NATO Phonetic Alphabet

"Alpha, Bravo, Charlie…" — the spelling alphabet used by pilots, soldiers, sailors and radio operators worldwide, so that no letter is ever misheard. Beside each code word you will also find the letter in Morse code — the two systems were made for the same noisy world.

Why a Spelling Alphabet?

On a crackling radio, B, D, E, P and T all sound the same — and a misheard letter in a coordinate, a callsign or a name can be dangerous. The NATO phonetic alphabet (officially the ICAO radiotelephony alphabet, standardised in the 1950s) gives every letter a whole word that cannot be confused with any other: nobody hears "Bravo" and writes D. The words were chosen to be pronounceable and distinct in English, French and Spanish, the working languages of international aviation.

Spell a name or a code with it: MORSE becomes Mike Oscar Romeo Sierra Echo. To write that same word in Morse, head to the Morse Code Translator and hear it beeped out — on real radio, operators often know a station by both.

Numbers on the Radio

Digits are spoken carefully too: 0 is "zero", 5 is often "fife" and 9 is "niner" (so it is never confused with the German nein or with "five"). In Morse, numbers are five symbols each — the full list sits in the alphabet chart. And when a message is a call for help, one signal outranks every alphabet: SOS — ... --- ...