Aviation Alphabet.

Alpha, Bravo, Tango uhhm yes that’s about all you know right. Well, let me help you out a little.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) developed the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (IRSA) to ease communication via telephone or radio and avoid misunderstandings when parts of a message containing letters and numbers are spelled out. This alphabet became known as the ICAO or NATO Phonetic Alphabet. This universal spelling alphabet is a set of words used to clarify messages, no matter the spoken language. Members of the military, police, airline pilots, and others working in the aviation and travel industry commonly use it.

The ICAO/NATO phonetic alphabet has assigned the 26 code words to the 26 letters of the English alphabet in alphabetical order: Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliett, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu. The phonetic alphabet helps limit confusion between the communicating parties. In most cases, communication error could result in loss of life or damage to property, hence the need for this clear way of relaying a message.

Unknown to most people is that the numbers are also assigned in the ICAO phonetic alphabet. The goal is still the same, avoid miscommunication. The numbers 0 to 9 are pronounced as follows: zero, wun, too, tree, fower, fife, six, seven, ait, niner.