OB325: Practice Approach Refresher Training

If you're going into a satellite, a non-towered airport and they are saying cleared for the approach, they're now on the hook for IFR separation. Ready. This is Opposing Bases Air Traffic Talk. Your host Alpha Golf and Romeo Hattell have a half-century of aviation experience and combat helicopters, airliners and air traffic control. They answer

your questions about flying, aviation and ATC. This weekly podcast is for entertainment and education and does not serve as a replacement for a qualified flight instructor, an examiner, the FARs, the 7110, your best friend, your next pilot for your cat. November 6 to 8 Charlie Delphis, squawk 1-200, frequency change approved. The audio will be available on live ATC, good day. November 6-4 for each of late Mike Clever's approach from way 2-3 left, panic tower.

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Skyhawk 9-10, your favorite to enter Triad Class Troll, a surface area from the east, maintain specialty of hot conditions. Please welcome retired Army pilot Alpha Golf and the rookie first officer at Penguin Airlines, Romeo Hotel. It's Tuesday, March 26, 2024, episode 325. On today's show, we'll talk about practice approaches, a couple of ATC anomalies, and a ton more of your awesome feedback. What's up, BayJay? Hello, hello, everyone. Happy Tuesday.

Two weeks in a row on a Tuesday, there's public conspiracy theorists out there saying this is going to be their normal schedule now, but they're wrong. Yes, there is no new normal. We have to figure it out every single week. Yeah, that's it. I got all of the stuff in the bag, go ahead, I'm sorry. I don't know, I got the whole studio in the bag, I got made it out here. And when I set it up last night, I wasn't missing any cords. Everything's working right now.

So that means when we hit stop at the end and I try to edit it, I'll be missing something. That's when the problems will start. Stand by. Uh oh. I just realized I forgot something. Mm. Uh, you talk and. Okay. I will get it figured out. But I'm entertaining things here. I am on the West Coast. I started a trip yesterday. I'm in the middle of that. It's a five day trip. I'm in the hotel. And I did my longest domestic flight I've ever done yesterday. Well, mm-hmm. So put that in the logbook.

It was my longest domestic flight I've ever done. How long was it? Well, coast to coast. I can't remember the exact miles. 2300ish. Mm. Yeah. That's pretty long. So I'm gonna do a little shout out. What's wrong? That was longer than your flaming bird trip. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Cause we're pretty much pass it. Mm. I mean, laterally at least we wouldn't go right over it, but. Right. Okay. That's an interesting point. I wonder that. They're probably very close. Closer than you would think. Yeah.

All right. So we get to the airspace where there's construction. I'll just call that right now. All right. There's construction out here. They run way closed. One they use all the time. So everything's different. Including their acceptance rate. It's basically cut in half. So we got an hour and a half ish delay on the east coast. To go all the way out here. What have you seen that before? Is that normal to you? We don't we don't do edicts too. No. We don't have to our way. We don't have to.

We don't have to. They send us. We used to get notices to do edicts too. Mm. That airport all the time. We just never had a plane going there. Mm. I'll try to keep this brief. The edict we got was meant to space us out with all the other rivals. And the acceptance rate is much slower. So deal with it. Here's your time. We get that. We waited to board. Full all over across the country. Center started to massage our speed and give us some headings off the arrival.

Okay. They must have a in trail spacing requirement. Yeah. Maybe it's maybe it's longer than normal. Then we get handed off to the tracon. And they tell us to send via and follow the speeds. Actually, we're still on the center. Follow the speeds on the arrival. So now we're back in the flow with everybody else. We got to where we needed to be for the feed. To send via. Keep going. That lasted to record the way we were. To record the way down the arrival. Reduce speed. Turn 45 degrees right.

We start zigzagging. And we'll get handed over to the tracon controller. And instead of being number what looked like we're about number three or four, we became number 12. And went all the way past the airport and got put on the down one from all the west bounds. Or the in bounds from the west. That was kind of annoying. That's all to say. It was really annoying. We wanted to be on the ground. And I don't understand the point of flow if we get here. Yeah, it shouldn't be.

Everybody showed up at the same time. So the metering rate that they had initiated in the middle of the day wasn't working. Right. If we're one of 12 or 13 arrivals that all in our dr space, relatively close together, your 30 an hour isn't working. How did that happen? There. That was my small rant. I'm sorry. No. No, it's and I had to take off my ATC hat and knock it upset and frustrated about it. But it was kind of terrible to watch what they were doing to us.

Yeah, we had plenty of time to think about it. Slow and high watching everybody else go beneath us. Hey, that's our sequence. He's going the other way. Yeah. We're going the wrong way here. Anyway, what's new with you? I mean, I don't know. Nothing really. I replaced the radiator on the 400 yesterday. That was the leak. The whole thing was leaking. Get a new one. There's no good ones anymore. I have a very reliable and trustworthy parts supplier and engine expert. In California. All right.

Their whole job. Their whole entire business is these motors. Do you need me to bring an engine back? No. No, the engine's good. And so I called them and asked, do you have a recommendation on a radiator? I need to replace mine. And he said, no. I can't. There's no radiator that I can recommend. He goes, I can tell you what might be your best bet or bang for your buck. But they're not good. None of them are good. Because you just kind of stuck with it.

So whatever you put in there, it's going to break again. Yeah. Do you want that? Yeah. I'm going to have to find some other vehicle to take to the Arctic Circle. I can't trust. I can't trust the radiator. Have you put out bids for who's doing this trip with you? Yeah, I have one person, a contractor at work. Oh. You can. Yeah. You might guess who that is. Yeah. But when I said I was taking the foreigner, he's like, yeah, I'll just probably drive separate. He's like, I'm out. Yeah. All right.

I rambleed on enough. But we went way too long because we have a ton way too much feedback. Did you find what you were looking for? I did. And you're going to need to download a file if we're going to put Captain Jeff's audio into the show. Okay. I'll have to do that while you're talking. Yes. Is it in Dropbox? Yes. Okay. I can do that while we're doing something here. All right. And I just uploaded it into the industry. So I will go get that. All right. Here we go.

I'm playing music. Okay. Since OB324, we have another group of new patrons in the show show listeners here. Echo Sierra Delta Delta Lima, Charlie Romeo, Bravo Kilo and golf Delta. New in the show supporter tier. Lima Oscar, Juliet Sierra, Sierra Alpha and Romeo Victor up from the show listeners here. A few new showmakers. Charlie Alpha, Delta FoxTrad and Delta Golf up from the show supporter tier. And we got some PayPal drops from Sierra, Sierra and Delta Juliet Tango.

