Pilot Language “Roger”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Rob from Burlington, Wisconsin.

Hi, Rob.

Hi, Rob. What’s going on?

Hey, same old thing. I’m actually in the hangar building an airplane right now.

Oh, I see. So you’re a pilot.

That’s right.

Interesting. Well, why are you calling us?

Well, I’m also an aviation history buff, and for years, I’ve been flying a long time. I’ve never really figured out where the term Roger Wilco comes from.

Now, I know what it means. It means I understand and I will comply. That’s the Wilco part.

And we really don’t use Wilco anymore, but we say Roger all the time, meaning I understand.

But I’ve got a guess of where it comes from.

All right.

But I really haven’t pinned it down.

My guess is a lot of the letters we say over the radio sound alike, like B, C, D, P, V, and T.

So we spell it out, a phonetic alphabet, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta.

I’m guessing that in the earlier years, that alphabet was different. Adam, Baker, Charlie, David, maybe.

And R may have been Roger.

But boy, that is as far as I can go.

Why you use R for, I understand, I don’t know.

Yeah, that’s exactly right.

That is exactly right.

And you’re right, it was the early days.

As far back as the 1920s, you can find any number of these alphabets.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Navy had one.

The British Armed Forces had another.

There were some used by the ham radio operators or whatever the equivalent was at the time.

Abel Baker, Charlie Dogg was one of the first kind of sequences in one of those alphabets.

But the R is kind of a double abbreviation.

So R was a Roger.

So you would say Roger to indicate R, which stood for received.

Oh, very good.

So it’s kind of a secondhand way.

It’s a double substitution.

It’s kind of a double abbreviation.

It took quite a while, decades, for these alphabets to be synchronized and all become the same.

The one that you listed, it was Alpha, say it again, please, Alpha…

Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta, the aviation one.

Yeah, the modern one actually is now international.

As you well know, the language of flying is English, and so most pilots around the world will know that one, at least if they fly internationally.

Now, tell me something. I understand that Roger Wilco is redundant.

You wouldn’t say it anyway.

Well, you would say, Roger, I understand, or I’ve received it.

Wilco means I will comply. I will do what you ask.

But if you’re saying Wilco, it automatically implicitly in there contains the idea that you did receive the message.

Right. I received it, and I guess you could disagree and say, oh, no, I won’t do that.

Yeah.

No Wilco.

No Wilco. No Wilco.

But so Wilco, you almost never, never hear.

Sometimes singly, if it’s a casual situation, you’ll hear it on the radio.

Some will just throw out a Wilco.

Well, Rob, I would say over and out, but that’s a no-no too in aviation.

Isn’t that correct?

Over and out, we don’t really say anymore.

Occasionally we’ll say over, but never over and out.

Yeah, I once got called to task for saying over and out.

So I won’t say that.

But it’s been great talking with you.

Oh, you too, and thank you so much for a great show.

You guys do a great job.

Thank you so much, Rob.

Glad to hear it.

Thanks a lot.

Clear skies and tailwinds to you.

Well, all right.

Same to you.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

Well, you know, I’ve collected a few aviation terms here and there over the years, never systematically, but that sounds like a gold mine to me.

I’m watching you fan yourself in my mind.

One that we didn’t mention is the way that pilots say nine is niner, and it’s exactly what Rob was saying.

It sounds too much like five unless you add that second syllable on the end, so you don’t say nine, you say niner.

Yeah, it’s fascinating to learn that, and Romeo was also used for R in the past, right?

Actually, Romeo is currently the word for R in the standard alphabets.

I’ll tell you what, Martha, I’d love to take calls from anybody who’s got a great store of language about their own professions.

Yes, yes, yes, please.

Interesting words, the kinds of things they just want to tell us.

Please.

You can send it to words@waywordradio.org or you can give us a call at 1-877-929-9673.

That’s 1-877-WAYWORD.