The Red Arrows came to Northern Ireland this weekend as part of the VE day celebrations.
I was at the one of the airshows they flew at and during the display Red 10 (their stunt manager on the ground) was telling us where to look and what display was being performed etc, but from time to time he would put the communications between the pilots on the loud speakers. The pilots seemed to be speaking in a rather strange way, to me it sounded like someone speaking in a high pitched, very cut off manner.
Is there any reason for this? Is it anything to do with measures the pilots take to combat blacking out at high-g manouevers? Or just to be really sure they’re heard?
Part of it is probably that you were listening to speech muffled by oxygen masks, sent over radios, then piped into a loudspeaker system through some cheap interface. And part of it is also that in the armed forces, you do adopt a clipped and distinct mode of speech to ensure you can be clearly heard.
There might be a cultural element, though. It’s often claimed that American military pilots all started speaking with a trace of Southern accent on the radio because Chuck Yeager spoke that way. Perhaps RAF pilots talk that way because they always have. and it makes them sound like the guys in “Battle of Britain.”
Perhaps, but other aircraft heard over the same system sounded more “normal” (or as seen on TV 
)
This one is news to me!
I’ve heard Southerners with a Southern accent, I’ve heard Northerners with a Northern accent. I once even heard a guy from Brooklyn with his brogue readback his taxiing instructions to the tower.
As you already mentioned, pilots (and ground crews too) have adopted that shorter, quicker method of speaking. We’re brief, and to the point. . . but I don’t think anyone adopts an accent they don’t already have.
Tripler
Over and out.
The pilots-speak-like-Yeager idea was included in (and possibly originated by) The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. Specifically, the accent is West Virginian.
I’m not claiming any knowledge beyond TV documentaries, but there was something distinctive about the way they spoke. It wasn’t just brief, but very clipped and definately more high pitched. Suppose you have to hear it to know what I mean 
One of the reason why they may speak like this is because they were talking whilst performing manoeuvres involving high g-forces. Generally these forces are acting to compress the pilots into their seat and so in order to combat all their blood running away from the head and the heart (and causing them to pass out) and into their feet , pilots tense their muscles around their stomach to keep the blood from running away from the top half of their body. Given the exertions their bodies are already performing, to talk on top of this requires quite an effort. Hence the reason that they sound like they’re suffering from severe constipation.
Or they’re severly constipated.
Psst. ‘Over’ = ‘I’m done talking’. ‘Out’ = ‘I’m turning off the radio’. Never ‘over and out’.
FWIW, changing frequencies is often ‘G’day.’
‘Helicopter Zero-Sierra-Mike clear to the west.’
‘Helicopter Zero-Sierra-Mike, frequency change approved.’
‘Zero-Sierra-Mike, g’day.’
This is probably the primary reason their voices sound strained. As Tripler said, we’re trained to be clear and concise in our communications. (As someone who has done a lot of flying around L.A., I can tell you that it can be very difficult contacting LAX even if you turn your words on edge and try to slip them in that way.) Anyway, Pushkin’s ‘normal-sounding’ pilots may not have been performing maneuvers.
About Chuck Yeager: I wasn’t even alive in the '40s or '50s; so I don’t know how the test pilots talked back then. But having worked at Edwards AFB for four years, I can see how test pilots would tend to adopt the mannerisms of the top dog.
Not sure about the RA method, but the US Blue Angels talk in a kind of singsong, with some words stretched out and others short. The timing of the words is always the same, and it allows the pilots to act in unison. Flying in these types of formations is more difficult than you might think, it requires total concentration, coordination, and “muscle memory” and it is important that what is said and how it is said is always the same. The pilots all sit around a table before a demonstration, close their eyes, and visualize the entire flight, doing all the stick and throttle movements, turning their heads, and communications.