Experience in accidents has shown that using non-standard language results in miscommunication, and missed understanding or delayed understanding.
Take-off is not a time you want a misunderstanding, because, before too long, you will run out of runway.
Take-off is a whole process, not just the lifting the nose wheel off the ground. If a plane is “cleared for take-off,” that means they are cleared to enter the runway (if not already cleared to do so), and to start accelerating down the runway and lift off the ground.
VR (V with a lower R) is the speed at which the pilot may, and should, rotate the nose wheel up to lift off the ground. The verbal exchange in the cockpit is “rotate.”
V1 (V with a lower 1), for instance, is the speed beyond which a take-off should not be aborted, if the plane is flyable.
Author – Frank Langben
