posted 05-31-2003 02:55 AM            

There may be a lot of stuff to copy, but if you know what to expect, it'll be easier to understand. Basicly, you're copying a watered-down IFR clearance, and they always have the following components, always in the following order:
Clearance Limit
Route
Altitude
Frequency
Transponder

The acronym to remember this being CRAFT. You won't have a clearance limit (that's strictly an IFR thing), so maybe you better make it RAFT (like in life raft).

A trick to copying clearances is that they all follow the same pattern:
Clearance Limit, Route, Altitude, Frequency, Transponder. The acronym to remember this is CRAFT (for a VFR clearance out of a Class C airport, you won't have a clearance limit, but the other parts will still be there in the right order). What I like to do when copying a clearance is to write on a piece of paper:
C
R
A
F
T

Just like that down the left-hand margin. Then, as the clearance is read to me, I fill in the blanks. You can write it out in full, or use shorthand, or whatever, as long as you can figure out what you wrote. In your case, I'd end up with something that looked like:
C
R rwy hdg
A =< 2000
F xxx.xx
T yyyy

posted 02-05-2004 01:57 PM            

And they will reply with with my clearance consisting of something like "Cessna XXXXXX cleared to XXXXXXXXX at ALTITUDE (usually less than requested because Depature will vector you until "cleared to desired ALT")departure frequency XXXXX, squawk XXXXXXX.