Phonetic alphabet hunt

Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples. 
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help. 

Running this activity

1. Tell everyone that for this activity, you'll be using the phonetic alphabet to send messages.  
2. If anyone hasnt heard of the phonetic alphabet then you can introduce it. 
3. The person leading the game should say two letters which sound similar, for example the letters ‘m’ and ‘n’, and the letters ‘f’ and ‘s’. 
4. Everyone should notice how similar they sound, and how it might be difficult to tell them apart. When could this be important in flying?  
5. The person leading the game should give out copies of the phonetic alphabet, so everyone can see one. 
6. Everyone should read through the alphabet together, so they know how to say all of the words. 
7. Everyone should look at the words for each letter in their name, so they know what to listen out for. 
8. Pilots use a method of verbal communication called the NATO phonetic alphabet. It uses a set of words to spell things out, instead of single letters.

Hide your treasure

1. Everyone should get into pairs. Each tean should have an item to hide, a ‘Phonetic alphabet’ sheet, a piece of paper, and a pencil.
2. The items to hide could be random or they could be related to aircraft (for example, a toy aeroplane).
3. Each pair should hide their item somewhere in or around the meeting space. You should remind them of any boundaries or no-go areas. 
4. They should then write down the hiding place, so they don’t forget it.
5. Each pair should come up with a short clue or hint for the hiding place, writing it out as the phonetic alphabet.For example 
   • Blue Bin =  Bravo Lima Uniform Echo (pause) Bravo Indi November
6. Helpers can support with correct spellings or words.

Decoding

7. The person leading the activity should mix up the pairs so everyone is working with a new clue. You could join pairs together to form small teams. 
8. It maybe helpful for one member or pair to read the clue out loud for others to write down. When they finish saying their clue they could say “over” (short for ‘over to you’) to show that it’s the end of their message.
9. Once it is decoded they should go and search for the hidden item.
10. When they find it, they come back and swap roles, giving their clue to another pair.

Mission Upgrade

You can make this activity harder with a few of these suggestions:

1. Instead of a single clue, each team creates a multi-step set of directions (for example "Take 5 steps north, turn at the chair, look under the bench") — but written only in phonetic code.
   • Example: “Look under the blue bench” becomes
     Lima Oscar Oscar Kilo (pause) Uniform November Delta Echo Romeo (pause) Bravo Lima Uniform Echo (pause) Bravo Echo November Charlie Hotel
2. Teams speak their entire clue aloud, using the phonetic alphabet, to another team. No writing or showing clues allowed. Teams must listen carefully, decode the message, and use it to find the hidden object.
3. Introduce a time challenge: Can they decode and retrieve the item in under 5 minutes? Encourage teams to assign roles (Speaker, Decoder, Searcher).