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The radio message
"Mayday mayday mayday
Calling all stations
This is Golf Mike Oscar Victor Juliet
IMC cu nimb icing
In great difficulty
Over"
This is supposed to be a radio message sent from an aircraft pilot who
got into trouble. Here's what it means:
- Mayday
- The pilots' version of SOS, repeated three times to
indicate the beginning of an urgent emergency message.
- Calling all stations
- ... not only one because he's really in trouble.
- Golf Mike Oscar Victor Juliet
- This spells out GMOVJ, which is kind of the plane's
licence number. Look at the painting on the album,
you can actually see the letters on the plane. This is
a callsign asigned to Scotland (The two first letters (GM) say that).
Radio Callsigns prefix are
internationally stablished and assigned each one to one country.
- IMC
- "Instrument Meteorological Conditions", meaning that
the weather is so bad that he can't see anything and
has to fly by instruments only. This is because he's
flying through:
- cu nimb
- which means "cumulonimbus" which are bad-weather clouds,
bringing lots of turbulence, rain, hail, and:
- icing
- Ice is getting on the wings and propeller blades of the
plane, which is extremely dangerous because it will
disturb their aerodynamic shape. With enough icing, the
plane is sure to go down.
- In great difficulty
- Nothing to explain about that...
- Over
- Terminates the radio message. Unix people would say Ctrl-D.
Created: 2 December, 2005 - Last changed: 2 December, 2005 - Comments (2)
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