Your First Radio Call to Ground: What to Say

The taxi request is the first call most student pilots make — here is exactly what to say, why it is built that way, and how to make it sound automatic. · 8 min read

Your very first radio call at a towered airport is almost always to Ground, asking permission to taxi. For most student pilots it is also the single most nerve-wracking moment of early training — more than the takeoff, more than the landing. The good news is that it is completely scripted. Every taxi request in the country is built from the same handful of pieces, in the same order. Learn that pattern once and you will never again stare at the mic wondering how to begin. This guide walks through the exact words, the reason behind each one, the readback that follows, and the small mistakes that make new pilots sound green — so that by the time you key the mic for real, the call already feels like something you have said a hundred times.

Before we get to the words, one mindset point that changes everything: the controller is not testing you and is not judging your delivery. They want exactly one thing from you — to be clear and predictable. A slightly slow, slightly clunky call that contains the right information is a total success. The pilots who frustrate controllers are not the nervous ones; they are the ones who mumble, leave out their callsign, or say something the controller cannot act on. Aim for clear, not smooth, and smooth will come on its own.

The 4-part structure behind every call

Every initial radio call you will ever make — to Ground, Tower, Approach, anyone — is built from the same four pieces, straight out of AIM 4-2-3 ("Initial Contact"). Aviation instructors call it the "4 Ws." Memorize these four and you have the backbone of the entire aviation radio language:

• WHO you are calling — the facility, by name and function ("Palo Alto Ground")
• WHO you are — your full aircraft callsign ("Skyhawk Five-Two-Kilo")
• WHERE you are — your position on the airport ("at the transient ramp")
• WHAT you want — your request and intention ("request taxi, westbound departure")

That order is not arbitrary. You say the facility first so the right controller knows the call is for them and starts listening. You give your callsign second so they can find you — on the ground, they literally write it on a strip or type it into a system. You give your position third so they know where you physically are on their airport. And you state your request last, once they are primed to act on it. Every piece has a job; leave one out and the controller has to come back and ask for it, which is exactly the awkward back-and-forth new pilots dread.

Copy the ATIS first

Before you ever call Ground, you tune and copy the ATIS — the Automatic Terminal Information Service, a looping recording of the airport’s current weather, altimeter, and active runway. Each loop is tagged with a phonetic letter ("Information Bravo") that advances every time it updates. Copying the ATIS first does two things: it gives you the runway and wind so nothing surprises you, and it lets you tell Ground you already have it, which saves them from reading you the weather. You signal that by appending the ATIS letter to your position: "…with Bravo."

A word-for-word example

Now put the four pieces together, with the ATIS code folded in. Notice how the call is really just a fill-in-the-blank template — the structure never changes, only the specifics do:

Read that out loud right now, slowly. Feel how it breaks into four natural chunks with tiny pauses between them. That rhythm — chunk, pause, chunk — is what makes a radio call easy to understand, and it is the opposite of the breathless run-on that fear produces. If you slow down enough to hear your own four chunks, you are already ahead of most students.

Reading back the taxi instruction

Ground answers with your taxi route: which runway you are heading to, which taxiways to use, and — very often — a hold-short instruction. You must read back the runway assignment and any hold-short, with your callsign on the end. This is not optional politeness; it is a required readback (AIM 4-3-18) because it is how the controller confirms you copied a safety-critical instruction correctly:

If your route crosses another runway on the way, Ground will either clear you to cross it ("cross Runway 25") or tell you to hold short of it. You read those back the same way, word for word. When in doubt at any hold-short line, stop — you can never be faulted for holding short, but crossing without a clearance is a runway incursion, one of the most serious errors in aviation.

The short callsign, and when to use it

Your first call uses your FULL callsign — the aircraft type and all the characters ("Skyhawk Five-Two-Kilo"... where the tail is N752K). Once the controller shortens you (they might just call you "Two-Kilo"), you may use the short form too. But never drop the callsign entirely, and never shorten yourself before the controller does it first. This is one of the fastest tells of an experienced pilot versus a brand-new one.

The mistakes to avoid

• Shortening your callsign on first contact. Full callsign first, every time; abbreviate only after the controller does.
• Saying you "have the numbers" to mean you have the ATIS. "Numbers" means wind, runway, and altimeter only — it does not tell the controller you got the whole broadcast or the current letter. Name the letter instead: "with Bravo."
• Forgetting the hold-short readback. Controllers will prompt you until they hear it, and it is the number-one runway-safety item.
• Keying the mic before you know what you are going to say. Think the whole call, then key, then speak. Dead air while you figure it out ties up the frequency.
• Rushing. Fear makes people talk fast; the radio punishes fast. A clear, slightly-slow call always wins.

How to make it automatic

Reading about the call is not the same as being able to say it when your heart is pounding and the airplane is running. The only thing that builds that is reps — saying the call out loud, dozens of times, until the words come without thought and your attention is free for taxiing the airplane. That is exactly what ATCpal is built to do: it gives you a controller to talk to, scores your call against the standard, and lets you repeat it until it is boring. Boring is the goal — boring on the ground means calm on the radio.

Phraseology sourced from the FAA Aeronautical Information Manual (Change 3, effective 9 July 2026) and the Pilot/Controller Glossary. Check the AIM · Last reviewed 13 August 2026.