Military phonetic Alphabet

USMCGrunt

USMCGrunt

10-Year Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2010
Messages
3,500
Interesting article for the day...

www.artofmanliness.com

An Intro to the Military Phonetic Alphabet

If you’ve got a military buddy, you may have heard him spell something out using whole words that begin with each of its letters. For example, if he’s on the phone and needs to spell his name, he might say something like: Juliet. Alpha. Charlie. Kilo. That’s “Jack.” Juliet, Alpha, Charlie, and...
www.artofmanliness.com www.artofmanliness.com
 
I was a Nav/Comm on P3's, and used it all the time...
It is still kind of second nature, I spell my name/email address etc. very clearly, and laugh when I hear people make up words...
i.e. B, as in boy,,
 
Me too. It is second nature to me, but I am amazed at what some agents come up with on the phone!
 
Bar bet material:
Is it Alfa or Alpha?

Show your work.

- Mike Juliet
 
Last edited:
Per someone on the internet:
"In particular, the spelling of “alfa” is not the conventional English spelling “alpha” because this would often be mispronounced by native speakers of some other languages, not knowing that “ph” should be spoken as “f”. Instead, “alfa” is spelled with an “f” as it is in most European languages.

In the same way, notice that “Juliett” is spelled with a “tt”, as otherwise some speakers treated a single final “t” as silent.

Of course, some English writers/versions of the alphabet probably do spell these words as “alpha” and “juliet”, but they have the spellings “alfa” and “juliett” in the official adopted alphabet."
 
I find using the phonetic alphabet very helpful when talking to airlines and giving my Email address, especially when cell phone and wireless phone connections can suddenly become iffy. "Bravo" or "Boy" will be heard correctly. I've had "B" heard as "D," "P," and "T."
 
Hockey10 said:
I find using the phonetic alphabet very helpful when talking to airlines and giving my Email address, especially when cell phone and wireless phone connections can suddenly become iffy. "Bravo" or "Boy" will be heard correctly. I've had "B" heard as "D," "P," and "T."
Click to expand...
Bravo Zulu.
 
My wife is a veteran and has worked in Civilian law enforcement in two difference counties in Virginia and both counties used different phonetic alphabets.
 
Also, this thread reminds me of radio pronunciation of numerals as well.

Zee-Roh, One, Two, Tree, Fower, Fife, Six, Seven, Eight, Niner, One-ZeeRoh...

"This is Alpha Bravo Foxtrot One One Fower, ready for take off".
 
Physicsguru said:
. We chose our own flight call sign.
Click to expand...
Never a good thing to let Pilots pick their own flight call signs...
We did a week of Counter Drug Ops out of Key West long ago ....our 2P usually did the flight plan filing and got an a Flintstones kick..
we were Pebbles 11, BamBam 11, Dino 11 etc. during the course of the Det.
 
Old Navy BGO said:
Never a good thing to let Pilots pick their own flight call signs...
We did a week of Counter Drug Ops out of Key West long ago ....our 2P usually did the flight plan filing and got an a Flintstones kick..
we were Pebbles 11, BamBam 11, Dino 11 etc. during the course of the Det.
Click to expand...
Navy Flintstone 11 cleared departure...

Something just doesn't seem right there o_O
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top