Definition
Periods during which radio communication or navigation signals are unavailable, degraded, or unreliable, whether due to scheduled maintenance, equipment failure, atmospheric interference, terrain shadowing, or distance from the transmitting station.
Plain English
Times when a radio or navigation signal cannot be received properly, so the pilot cannot use it for talking to controllers or navigating.
Context Anchor
Seen in flight training scenarios, emergency planning, airport notices, and real flights when a pilot cannot make or receive expected radio calls.
Derivation
‘Outage’ comes from ‘out’ plus the suffix ‘-age,’ meaning a period of being out of service. The same word is used for power outages — a stretch of time when something normally available is not working.
Why Pilots Care
Loss of radio contact requires immediate use of standardized lost-comm procedures to maintain separation and reach the destination safely.
Intuition Check
Do not assume radio outages only mean the aircraft radio has failed. The problem could be in the aircraft, at the ground station, or in the signal path between them.
Example Sentence 1
Before departure, the instructor showed the student a NOTAM listing radio outages affecting the VOR they had planned to use.
Example Sentence 2
During the lesson the instructor had the student visualize steps to take following a sudden radio outage on departure.