If you'd like to learn more about supporting the show and find out how you can participate in this live video stream every week with our beautiful faces, check out patreon.com slash opposing bases. If you haven't done so already, hit subscribe or follow in your podcast player. So our episodes are waiting for you each week. And if you have time, leave us a review and only five star ratings. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Review and announcements.

There is one review and many announcements and I'll just go straight into it. The review five stars titled Prepare to Get Hooked. I waited way too long before I started listening to this podcast and like many others wish I had found out about it sooner. I know it's certainly would have been a huge asset during my instrument training in 2022, but can guarantee I will take full advantage of all working on future certificates and ratings.

Many CFI and CFTBL I listeners have noted that they will be integrating this show as required listening. And I can certainly see why the only benefit which getting a late start has provided is having a large catalog of unplayed episodes to binge during the week while also keeping current with the week leaps. With the weekly releases. The interactive nature of the show is one of several aspects that make it so great and have gotten to hear many questions answered that I didn't even know I had.

See? Where didn't even know we had the way to answer them. You will subconsciously start to pick up vocabulary not usually taught in a standard flight training curriculum, but will undoubtedly be helpful in understanding the other side of the mic one of the one of my favorite episodes to date has been. 275 ice cold vectors where the mechanics of how vectors to file for an ILS approach or discussed limitations on the controller side as well as terminology such as approach gates.

Introduced that we're not taught during flight training nevertheless. Great to know for a more thorough understanding of the NAS. I'll step back and get my round up though before I get to into the weeds. Oh, round up right. Those spray for the weeds. Still backwards. From OB246. Thanks both for all you do and keep up the great work. Excellent. Thank you for taking the time to do that. Yes. Announcements. All right. I get the announcements. All right. I have a tracking sheet for the.

Oh good. Paypal or Romeo Victor passed their instrument check. Congrats. Quote helping cram NAS knowledge for more than two years. I said NAS. Not the other word everybody. Ask Ag Charlie Oscar shares that section 12 episode or season 12 episode seven of Check your eagerness gives a shout out to the triad airport as a flight to Duke gets diverted due to weather. Quote better for him anyway. We couldn't agree more.

Check your eagerness is not actually the name of the show just in case anyone goes looking for that. Oh, that is just what I will read anything here. You've got me set up. No, I didn't want to say the name of the show just in case we're not allowed to. Oh, wait, I remember when we got this email. This is a we weren't mentioned the airport they got diverted to. But this is a relatively cop like popular show, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. Check your eagerness. Yeah. The letters are all the the the the.

No, I'm talking about. You don't talk about now. I do. Okay, I do. It's funny. Apparently we do get a mention. We are the divert airport. Right, but not the show, right? No. Okay. All right. Patreon Alpha Mike passed their instrument check ride. Congrats. Send us a note. Could not be more thankful for your show. I'm so glad I found it before beginning my instrument rating journey. Well, congratulations. Good job. Patreon Tango Delta passed their private pilot rating certificate license.

You're a pilot now. Piece of paper. There's a lot of debate on what you call that. I'm sorry. That's why I said on. Yeah. Julia Alphagaki finished his captain upgrade. Oee. Flying the Atari Ferrari out of the rectangular Bravo. Congrats. Very nice. I love how we're putting that in the vernacular again. Someone gave it to me. It wasn't mine. We're making it part of the vernacular now.

Yes. Patreon Sierra Charlie Sierra earned her tail oil endorsement and saved a three point to pavement and gusting one or 18 knot winds and nailed three point to grass. Great day at the tiny. Don't hit the levy on short final airport near the Wright Brothers Charlie. Congratulations, Sierra Charlie. I believe you are from a previous episode and we talked about continuing your involvement in immersion and aviation. So that is a great way.

You're undoubtedly a better pilot today than most of us listening that don't have our tail oil endorsement. So I don't have mine. I don't have mine. Last one, Charlie Delta passed their instrument check. Congratulations. Everybody keeps sending those in. I believe at least half of these put it in the subject line. Like we asked so we can just slide it right over to the folder and share it on the show. Congratulations. Keep sharing them. Great job. Let's do you have the caption joe audio.

Oh, perfect. I did that while you were reading the audio and I wanted to brag about how I actually got something to be seamlessly done in the background. It was ticked. No, I didn't even notice. All right. I have not tested the level of volume on this but I'll tweak that as we go. I'm ready to hit play. I am ready. Three, two, one. Boop. Hey guys. Great show. This is Captain Jeff from a pretty average aviation podcast.

And I wanted to chime in on something that I heard you guys talking about a couple of weeks ago on a earlier episode. And one of your listeners said in some feedback regarding the use of aviation language, aviation terminology in day to day communications interactions with regular people non aviation people. And I chuckled because I, one of the things I do is I sing at my church on the weekends and many times I'm tasked with announcing the songs or the hymns that we're going to sing.

And the way my choir director wants me to do it is to say the number, let's say, please join in singing number 719. And then I say the name of the song and then I end it with number 719. And the reason why I chuckled is because it's sometimes hard for me to keep from saying 719 or you know the aviation terminology and the

aeronautical information manual. I think that's what they call it now the aim says certain numbers like three is supposed to be pronounced tree five is supposed to be pronounced five. Well, I've never done that. That just sounds stupid. But I did quite regularly use nine or for the for the numeral nine. So anyway, I thought that was a, it just tickled me when you were when you guys were talking about that.

The other thing I want to mention here is that I'm going to be in the general vicinity of the the mythical triad a little bit down to the Southwest in Charlotte, North Carolina. I and the rest of my crew, I believe everybody from the APG crew will be present on the first weekend in April on Saturday, the sixth of April at a place called Brewers at 4,000, 1,001,

I believe let me look up the address here. Oh, wait, no, the address is 4,000 and 1,4001, Yancy and we're having a an APG meetup and I've invited the hosts here, a G, R H to join us if they can possibly do that. And I'm also extending the invitation to everybody here listening to this awesome podcast. If you are in the general area, the Charlotte area on Saturday, the sixth of April, we're going to be meeting at 4,000, 1,001, Yancy at about three o'clock in the afternoon until whenever.

I don't know, we'll probably be there several hours. So anyway, that's an invitation extended to all y'all listening to this fantastic show. That's it from Captain Jeff. Clear skies. Thank you, Captain Jeff. Cool. And thank you for putting this in the Charlie Alpha segment and thinking of that on the flight. We got that last minute audio what yesterday? Yes, last night.

