The letters
Note the spellings: Alfa and Juliett, as in the international (ICAO) table the FAA uses. Some national manuals, like the UK’s, print “Alpha.”
The numbers
Numbers have radio pronunciations too: zero, wun, too, tree, fow-er, fife, six, seven, ait, nin-er. “Niner” keeps nine from sounding like the German nein; “fife” keeps five apart from nine.
When pilots use it
The FAA tells pilots to use it “when identifying their aircraft during initial contact”: a small plane N123AB calls itself “November One Two Three Alfa Bravo.” Airlines use their callsign instead.
Where it came from
ICAO’s first alphabet came into use in 1951 with words like Coca, Metro and Nectar. After intelligibility tests, five words were replaced (Charlie, Mike, November, Uniform and X-ray came in), and the version still used today took effect on 1 March 1956. NATO and the maritime world adopted it too, which is why it’s often called the NATO alphabet.
