Live Frequency Check
Ten minutes on a live sim frequency in week 12, judged as a whole rather than scored against a checklist
At a glance
- Due
- 28 May 2027
- Weight
- 20% of the course
- Submit
- You, on a live frequency, for ten minutes, working the pilot position and the controller position
- Format
- Live in the sim. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is recorded for marking
- Where
- Your booked slot, in and after the week 12 session
Before that: Book your slot, and rebook it free if it stops working. Slots open in week 10 and are booked in that week's sim session. Rebooking before your slot is free and needs no reason — mail the convenor with a new time. Not appearing without rebooking is a non-submission, and the policies page has the route back from that. Where that happens.
Ten minutes on frequency. Both seats. At least one clearance you have never heard.
Why this is holistic#
The other three assessments are weighted, with criteria you can see and aim at. This one is not, and the reason is worth stating rather than hiding.
A checklist for live radio work would be gameable in the wrong direction. A student optimising for a rubric on frequency will produce clean-sounding transmissions and will guess rather than admit a gap, because guessing sounds better against every criterion you could write down. That is precisely the behaviour the whole semester argues against.
So it is judged as one thing, against one question: hand this person an unfamiliar clearance on a busy frequency — do they either understand it or visibly not understand it? The failure mode is not being wrong. It is being wrong invisibly.
What happens in the ten minutes#
Both seats. Five minutes flying, five minutes working the controller position. Week 3 established that hearback is the half that fails, so a check that only tested you as a pilot would test half the course.
One unfamiliar clearance, at least. Something not drilled: a conditional, a reroute, an unusual constraint, a phrase from a region you have not worked. This is where the assessment actually happens.
Whatever else the frequency is doing. Other students are on it.
What counts in your favour#
SAY AGAIN, used when you need it.- Reading back the part you got and naming the part you did not.
UNABLE, when you are.- Stopping a readback partway to correct it with
CORRECTION.
What counts against#
- A fluent readback of something you did not understand.
- Silence where a query belonged.
- Reserved words out of place.
- Filling a gap with what you expected the clearance to be — the exact failure you measured in yourself in week 3.
Booking and rebooking#
The rule is at the top of this page because missing it costs you the component. The rest of it is here.
Slots open in week 10 and are booked in that session. They run through the week after the week 12 presentations, so there is more room than there are students and no advantage in booking first.
Rebooking is free, needs no reason, and has no limit, as long as you do it before the slot you hold. That is deliberate: a rebooking policy that costs something teaches students to turn up to a check they are not ready for, and a check you sit unprepared measures nothing anybody wanted to know.
Not appearing without rebooking is a non-submission. It cannot be late the way a file can, so the fix is a new slot rather than a penalty — see policies, and tell us sooner rather than later.
After the check#
You get a paragraph, not a score breakdown, within five working days — consistent with it being one judgement rather than a sum of parts. If you want the reasoning behind that paragraph, ask, and you will get it in full.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- you appear at your booked slot, or rebook before it
- you work both the pilot and the controller position
- at least one clearance is one you have not seen before
- when you do not understand something, you say so on frequency
How it is marked
Judged as a single performance against one question: could this person be handed an unfamiliar clearance on a busy frequency and neither misunderstand it nor conceal that they had. Fluency, accent and speed are not part of the judgement. Asking for a repeat counts in your favour, because the alternative is a readback that guesses.
What each grade looks like
This component is judged as one performance rather than summed from criteria, so the bands below describe what that judgement has looked like at each level. They are not a checklist, and working through them in order during the check is not how anybody has reached the top one.
| Grade | What work in this band does |
|---|---|
| PPass50–59 | Routine clearances are understood and read back correctly, and when you are lost you say so rather than guessing, even if the way you say it is not the standard way. |
| CRCredit60–69 | Standard phraseology most of the time, queries in standard form, and both seats worked rather than only the pilot's. |
| DDistinction70–79 | An unfamiliar clearance is handled the honest way — the part you got read back, the part you did not named — and UNABLE is used where it belongs. |
| HDHigh Distinction80–100 | Everything in Distinction, held under load and on both sides of the exchange. Uncertainty becomes visible the moment it appears and is resolved on frequency, and the controller seat is as solid as the pilot seat. |