I think APG, if we haven't talked about it in a while, if you're new to this show, airline pilot guy show that pretty much inspired the starting of this show, several years ago. And Jeff has been a mentor and a friend over the years who shows great, check it out airline pilot guy show you can get it on all podcast players like hours. And if you're in the Metroplex area, we promise we won't tell the Metroplex controllers. So you can go down there and be free to talk. It's smack about them.

Yeah, it's not hard. It's not hard. You know you're there when you go on a 25 mile final at 160 knots. That's how you know you've reached Metroplex. Right. Yeah, if you were confused. And you overfly the entire state of South Carolina. Right. Cool. Thanks for sending that audio. Have you ever anything you want to add on that? I'm going to do my best to be there. I am currently assigned overtime on that day. But I believe I can find some poor sap to pawn it off on.

I think we'll see. I am going to do my best. Once I know for sure, I'll put something out that I am going to try to be there. But I'm going to do my best. I will say now there's not any chance of me showing up to that. I will be on a trip and it ends that day around that time in an entirely different part of the country. So have fun. Enjoy yourselves. Take pictures and we'll talk about it on the show. All right. Thank you, Captain Jeff. Yes, thank you. Yes. All right. I'm playing music now.

Music. Time. They feedback. Time. All right. I'm scrolling. Oh, these are relatively quick. Yes. I'll do three. You can do one. How about that? Fine. Number one. Okay. From Patreon, Romeo, whiskey, Angel Flight is a great reason to go flying. Unfortunately, it isn't an option for low-time pilots, less than 250 hours or pilots without an instrument rating.

An alternative to that is pilots and paws, essentially Angel Flight for animals, mostly cats and dogs that are needed to be, that need to be transported so they can be adopted. Romeo, whiskey from the Wright Brothers area. Yes. That is good point. 250 hours is going to come quick though. So when you do every time, you can do both. So thank you for the suggestion. Yes. Thank you. All right. Number two from Patreon Delta Fox Truett is audio. Sorry, I'm adjusting my coffee here on.

Right at the edge of the microphone, everybody enjoys that. I'm ready to hit play with you. I am ready. One, two, three. Boop. Greetings. Oh, gods of the sky and all things that move there in. This is a relatively new Patreon Delta Fox Truett. I discovered your show about a month ago. I'm slowly burning backwards through the catalog and I've lost all sense of time and space. So I don't know exactly when this next question rose, but I think it was an relatively recent transmission.

The question related to following an instrument approach to a runway that is, you know, the strong tailwind and then breaking out and then circling, cland in a more favorable direction, which makes a lot of sense. And I think one of you was getting your pop hums out to cheer for that as like an instrument circling approaches. I have a related question.

What about following an instrument approach, breaking out, canceling IFR and then landing at a nearby airport that does not have an instrument approach? I am instrument rated, but I'm not current. So I'm focusing on my IPC. And that's a scenario that I've actually wondered about. Why wouldn't more people do that? As always, much appreciate all of the wisdom and the humor. I'm looking forward to your responses. Cheers. Thank you, Delta Voxrat.

Thank you for taking the time to hit record and send some audio that sounded really good. I don't know what you were using for a microphone, but it sounded good. I just wanted to add that. Are you tackling this one first? Sure. Yeah, this is a great technique. It's a great technique. There's a couple of frequent users that use this at the triad to go into what do we call it? T-Case Harbor. T-Case Harbor? Yes. Yeah, so they'll shoot an approach to triad. This airport is just four miles maybe.

Yeah, give it a five miles away. Yeah. And especially when we're on the fives, it makes it pretty easy, because they just shoot the approach, do a low approach, and go straight out. It's just basically straight out. And they make it known that that's what their plan is. I would do that. I certainly would include that. Hey, we're not actually landing at the airport that I'm filed to. We're going to break out, cancel, and go to this other airport. Obviously, there are limitations to that.

When it's 300 overcast, that's probably not going to work. Not going to work. So, you need a decent ceiling for this to work. And it's probably reasonable proximity. So, the place is where you're stretched out between airports. And there's dynamic weather. It's hard to know if it's going to work or not. Maybe I don't imagine that places without an instrument approach have weather? I'm trying to think. They might have a minute weather, an automated one. Okay. Is that where you're asking?

Yeah, I'm just trying to think of our airports that don't have instrument approaches if they have weather reporting. I'm not sure if all of them do, but I think at least one of them in the scenario does. Yeah. I'm not sure what... Oh, go ahead. Well, the good news in the states, especially this side of the country, there's an airport. You can't randomly put a finger on the map and be more than 10 miles from an airport, probably. Right. Let me summarize this real quick.

For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, an airport that may not have an approach, there's tons of those in the United States. You can utilize, given there's really good weather. You just need to get below a cloud deck. That's really the best way to summarize it. You need to go below a cloud deck. That legally, there's no hole to find, so you navigate below this deck on another approach, going to a different airport. You break out, you're underneath the clouds.

I won't even say a number. I'm not going to put that on the record, but now you have enough, an adequate spacing where you could cancel legally, and be a far, be a far, and go to the airport. You could stay on with approach or tower in our case when we do the fives going into T.K.S. Harbor. We let them find other few miles on the other side of the airport. Hey, do you have it inside? Yep. All right. I have our cancellation received. They usually say that, and it's done.

So, there are tons, I agree with you. There are a lot of places you can pull this off in the next. Yes. I think without saying an actual altitude for a ceiling, I think a good technique for this might be to think, okay, if I was going from this airport, I'm doing the approach to the other one, VFR. What would I need? What would I need? And what would I want personally? And then that's kind of the ceiling you're looking for as a minimum to do this technique.

Yeah. And we'll open up your options if you are running into planning issues. Hey, this, you know, 2,500 foot ceiling. It's a really a pain. I can't get through it. How can I do this? This isn't unsafe, but you do have to communicate with air traffic and make it known what you're trying to do. Yeah. Yeah. You might even put it in the remarks. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So. Thank you to Health FoxTrot. Do we answer that? I think so. Yep. All right. I'm getting number three from Patreon and Kilo Sierra.

I'm not sure I've ever ever found two more relatable people as you guys. This is the first podcast I've subscribed, patron, etc. I understand maybe three quarters of what you talk about since I'm only in the early stages of private pilot. The time to do a project discussion this week. Double it and then go up a unit of measure. It's spot on as our trips to supply stores. I also go solo and routinely have arguments with myself about whether or not we have we, a, but enough of this or be.

