Readback Drills
A recorded set of readbacks, marked for accuracy and phraseology — and for whether you worked on the confusions you found in yourself
At a glance
- Due
- 19 March 2027
- Weight
- 15% of the course
- Submit
- A recording of all twelve readbacks, plus a note under 200 words on the confusion pairs you found in week 2
- Format
- One audio file (mp3, m4a or wav) and one PDF. No editing between clearances
- Where
- The course submission folder, by Friday noon of week 4
Before that: Collect the clearance sheet. Week 4 sim session. The twelve clearances are handed out in the session and are published nowhere else, so the work cannot start before you have the sheet. If you cannot record, say so before Friday and the drill runs live in a booked slot instead, at no penalty. Where that happens.
Read back twelve clearances correctly, and show that you know where your own ear is unreliable.
The first assessment is deliberately small and deliberately early. Fifteen per cent, in week 4, on a mechanical skill — because the rest of the course argues about design, and it is worth establishing first that you can actually operate the thing being argued about.
What you submit#
One audio file. You will be given a sheet of twelve clearances in week 4’s sim session. Record yourself reading back all twelve, in the order given, once each. No editing between clearances; a single continuous take per clearance is fine, and restarting a clearance is fine, but submit the attempt you want marked rather than a splice of best syllables.
One short note, under 200 words. Name the confusion pairs you identified in week 2, and say what you did about them. “Nothing, they did not recur” is an acceptable answer if it is true.
Both go in the submission folder by Friday noon.
How it is marked#
Accuracy of readback (50). Does the readback contain every element of the clearance, in the right order, with no element that was not in the clearance? A digit wrong is the whole criterion for that clearance.
Standard phraseology (30). Reserved words in their reserved places.
AFFIRM not affirmative, SAY AGAIN not sorry?, and no TAKE-OFF
outside a takeoff clearance. The glossary is the reference and it is the
authority for this criterion.
Response to your own confusion list (20). This is the criterion that is not about the recording. Twenty per cent is here rather than in accuracy because the course’s position is that knowing your own failure modes is worth more than a clean take. A student with two remaining confusions who has identified and worked on them scores better here than one who submitted something flawless and wrote “no confusions”.
What this is not marked on#
Accent, fluency, speed, or how much you sound like a pilot. None of those are criteria and none of them will be commented on. If you want the reasoning, it is in week 8: a rating scale for human language has consequences, and this course is not qualified to apply one to a first-year student.
If you cannot record#
Say so before Friday and the drill can be done live in a booked slot instead, at no penalty. The audio file is a convenience for marking, not the thing being assessed.
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.
- submitted as a single audio file by the deadline
- every clearance on the sheet is read back, in order, once
- the accompanying note names your confusion pairs from week 2
How it is marked
| Criterion | Weight |
|---|---|
| Accuracy of readback | 50% |
| Standard phraseology | 30% |
| Response to your own confusion list | 20% |
What each grade looks like
The criteria above say what is being marked. These say what each level of it looks like. Each band assumes the one before it.
| Grade | What work in this band does |
|---|---|
| PPass50–59 | All twelve clearances are read back and the note names your confusion pairs. The readbacks carry the substance of each clearance, and the errors that remain are ones a controller would have caught on frequency. |
| CRCredit60–69 | Readbacks are accurate and mostly standard. What slips is form rather than content, and the note says what you did about a confusion rather than only that you had one. |
| DDistinction70–79 | Accurate and standard throughout, numbers and callsigns included, and the note traces one specific confusion to the drill you built against it and reports whether the drill worked. |
| HDHigh Distinction80–100 | Everything in Distinction, and the recording shows the habit rather than the performance — a mid-readback CORRECTION in standard form, a clearance queried rather than guessed at, and a note honest about a confusion that is still there. |