hand is. 

When your brain, your mouth, and your hand are all working at the same speed, great things can happen. 

You can accomplish some major things as a controller.

There's a flip side to all of this, and it's very prevalent at the Academy and in the real world. 

New pilots have the same issues new controllers do: they aren't confident on the radio. 

So they talk very softly, like this, because they don't trust that what they're about to say is right.

It doesn't matter whether it's going to be right or not. 

A pilot asked me the other night whether I could help her student pilot get used to talking on the radio. I told her it's the same problem new controllers have. 

You're not used to it, and the only way to get used to it is to do it. 

I don't want you whispering in case you say something wrong. 

I want you talking at a level where I can hear you and understand you.

You also don't want your workload to make you talk faster. 

That comes with experience, and I'm sorry, there's no shortcut. 

And remember to breathe. 

When you get busy, you have to breathe just as much as when you weren't busy, but students tend to stop. 

You still need pauses. 

When you feel rushed, you tend to shorten them. 

Sometimes there's nothing that needs to be said, and recognizing that is an important skill too.

Here's how it usually goes. 

The traffic increases and you feel behind. 

You want to talk faster. 

The pilot misses something and says, "Say again." 

You repeat yourself, which adds to the workload, so you talk even faster. 

It becomes a spiral that will take you straight down if you let it.

That's why this tool is so important. 

You have to break that cycle. 

You have to be able to tell yourself, the traffic may speed up, but I'm not going to. 

I'm going to keep the same rate of speech I have.

Level 1: pre-Academy. 

You have to know yourself, and you have to understand what's coming. 

The Academy is going to try to get you to talk fast, and if you know that going in, you can keep your cadence and your rhythm.

One caution: listening to live ATC isn't a great way to work on this. 

Most of those recordings are voice-activated, so there's very little space between transmissions. It gives you the illusion that controllers are talking nonstop, clearance, readback, clearance, readback, with no break. 

That isn't always true.

Instead, post the quote where you'll see it. 

It was posted in every non-radar classroom when I was at the Academy. 

Put it on your wall. 

Make it your phone's lock screen. 

Do whatever it takes to drill it in: fast is slow, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. 

Practice explaining something to a friend slowly, and tell them, "This is what I'm working on." 

Exaggerate it.

Level 2: the Academy. 

Now it becomes super important. 

Your speech rate becomes part of your ability to perform. 

As the scenarios get more complex, you have to resist the urge to speed up just because you feel busy. Do it right the first time, communicate it correctly the first time, and then move on to the next thing.

I like to compare it to soccer. I grew up playing and coaching it, and I coached into my late 40s and early 50s. I used to tell my students that I can still outrun a 16-year-old boy if he has the ball and I don't. (If I don't catch him in 10 to 20 yards, it's over, but usually I can.) That's because it's easier to run fast without the ball.

Watch a soccer game, and the player with the ball is usually moving the slowest. 

That's you doing a task. 

You slow down so you can do it correctly. 

Then you pass the ball and sprint to get it back. 

That's you between tasks. 

Level 3: your first facility. 

Oh my, you're going to feel behind. 

If you're at a tower, you'll be talking to airplanes pretty much right away, usually clearance delivery or ground control. 

At a center, it may take a while, though you might work radar now and then on the D-side. 

Real traffic adds variables, and it's live. 

It's people's lives. 

You'll deal with different pilots, different accents, and different workloads.

You'll learn, by watching other controllers, that your rate of speech shifts a little to fit each situation. 

But it still has to be slow enough to be understood the first time.

At every facility I've ever worked, you can hear it in some controllers. 

When they get busy, their pitch changes. 

They talk faster and louder. 

Then there are the controllers you could never read. 

They sounded the same no matter what. 

Those are the controllers who inspire confidence in pilots, and pilots who are confident in you will do what you ask them to do.

Level 4: professional CPC and trainer. 

By now you can adjust your rate of speech deliberately, and you know why you're doing it. 

Sometimes you'll talk faster. 

Sometimes louder. 

And when you're dealing with a pilot who doesn't understand English well, or is new, or is frightened, you may need to slow down and stay calm to help them through. You don't rush someone who doesn't know what they're doing. 

You're a certified professional controller, and how you say things is part of controlling the situation.

Practice the way you plan to perform. 

You can't practice with classmates at a hundred miles an hour and then expect to put your instructor to sleep in the lab the next day. 

You perform the way you practice.

Your speech rate needs to match the rate at which you can accurately perform the task. 

If that's slower than the person next to you, so be it. 

Fast isn't faster if you have to say it twice.

I'll leave you with a quote from John Wooden, one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time:

"Be quick, but don't hurry."

Think about that one for a minute. 

And remember where we started: fast is slow, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.