We bought too much of this. The answer is always somehow see both. Okay. This is a true DIYer here. This is not like if you know this level, okay? Project planning. You have been in it. You have you've been in it. So anyway, they continue late 90s. I remember getting sucked into the show on Vermont PBS. We got four channels on a roof antenna, the kind where you turn a dial inside and the roof antenna turns. I didn't have that fancy one. That's pretty nice.

Two channels were PBS. One was the Spanish channel. We used masking tape to make. Hey, this is a little mini Charlie Alpha segment. Yeah, it is really amazing. The show was plain crazy where a guy decides he would build himself a plane in 30 days. The average amount of time he calculates people spend over the course of years or decades of plane building. I found it on YouTube bonus a little bit of Tom. How do you say that last name? A layer, maybe. Tom Lair for the intro song.

I can't hit play on this. We'll break all sorts of copyright laws. I watched some of it. Okay. It is classic like 90s, you know, programming, especially for PBS. Okay. It's pretty interesting. I don't think successfully build this plane in 30 days. Not even close. Not even close. So even if it was like your job and someone was paying you to do it full time seven days a week. It wouldn't be able to do it. I don't think so. By yourself.

No. Now, that air venture they build a plane in a week before everybody breaks out. It's nonstop. You can have a role, you can turn a bolt or do a rivet. Everybody has a partner and they get the airplane. I think on a test flight by the end of that week. It's really cool. I don't remember that. But that sounds like something that totally could happen there. I don't remember. I don't know if I did it every year, but it's definitely happened while we were there at least once.

So I hope you enjoy it and thanks for charming, entertaining, and educating us all. Kiela Sarah. Well, thanks for the feedback and the stroll down memory lane. The link is in the show notes to that video. It is pretty cool. Go check it out. Cool. All right. Fancy jet music. Take it away. All right, this week's show topic is brought to you by Hey Trin and Golf Hotel, who asks some questions about practice approaches. And some of this we've talked about, some of it we may not have.

But we're just going to brush up on this. It'll be kind of a refresher on the whole practice approach. Good. Well, I think it's been a while since we kind of mentioned the nuance of practice approaches versus IFR and all that. Cool. Yep. Yep. And this is definitely one of the most common interactions between pilots and controllers. There's a lot of there's a lot of back and forth here on this topic on frequency.

So from Golf Hotel, hey guys, after completing my private pilot last year, I'm about six weeks into working on my instrument rating. Now that I've got 20 something practice approach, penguins on my iceberg, I find myself with a question, what is the Traycon actually expected to do for VFR practice approaches?

The experience seems to vary a lot flight to flight, asking for a practice ILS into our home level A. Charlie feels basically like we get treated like an IFR inbound except that we're priority number last versus the fast movers trying to run us over from behind. We get vectored around the radar pattern, get a p-tack, the whole bit. P-tack is the, the spiel controller says at the foreign approach clearance, the position, the turn, the altitude and the clearance.

So, those sometimes followed by this actual quote, sorry, Cherokee 1, 2, 3 couldn't pedal fast enough, approach clearance cancelled, turned left heading 0, 7, 0. So, they're getting broken out occasionally and that happens. So, that sounds pretty normal, that sounds like what we do, what Triad does on a daily basis. If you're going into the Charlie on a practice approach, you're basically archery to like an IFR.

And at the point you get your clearance, where they say cleared, okay, then you are given IFR separation. So, you are basically not, do not confuse that with authorization to go into the clouds, that is not. But we are separating you from other planes with the same separation as an IFR aircraft. Yes. That's why you have to get broken out.

Or they would just say approach clearance cancelled, maintained IFR and you can continue down, you know, you can continue inbound, but you no longer have a clearance for this approach. Which, if you are wanting to do an approach, we're not supposed to do like a IFR, like practice approach approved, no separation services provided into the Charlie. That's not supposed to be happening, right? I know it happens in the NASTO.

Yes. I will occasionally give up the pilot the option, hey, I'm going to have to break you out or just cancel this approach clearance and you keep going to the airport. And they will sometimes like to do, I mean it's probably a split, yeah, we'll break us out, we'll do it again or whatever. There are some new mods in this. If you're wondering, it's hard to translate that to the pilot quickly when it's happening.

Parallel approach is going into the triad, you're going to get passed by a jet, there's a separation requirement there, you can't possibly run this and I have miscalculated my spacing with this jet that's going to pass you. As soon as it gets with an X amount of miles, I got to break you up. It's harder for us to say, hey, keep doing exactly what you're doing but cancel your approach clearance because it sounds like you don't have authorization to continue down this glidesull for example.

But we don't care if you kept doing that, but that's hard to say quickly when our plan goes sideways. Right. It's us keeping legal separation, we're not that turned to 70 in your example, isn't preventing you from getting, you know, you're not getting run over. It could be somebody passing you, it could be somebody that's going to in fringe barely on the three miles, maybe if they're following you. And that's the only solution they have. When we get the second one here, and we'll try to.

Yeah, sure. Asking for a practice aren't having to a nearby sleepy uncontrolled field tends to feel very little excitement from the approach controllers. Yeah, sure do whatever. Our service terminated squawk view far, changed to advisory approved because of this will rarely bother contacting. Yeah, whatever guy. Again, if we're doing several approaches back to back at uncontrolled fields and we'll just continue to make position reports on the CTAP as we set up for the next approach.

I have an opinion about this, that controller, I don't know if they're dismissing you. Don't consider that as they don't want to do that. They just don't have the same separation complexity or. Conflicts that may come up at the Charlie, so. It's low. It's low impact to their workflows that a fair way to. Yeah, say that, but you can still get the benefit of it. They can say all the words and play the part clear to here's a vector to the final or here's declared to a direct fix.

And it there's almost nothing that can hurt them in terms of separation to keep that legal. Right. So it sounds dismissive, but you could have just as easily called them back on the mist and said, all right, we're at 3000 or VFR now we want to go to this fix. All you're doing is practicing the play. You want to hear all the parts again. Yeah, I think what he's saying here, though, is that they're not. ATC is not playing their part.

Huh. They're just letting them go, which isn't happening increasingly more frequent here. Because because our letter to airmen expired. So there's a lot of practice approach approved, no separation services, squawk VFR have a nice day basically, which I don't. I don't particularly like. I don't either.

