IFR Clearance

[Terantious]

When picking up an IFR clearance from ground I have heard others say the following: XXX Ground Citation 25B Clearance on request to Akron. Is "clearance on request" when picking up an IFR clearance correct?

Is this correct phraseology?

 

[rumpletumbler]

clearance on request means that the controller you are talking with doesn't have your IFR clearance and must go and fetch it.

 

[A Squared]

Is "clearance on request" when picking up an IFR clearance correct?

Is this correct phraseology?

No, absolutely not. It is used, like Rumpletumbler said, for *them* to tell *you* that your request for a clearence is being preocessed. More typically (at least for me) it is used when I request a clearence through FSS. The FSS specialist cannot clear me, he has to forward the request ATC. It goes like this:

Me: XXX radio, Oilspot 234, request clearence to ZXY (or just "clearence to ZXY)

XXX Radio: Oilspot 234, clearence is on request.

This is how radio tells me that they have requested my clearence from ATC and are waiting for ATC to respond with my clearence.

If all else fails, look at the plain english meaning of words, and think about whether they convey what you want to communicate.

OK, here's what you want to communicate; that you are requesting a clearence. What makes more sense, using words which mean exactly that?, i.e. "request clearence" or use a sequence of words which don't mean that at all ? i.e. "clearence on request"

Does it make any sense at all to tell ATC or FSS that your clearence has been requested? no, not much, it makes a lot more sense to request your clearence, after all that is what you are doing.

The pilot who use this (and there seem to be quite a few of them) have just heard someone else use it, thought it sounded like a cool airline thing to say, and they apparently never thought about what the words actually mean. Why use 3 words (or even more, I've heard "XXXX radio, I'd like to place clearence on request to ZXY") which *don't* mean what you want to say, when you can use 2 words which *do* mean what you want to say?

 

[midlifeflyer]

I think I understand where the phrasing comes from. This may be one of those where a pilot thought that standard phraseology just didn't cut it and made up his own. Perhaps he feared that just saying "request clearance to ZXY" or AIM-standard "Request IFR to ZXY" would be interpreted as a request for a new or pop-up clearance rather than to retrieve a clearance that was already "requested" by filing an IFR flight plan.

In that context, I guess "clearance on request" is intended to mean "I requested a clearance. I want it now". Wrong, of course, since the Pilot/Controller Glossary tells us that rumpletumbler is absolutely right.

But with CD (or Ground where there is no dedicated CD frequency), a simple "IFR to ZXY" is more than enough to get the meaning across.