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The real reason pilots say ‘Roger that’

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‘Roger that’.

The term is synonymous with an affirmation used by pilots, and the term found its way into colloquial Hollywood.

Where did it come from?

The term goes back to when the first pilots flew planes, back in the 1920s.

The Wright brothers flew the first airplane in 1903, and rudimentary forms of communication in the air included signalling with hands and coloured paddles.

However as aviation developed, pilots started to use Morse code to communicate, and in 1915, air-to-ground communication was achieved: ‘R’ stood for message received.

What happened next?

When pilots switched to radio communication, they began using ‘roger’, and ‘roger that’, in place of the ‘R’.

In 1927, the International Telegraph Union decided that ‘roger’ would be the go–to word for pilots everywhere, as it was easier to say for non- English speakers, than ‘received’.

Though ‘romeo’ is now used, rather than ‘roger’ in the phonetic alphabet, the latter is still used by pilots, and movies.

h/t news.com.au

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