You're way around this as the pilot is to ask for if they don't want to give you an approach clearance, which is fine. If you're going into a satellite, a non-towered airport and they are saying cleared for the approach. They're now on the hook for IFR separation until they tell you otherwise until they say radar service terminated or something to that effect. They are giving you they are supposed to be giving you IFR separation. If they can't do that, they may do the practice approach approved.

You know, no separation services. That's why that statement is in there to differentiate it from a clearance. But they there's no reason they can't give you traffic advisories while you're out there doing a procedure turn while you're out on the T fix base to final segment, whatever. While you're in route for 20 minutes to get to the initial approach fix, there's no reason they can't provide.

It's flight following basically is what it is. It's just that you're you happen to be flying on, you know, an approach. It's just asked for that. I want to do a practice approach with, you know, traffic advisories. That's all you would have to do and you can say I don't need a clearance, but I'm going to do this. I want to do this approach and I just want to have the service of, you know, not running into someone.

Okay. Maybe I was too soon to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the controller is being dismissive. That's happening more. I don't know that I said that very much. I felt like there was no advantage to say. I never, no. Until this letter expired, which it had expired in for about a year after and we didn't know it, we continued to do it. And basically at every airport, this, the letter was for only a certain amount, six airports or seven airports or something.

But we did it for every satellite we had, every single one. And that phrase, all G, I don't think I heard uttered in the Tracon. Agreed. Until just recently, when a certain supervisor determined that this letter had expired and we don't, we're not doing that anymore. So and now that's you here at all the time, a daily practice approach for no separate practice. Right. I'm biting my tongue. I don't do this job anymore.

It's easier to fire off comments about it, but I don't think that, that, that don't think that makes sense in our, in, in triad. That's our bread and butter. That's your job. If you don't like doing it, go find somewhere else to work. Right. I said, no, I mean, it's true. And, and we are a, a G A training facility. Yes. We're surrounded by it. We're surrounded by flight schools. We have them at the airport. They, we have them at CoFactory. They're at cigarette.

They're everywhere. And I do, I think it is, I think it is our job. I will continue to do it. There are controllers that still do it, but it's, it's becoming very, very common. If I was the person in charge in the room, and I heard that, and I look over at the scope and they're covered up with traffic going in out of cigarette and triad, not going to say anything. Yeah. Okay. Sure. But if you're split and you're not busy, that is your job right now. Yeah. It's to play this part.

Yes. Do all the things. If the pilot called you and said, hey, we couldn't get it into triad because it was too busy and we're too slow. We tried to get it over here and you just sent us off into YAH-LAH-LAND on our own. What can we do to get this service? We need this practice. We need to hear the words. We need to follow your instructions. We're trying to be users of the NAS. What do you want us to do? I don't know that they would have a response for that.

It shouldn't be, I don't have to do that. It's not my job. It is your job and you should have to do it. Yeah. So it's, those are the same people that when these pilots have gone through the process, have gotten a job and now are flying in, you know, to a satellite and make a mistake or do something wrong or say the wrong thing. They're the first to complain that these guys don't know anything. How would they even have a job?

They're the first ones to complain and it's like, dude, you're the one that had the opportunity to provide this person, the training, the whole play. You didn't play your part. They couldn't rehearse theirs. That's how this goes. And as controllers, we are responsible for building the next generation, you know, of pilots in terms of that relationship between air traffic and, and the flyers in the NAS. So, do you want to third one? Yeah. Yeah. We want an advantage there.

Asking for a practice localizer approach at a contract via far delta was weird because we were coming from the mist at a nearby uncontrolled field. We called called the Delta controller from about 20 miles out at 2500 already established on the localizer inbound. We tell him we just want to fly the localizer and go mist and he replied in quite an annoyed tone that he doesn't have a radar scope. So we have to contact approach for that.

We get back on with approach, ask for the practice localizer to three. All she says is, okay, contact the tower. Back on with the tower, all he says this time is report three mile final. Oh, my word. All right. So just everybody's passing the book. Right. Well, when you went back to the tower, they assume that you got a clearance. Yes. And now they care about, is tell me when you're close. I'm going to clear to land next and this party's over.

Right. Yeah. This is frustrating to hear this is happening in the NAS. It's super frustrating. I'm sorry. Go ahead with the questions. I'm sorry. Yeah. So my questions are, what does approach do for practice approaches, particularly for satellites that's different from the services provided for via far flight following? Okay. So we talked about that a little bit. Again, if you get a clearance as a VFR, your VFR, you're out there doing practice approaches.

It's clear to a million, let's say, you get a clearance. You're provided IFR separation. Now, it gets a little weird on, well, what happens if I just change them to advisory? You know, do I have to like wait for the plane to cancel this approach? So the air traffic fix for that is just to say, you know, when you're on final, at whenever point we would just change you to advisory is to reiterate. Right, our service terminated squawk VFR changed to advisory proof.

So there's no question about, right, am I blocking for this? Now, if you're going to do a mist, yeah, we're going to block. Yeah. And I'm talking like call Duke on the landline and block at the airport because I gave you an approach clearance as a VFR. Again, this does not give you authorization to be IMC. You cannot go in the clouds. Right, you have to be on an instrument flight plan on an instrument clearance to go into the clouds. Make that PA again. Right. I think that's the confusing part.

This happened, we've been on frequency with this awkward interaction with a pilot who says, you know the weather's terrible. You see there VFR, you just gave him a fraction approach. Poof, they disappear. Yeah, they're in the clouds. How are you doing this? Yeah, you cleared me for the approach that does not make you IFR period. Right.

To do that, you need to hear something like, well, one, you would need to ask for it, too, you need to hear something like you're cleared to XYZ airport via this, maintain. Yes. Right. That is, if you're coming back from practice area, we're going to get into a little distinction, too. And you cannot maintain VFR the whole way to your desired destination. We need to pop up IFR to XYZ or here, they'll give you a code, cleared to, fly heading.

Let me know when you have the A-DIS, we're going to put you on the ILS, you get cleared. That sounds exactly like an IFR clearance for all the other people. No practice approach, no separation services provided as being put out there. You're getting IFR separation. Yes. Okay, sorry. What the difference, the different services provided for the IFR flight following. So on flight following, you're not getting IFR separation. Correct.

And when you get an approach clearance out of satellite, it basically is shutting that airport off for other IFR operations. For flight following, that isn't the case. You're not afforded any sort of three mile, a thousand foot kind of separation. But you're getting traffic advisories, basically, is what you're getting. Are there any tips or other information we should be aware of to both get good service and get in other people's way the least while doing practice approach work?

