Pilot radio training in the UK: how it works, and where practice fits

Your authority to transmit from an aircraft is the Flight Radiotelephony Operator’s Licence, the FRTOL, issued by the CAA. The CAA’s guidance for candidates, CAP 2325, sets out what the initial issue needs: you must be at least 14, have passed the PPL Communications theoretical knowledge examination, have passed the FRTOL practical test, and hold an English Language Proficiency endorsement at level 4, 5 or 6 that is valid on the day the licence is issued.

There are two assessments and the order is fixed. The Communications theory exam comes first. It may be conducted by an approved ground examiner at your training organisation or by an FRTOL examiner, and a pass is valid for 24 months towards licence issue. The practical test comes second. You book it yourself with an approved FRTOL examiner (CAP 2325 says your training organisation should be able to help, and we have a guide to finding one), and your radio training must first be recorded on form SRG1171, signed by the person at your training organisation responsible for it. The training itself may be given by a flight instructor or ground instructor at an ATO or DTO as part of your flying course, or by an air traffic control officer or flight information service officer with the right instructional experience.

You apply on the CAA’s online form SRG1105, uploading a certified copy of your passport, your FRTOL course completion certificate and your signed English language assessment. If you apply for the FRTOL at the same time as your pilot licence the initial issue is free; applied for on its own, it is charged under the CAA’s scheme of charges.

CAP 413 is the CAA’s Radiotelephony Manual: the UK reference for the words, phrases, message formats and procedures used on aeronautical frequencies, published to help airspace users comply with the phraseology requirements in ICAO Annex 10, the ICAO Manual of Radiotelephony and the UK rules of the air. The current edition is Edition 24, effective 1 July 2026, and the CAA publishes it free. CAP 2325 says every FRTOL candidate is assessed against the standard phraseology in the latest edition, and names CAP 413 as the source document the test is read in conjunction with.

The wording is marked exactly because the manual’s own rules depend on it. CAP 413 says that how strictly a readback is required is directly related to how serious a misunderstanding would be, and lists fourteen kinds of message a pilot must read back in full: taxi instructions; level, heading and speed instructions; airways or route clearances; approach clearances; the runway in use; any clearance to enter, land on, take off from, backtrack, cross or hold short of an active runway; SSR operating instructions; altimeter settings; VDF information; frequency changes; the type of air traffic service; and transition levels. Every readback ends with your callsign, and if a readback is wrong the controller transmits “negative” and the correct version.

Level phraseology has conventions of its own. The word “to” is left out of messages about flight levels but used, followed by “altitude” or “height”, for a climb or descent to one of those, and whole-hundred flight levels are spoken as “flight level one hundred” because the manual says confusion between levels such as 100 and 110 causes level busts. An examiner listening for these is not being pedantic: the manual says these are the details that prevent misunderstandings. Our readbacks guide covers the list in full, and CAP 413 practice lets you drill it out loud.

The FRTOL syllabus printed in CAP 2325 (it is the same syllabus as the SRG1171) runs from the radio equipment itself through general phraseology, departure, arrival and circuit procedures, en-route procedures, and emergency, abnormal and lost procedures. In practice that means being able to produce these calls without hunting for the words:

• The radio check and the initial call. A test transmission names the station, your callsign, the words “radio check” and the frequency, and the reply grades you on the five-point readability scale, from 1 (unreadable) to 5 (perfectly readable). An initial call carries only the minimum needed to say what you want: a service, a join, taxi, or a zone transit. When the unit replies “pass your message”, the details go in CAP 413’s order: callsign and type, departure point and destination, present position, level, then your intentions. A solo student prefixes the callsign with “student” on first contact. See your first radio call.
• Readbacks. The fourteen items above, in full, ending with your callsign, and an abbreviated readback for anything else.
• Position reports. CAP 413 gives five elements: aircraft identification, position, time, level, and the next position with an estimate. See position and level reports.
• The circuit. Requesting joining instructions early enough to plan an entry, and then the routine reports a unit asks for around the circuit, such as downwind and final. See circuit radio calls.
• MATZ penetration and air traffic services. For a MATZ crossing, CAP 413 requires two-way contact with the controlling aerodrome when 15 nautical miles or five minutes from the boundary, whichever comes first, followed by the same “pass your message” details. Requesting a Basic or Traffic Service en route uses the same opening. See MATZ, LARS and air traffic services.
• Emergencies. MAYDAY, three times, for distress; PAN PAN, three times, for urgency. CAP 413 lists the message contents in order: the prefix, the station addressed, your callsign, aircraft type, the nature of the emergency, your intentions, position with level and heading, pilot qualifications, then anything else useful such as endurance and people on board. CAP 2325 says at least one emergency is examined during the practical, that you must transmit the call in full and in the correct order, and that a delay of more than 30 seconds before starting it is considered too long. See MAYDAY and PAN PAN.

Three parties are involved in your radio training and none of them is a website. Your instructor teaches the syllabus and signs the SRG1171; the examiner runs the test and reports the result; the CAA issues the licence. CAP 2325 adds a requirement that matters if you are studying on your own: a candidate with no experience of two-way radio communication in a live environment must receive practical training before being presented for test, either during flight training or in a simulated environment.

TowerTalk sits in that gap. The AI controller answers at real UK airfields on the current weather, responds to what you actually said, and grades every transmission against CAP 413 Edition 24 with the paragraph cited, so you can check each point against the manual yourself. It is a practice and study aid. It does not give the training the CAA describes, it cannot sign your SRG1171, and the mock exam is not the test. What it gives you is the thing reading cannot: repetitions, out loud, with feedback, before an instructor’s time or an examiner’s fee is on the line.

CAP 2325 describes the practical in detail. You show the examiner photo identification, your completed and signed SRG1171, and evidence of your Communications exam pass. You bring a current CAA 1:500,000 VFR chart for the region agreed with the examiner, chart pens and a rule, and note paper. Phones, smart watches and anything else that can communicate or record are not allowed in the room.

The examiner reads you the standard CAA candidate brief, discloses a route chosen that day and kept away from airfields you know, gives you about five minutes to plot it and then 20 minutes to plan. The “flight” is a simulated VFR trip between two aerodromes with at least one turning point, planned to last between 30 minutes and about an hour, with you and the examiner in separate rooms and the examiner playing every station you call, whether an air/ground operator, a FISO or a controller. At least one emergency is examined. Afterwards come scenario-based questions, the result and a debrief. The full breakdown, including what happens after a fail, is in the FRTOL practical test guide.