5. Standard callouts
5.1 Principles
Callouts come from what the instruments show. The pilot monitoring calls the condition; the pilot flying verifies it independently and acknowledges. If a required call is not made, the other pilot makes it.
5.2 The Flight Mode Annunciator
Five columns, and the order they are read in is the order they are printed:
| Column | Tells you |
|---|---|
| 1 | Thrust |
| 2 | Vertical axis |
| 3 | Lateral axis |
| 4 | Approach capability |
| 5 | Engagement status — autopilot, flight director, autothrust |
Read left to right and one glance gives all three axes plus the status. Sorting an annunciation by which axis it belongs to is the mental move that makes the FMA readable at speed rather than decipherable at leisure.
Each column can carry two lines. The active mode sits on top in green; a mode that is armed sits below it in blue, waiting. A star — ALT\* — means the mode is capturing rather than holding. So a single column tells you what the axis is doing now and what it will do next.
Four states worth recognizing on sight.
| 1 Thrust | 2 Vertical | 3 Lateral | 4 Capability | 5 Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Climbing | THR CLB | OP CLB · ALT | NAV | — | AP1 · 1FD2 · A/THR |
| Intercepting | SPEED | ALT\* · G/S | HDG · LOC | CAT3 DUAL | AP1+2 · 1FD2 · A/THR |
| Established, autoland | SPEED | G/S | LOC | CAT3 DUAL | AP1+2 · 1FD2 · A/THR |
| Established, hand flown | — | G/S | LOC | CAT1 | 1 FD 2 |
Italics are armed modes, shown blue on the second line.
Read the last two rows together, because that is where the capability comes from. The same approach, the same green G/S and LOC — and CAT3 DUAL in one, CAT1 in the other. The difference is column five: two autopilots against one flight director. Column four is not a property of the runway, it is a statement about what is currently engaged, and it changes the moment the configuration does.
Some readings worth knowing cold.
MAN in column one means the levers are in charge. That is why the column changes to THR CLB the moment they are brought back — the same thrust, a different owner.
Just after lift-off column two shows a speed, not an altitude: a speed is being flown. Column three holds the runway track.
Holding an altitude, pitch is busy with the altitude, so thrust takes the speed — which is why column one reads SPEED and not a fixed thrust setting.
On an ILS, G/S and LOC mean captured, not armed. Column four carries the approach capability, and two autopilots engaged is what makes the lowest visibility categories available.
5.3 Actions commanded by the pilot flying
One rule covers every knob on the unit.
| Push | Hands the axis to the flight plan — managed |
| Pull | Takes it yourself — selected |
Push means follow the plan. Pull means I am telling you. Once that is automatic, half of the FMA reads itself.
Turning the knob only prepares. Without a push or a pull the previous target stays active — which is exactly why a glance at the FMA belongs to every altitude change, and why "I dialled it" is not the same sentence as "it is selected".
An ATC instruction is something you select, so you pull. Pushing would ask for the flight plan route instead — the opposite of what was just instructed.
5.4 Summary for each flight phase
Takeoff roll. The hundred-knot call is a cross-check that both airspeed indications agree, not a speed announcement. V1 is the decision speed: past it the takeoff is continued, which is precisely why it is called and not assumed.
Roll-out, in this order: spoilers, reverse, decel. That is the order in which each becomes effective, which is why it is the order they are called.
Spoilers are checked first after touchdown, before anything else. Without them the wing keeps lifting, the wheels carry little load and the brakes bite poorly — every other deceleration device is working against a wing that is still flying.
"Decel" confirms that the deceleration is real — that the airplane is actually slowing — not that a switch is armed.
To be completed for Issue 2. The full callout set — the exact wording, who speaks and who answers at each point — has not yet been established with a line pilot on the type. What is written above is the structure and the reasoning; the phrasing is owed. Until it is here, the calls in the Academy's A32x course are the working standard.