Yeah, I mean, if all you want is traffic advisories, just tell them that. Just say, hey, I want to do these practice approaches with traffic advisories. I don't need a clearance. I think that would kind of be your magic words. I don't need a clearance, but I do want to stay with you while I'm doing this approach. Yep. I think that would be great.

I think that would be great. That affords the controller, the flexibility to not have to block the airport, to not have to separate from other IFR aircraft. But just for them to maintain flight following, which should be happening anyway. What else? Can you think of anything else?

If you're aware of the differences between a IFR practice approach and being able to go in and out of clouds on an IFR pop-up or actual IFR clearance, that should army with the weapons you need to fight through this awkwardness with the controller. Hey, sounds busy. Look where you are in relation to the final going into that other airport that they're working traffic to. Oh, yeah, you did it. Congratulations. If they're busy and you're going, you're trying to do an approach that's very close.

I'm thinking of prison airport near us. Excuse me. Final for the ARNAVS does conflict a little bit with the finals for one of the parallel runways. It's pretty far out, but you have to have some awareness of where you are in that ATC puzzle. But I like your suggestion. Say, I don't need a clearance. I just want traffic advisories. But then that puts the instructor in the ATC role. My experience with that has been that they're generally very bad at that.

They think they're good controllers, but you can't do the same things because you don't have the overhead view of the radar. You know what your fix is. If you're going to do that, try not to do vectors, do clearances to fix this to your student. That's exactly what I was going to say. Hey, you're five miles from, because you can see this. It's set up. They did all the buttons. They did all the briefing. Five miles from Bozo, cross Bozo at 3000, cleared ARNAVS 3-1 approach.

You said all the things that ATC would have. They didn't get tangled up in this clearance because they're busy. I'm going to still give them a benefit of that. They're so busy they cannot provide you with. Those magic words, but they can give you flight following. See me roll my eyes? I guess I can't accept the two things. If you're going to talk to me, just do it the same all the time. What benefit are these controllers getting out of that? But anyway, I dig right. Right.

If you have the ability and you do it controllers that are listening, because they don't have a duper-ex approach, they weren't taught that. That's not part of their culture there. When you ask for it in some busier airports, they're so busy over there. Like, practice approach. What do you mean by that? When you come over to an airport with controllers that do it all day, and 17 airports, 16, 17, 18, depending on which ones you count, we run approaches to. That's what used to it.

You're going to know whether or not you're in an area where they're used to doing that. If you need to go 30 miles the other direction to get to a tracon that does it more regularly, that's another approach to this. You don't have to stay with Grumpy Lazy. I'm going to say it. They're lazy. Grumpy Lazy controller who doesn't want to be bothered. They just want to sit there and stare at a blank screen. Go somewhere where they're actually going to provide you with the service. Sorry.

That's a snark negative today. That's okay. It is. It's the truth. I would have a plan for what you want to do. Convey that to ATC. Don't make them constantly ask, well, what do you want after this? What do you want after this? Tell them the next few steps I had. Have some sort of logical sequence to these events, like one sort of flows into the other, to the other, and you're not crisscrossing all over the airspace. But that being said, be flexible in changing the plan if it's what ATC needs.

How about this instead of what you want it to do? Okay, sure. Yeah. You're right. There is a lot of... I won't go so far as you... It's a little bit disappointing. The level of service sometimes provided. Don't make an assumption that since you got that once, that it's always going to be the case at that airport, you can call ahead of time. Hey, I'm about to go do an instrument lesson. I need to do four approaches. These are the type of approaches I need to do.

Some people who pick up a phone are going to be excited that you call it. All right, here's an idea. If you stay in this vicinity with these two or three airports, we can give you all those. And it should not be a problem. We have an entire sector dedicated to providing satellite airport services. This is where you need to go. If you want to come to this Charlie or this big Bravo, it's going to make this a little more difficult. Have that conversation. It takes no time at all.

Yeah. The same number on the approach plate to cancel your IFR. Call them. If it's not the Traycon, and you got a center that doesn't work that airspace, ask for the number for the Traycon. And you get live feedback. I'm about to take off. What should I do? But have a plan. Don't just aim at the sky and say, you're wasting your students time if you don't have a plan. Think about it logically. I like to look at it clockwise or counterclockwise in an airspace.

Hey, I'm going to go mist off of this one. I'm going to make a right turn. I'm going to basically be on a base to this airport. I'm going to do the approach. Fly the mist straight out. Put me on a base to another airport. You can figure that out before you get in the air and just leave it up to ATC. Yeah. That is a good way to make it. Make ATC happy. Yes. Have some logic to your plan. Yes. This is a good question. We haven't talked about some of this stuff in a while.

I'm glad we got to go over it. Do we answer everything? I think so. If anybody, if this sparks any questions, you know, that you have locally, specific kind of stuff, send us a feedback or just call your facility. Yep. I don't, I feel like that's not happening enough. It's a resource that is highly underutilized. You call, you talk to a person that works that airspace that could tell you all the little things.

You know, well, and they might say, hey, normally that would work except today where we have this thing going on. Whatever it is, like last night, we were, we had a huge trunk fair space blocked out for aerial refueling. So some stuff is just not going to work. In our airspace? Yes. What? That happened that low. I didn't know that happened that low. Yeah, they were at, well, no, not at practice approach low. But what I'm saying is there are, you know, things that change on a day-to-day basis.

Or, hey, we want to do these approaches here. We want to, we want some approach at Triad, followed by this, followed by that. And you might get, hey, those other ones are great. We're down to one runway at Triad. That's going to be really tough. Yeah. You might get it, but be prepared for that not to work, or to be broken out or whatever. So call the facility. I can't stress that enough. Cool. Thank you.

Call the hotel. Thank you for supporting the show, and thanks for sending in a very good question. Malignant. Absolutely. Feedback time. Feedback. All right. I'll get number one. How about that? Sure. Yeah, that. From Patreon, Delft, Charlie, Hi, our H&A G, the discussion in OB-315 about HEC pilot progression through different phases of learning made me wonder. How do controllers progress through different facilities? Does everyone have to start a law traffic facility and work their way up?

What does the transfer and onboarding process look like to get from somewhere like Triad to rectangular Bravo Traycon? Or one of the big Apple Bravo reports? Thanks. We have talked about this before, but I'll kind of summarize. Per se, there's no requirement to start a law-level facility that tends to be the case recently, where more academy grads or non-experience, no previous military experience are starting at a law-level facilities instead of starting at a, at least for Traycon.

