This Article is concerned with aspects of aeromedical assessments for licence holders (pilots and air traffic controllers), and not specifically with aviation communication systems (technical) or communication procedures. See Related Articles below for further reading on Communication issues.

Physiological Aspects of Communications

Speech intelligibility and communication are vital elements in the safety of civil aviation. A licence holder must be able to transmit and receive verbal instructions to and from the air traffic control system as well as with other crew members. In this particular respect two issues arise:

• speech intelligibility in noisy surroundings, and
• hearing under operational conditions, where many demands are made on attention from multiple sources of importance.

For this reason, licence holders need to meet specific hearing test requirements which are applied during regular medical assessments.