For centers, there's only high-level facilities, really. If you start in the center world, you're starting at a 10, 11, or 12, which are the top three complexity facilities in the NAS. If you want to move to another facility, I'm going to say this was a straight face. There is a process in place to facilitate that movement. However, it is riddled with problems, not the least of which is staffing at most places don't allow for someone to leave.

And the places that need more controllers aren't always the places people want to go work. And there's 300 plus facilities in the NAS, so it's a nightmare in terms of keeping everybody equally balanced in the right places. I said that it's nicely as possible. And when you do go to another facility, you don't start over. Your experience does have an impact on the amount of hours you'll receive, and it certainly helps you.

But you have to relearn that airspace, the procedures there, all the things that we had to do in training at our first facility. You have to do over again. It may take less time, calendar-wise, but you still have to do it all again. Yeah. We get this question a lot. Could you just go to some other facility and plug in and start working? No. That's not really. If the main airport configuration was like the same, like Duke and Ars-Sera, share a very, very similar setup.

It would certainly make it easier, but you would know none of the rules, none of the yellow ways, you wouldn't know what other facilities were expecting you to do. You wouldn't know what to do with airplanes. You would be completely lost. What the exception of final. You could work, that's what I'm saying. You could work the planes into Duke. Like if I went over there, I could work a final into Duke.

And all the headings would be the same, and all the 12-year-old son could work the final into Duke. Yeah, basically. I could grab some rando off the street. Teacher. Teacher, how do I put a headset on? This is the bippy. It goes in your ear. For the most part, no, you cannot just plug in at some random facility and start working traffic.

Now, if you, if we're some sort of a apocalypse scenario where controllers had to go somewhere and plug in, if they have experience with volume, and they got a 20 to 30 minute briefing on the basics here, here's your boundaries. These are the frequencies. These are the airports you're responsible for. Here's the five approaches we do. If we're looking over, start memorizing some random five letter words, they could do it. It wouldn't be pretty, it would be slowed down, but they could do it.

The skills they have would get them through that. It would be, you know, somebody would have to be watching them, though, getting trouble quick. Knowing what airspace you own would be, you know, and having that down enough to where it would just be automatic. Some airspace is simpler than others. Hey, we own inside of this boundary from the surface to 12,000 feet. No exceptions. Some places are not.

Hey, we don't own this little cutout. We don't own that. You only own to six right here. You only own to four over there. You know, it could just like what? So like having that in your head, like instantly sitting down, even if someone said, okay, this is what you don't remember in that. I will close the disanswer up. Generally speaking, controllers that leave the triad have the skills necessary to succeed at any level facility.

We have a track record of doing very good when they leave the facility at high level, busier places. They do very good. Yeah, not the ones that don't want to do practice approaches, but I won't go on another rant. You get number two number two from patron and Gulf Romeo greetings esteemed aviation overlords. I sent a private student on his long solo cross country the other day.

His route went from a busy class Charlie to a less busy class Charlie and then to a delta in the middle of nowhere with an absurdly long runway. Okay, I know. I know where we're at here. Upon landing at the delta, he texted the ramp to reset his navigator and radios. He called ground and said he'd like to depart via far back to do get 3,500. The controller answered negative flight plan. End of transmission.

What? Students try again this time saying he was a student solo in the controller barked negative flight plan. Be wilder. The student said he was ready to taxi with the current aides and received instructions after take off the controller kindly. Oh, sure, very offered a frequency to request flight following. I've never heard this phrase before. I wonder if you could let us know how we could have avoided the apparent failure to communicate.

Gulf Romeo. I don't even know what this means. They have no way to enter a via far flight plan. They don't have. Okay, well, it makes it sound like you didn't file a flight plan. So I can't do anything for you. It's terrible war. It's chosen by the controller. Yeah.

I'll say what I think it should have sounded like. I can't give you a code. When you take off, I'll hand you over to approach and you can request flight following. I don't have a way to communicate with them. We don't have an agreement. And I'm not so busy where I can't have this conversation instead of repeating the same negative flight plan. What? I know. What does that even mean? Yeah, just tell me.

Now you'll get your code from approach in the air. Yeah, and when they said student, you should have gone into like explain mode. Come on. Yeah. Now there's nothing. It would have been. Yeah, there's nothing you could have done. There's no way to know if a delta can or cannot do a flight plan into the NAS.

So, and especially as a student, like I just don't get it. Come on. So another follow up question just for future students going there. No, you can't get a code. If they go to a place, they're not sure. When you land, hey, can I get a flight following code from you?

Or do I need to get that from approach? That's the language you need to use. That's how you open that conversation up. No, I can't do that. You're going to depart on the 1200 code, which happens. A lot of places in the NAS. It's perfectly fine. And you go over to approach and get your request through them. Good. Okay, we have to go faster. I know. Okay. Am I number three? Yes. From Patreon, Alpamaik Mike, thanks for the trip down memory lane in OB-317, your discussion of stick.

Stick shift type ratings reminded me of a time my father and with my elder son back in the early 60s, dad started collecting and restoring cars from 1933 and 1932, a plummet and multiple Chrysler's. My son inherited the last of dad's cars by multi way agreement a 1933 Chrysler Imperial convertible coupe. I don't know that I've ever seen that car. Sounds cool. The big kick about these cars is they have no synchro mesh in the transmissions, not at all.

Dad once even double clutched on the upshift whiskey tango fox drive. I did it just like that. That threw me until he explained what he'd done and why I really enjoy driving that car as does my son. It does great at highway speeds through though it's cooling is a bit challenged by the summer heat around the city Bravo every car's eating and cooling is challenged.

Where my son and his wife now live, our H again congrats on getting typed in the 75 and 76 and thanks for the show my penguins keep fighting with each other for who gets to stay on the iceberg Alpamaik Mike. Yeah, I probably couldn't explain the mechanics of what's happening in the clutch and the whole reason for double clutch and what it's happening but that synchro mesh sounds like a really cool word.

And allows you to not grind the gear so I'm guessing some of your lessons in this car sounded pretty awful. Yeah. Merging metal at ice feeds. Yes. For those that don't know what we're talking about, there are some cars where you are responsible for shifting gears. There's a stick that comes out of the floor. You put your hand on it and you have to move it and you have a third pedal called the clutch and you have to use that to shift gears.

Go ask your parents about it and if they don't know, say ask your parents somebody in this generational experience will have a knowledge of these standard shift cars. Standard transmission. Yes. Cool. Thanks for sharing that story. That's cool. You get number four. Number four, from Patron Delta Charlie, Gents, a friend recommended your podcast to me about a year and a half ago and I was hooked. I'm retiring from the Air Force this summer. Cool. Congratulations.

Uh-huh. Congrats. Thank you for your service and have spent about half of the last 20 years bouncing back and forth between flying rubber dog poo out of Hong Kong in Big Fat Cargo Plains and teaching pilot training in the T1. A beach 400. That's the point I flew. Yeah. Yeah. At the pilot training base where the wind comes sweeping through the planes, your podcast.

I added the singing part. Thank you. Your podcast specifically the ATC perspective has made me a much better instructor because I can better anticipate how I can bend. I can bend ATC to my will. It seemed like I'm bending to theirs. Ah, in order to maximize. I love this. Yes. My students training. Additionally, I've grown fond of the 7110.

65 and like to show and like to throw tidbits, you've helped me interpret out of it around my fellow instructors as they stare at me and bewildered amazement. If you just start quoting the 7110 to other pilots, they're going to call your AME. In the last three weeks, I completed my military equivalency for CFWI, my ATP secured an interview at a major airline and set my retirement date for the summer. Wow. That is super busy.

Your podcast is helped motivate and inspire me when I needed it most. And now that we're getting the chronicles of Penguin Airlines training program through the Patreon feed, I'm even more excited for my own journey when I get demoted to the rank of Mr. . Cool. Thanks again, Delta Chelly. Well, that's awesome. Congrats on retirement. And your next steps keep us updated when you become a Mr. and what happens?

Thank you for plugging the most recent bonus audio for patrons only about my first 100 hours on the flight. It's available now. Yeah, go check it out if you are a patron. All right. Number five. From Patreon, Mike Charlie recently passed my private pilot check ride. Congrats. Thank you for the confidence you have given me to better communicate with ATC and the NAS. I feel like that's a theme. I'm glad that's working and we're helping people be more confident.

I'm very scared for students and all the way up. It's still intimidating, even for me, I make mistakes, but for making you more comfortable with it, great. My question is, why does tower ask you to squawk for you for when you haven't even landed at the airport after coming from across country? I was about 12 miles from the airport when I was told to change my code to 1200. I'm sorry if you already answered this in the show. I'm still playing catch up.

The tower may not have asked you to do that. It's probably more likely that the approach controller did going into an airport that they don't have an agreement where they keep the code the whole way. If it was a tower, you said tower in this case, right? We do that going into steamer. We say, right, our service terminator squawk VFR, contact the tower. We can call that tower and say this is your next inbound. VFR is typically that doesn't happen due to time.

You're going to have to call them anyway. The tower will not give you a new code. They'll say report a final and it's down on something like that. The reason they're being told that is because the relationship with the flight following radar controller is over. That's the way they're saying or breaking up. You're on your own. Go talk to the tower now. Squawk VFR. You could stay on that code and we leave our planes on codes going into cigarette all the time.

Yeah, but they have a scope and they see the arrivals going in there. What am I missing here? Well, I don't know. I think if it is the tower asking you. If that is the case, I mean, it could be something. I don't know. I'm trying to think of a scenario where if you were getting obviously you're getting flight following if you're on a code. And radar switches you to the tower and then the tower 12 miles out is a long ways to pretty far.

Typically, I'm not switching planes of cigarette that far out, but you're going to the tower and they're saying squawk VFR. I don't know. It could be an agreement with approach saying, hey, when you see this plane going at 1200 code, I've got them. Like you know that I'm talking to them. I'm telling them to squawk 1200. I don't know. That doesn't.

Maybe they did have a scope. It might be a way for them to see a transponder code change. They're not going to say right out of contact, but now they've sort of pseudo radar identified you on their screen. How's this one? They've written your call sign down so they don't need it anymore. They're decluttering the scope. I don't know. I don't know. That is kind of weird. If it truly is the tower saying that and you're a full stop.

I agree. It would be weird. Yeah. I think it's more likely that it would be that would come from approach. But if it's not, I don't. I'm not really sure. Telling an aircraft to squawk VFR is an implied cancellation of radar service in our 7110. The illustrious 7110. Yes. Maybe the tower when they got you, you hadn't switched over or there was an understanding that you would have been on 1200 code by the time you talked to them and they had done it. So they're just checking the box.

It's hard to say. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. You're no longer receiving radar service. I don't know how they would know you were on a code if they weren't capable of giving you radar service. But while they got these VFR tower only so they can't do anything. It's just for advisors only, right? So they want you everybody on 1200 code to make sure there's no misunderstanding. You're not getting services. Is that fair? Maybe.

All right. We're going to finish these two. I swear I have two more. All right. Which one's mine? You're keeping it. I don't know. I feel like the wait. Did I just do that? No. You just did five.

Five. You're going all do six. Go. Number six from patron golf golf lords of the skies. I am seeking wisdom. Recently. You know what? Let's just stop there. You've come to the wrong place. Yeah. I was going to say wrong. Shell. Yeah. Yeah. Try APG. Lots of wisdom over there. They're much. Yeah. They're much older. Much more gray hair. Anyway, lords of the skies. I'm seeking wisdom recently. I was flying from the rock hugger airport to the airport.

The balloon buster base. I didn't think that's what it said at first. Under the flaming bird Bravo. I picked up flight following about 20 miles south of my departure airport at 8500 approach gave me a squat code and radar ID. I flew along and was handed off to the next sector as I approached the Bravo. I was asked if I had the most recent aid is at my destination. I replied I had information. Mike. It was several calls later that approach acknowledged my receipt of Mike.

As I was descending towards my destination, I called approach and let them know I had the airport and site having flown this route numerous times both under IFR and flight following. I was accustomed to approach handing me off to the tower by this point. No response. I called again a minute later still no response I hit I didn't to flash them on the scope not the way some of you were thinking.

Not a now I'm getting worried I've entered the airspace of my class Delta destination. So now you're in the Delta. Approach has not let you go to the tower, but you're not talking to the tower. Okay. All right and still haven't been handed off I call a third time to which the controller responds that he just got on station didn't have me and to call the tower.

Wow. Some something weird happened there. I immediately switch over to tower where I hear him mentioned the presence of my aircraft to another aircraft in the pattern. I keyed up and let him know who I was and that approach hadn't handed me off by then I'm in the pattern. He was professional and sequenced me into busy pattern and clear me to land after landing. He tossed me over the ground just before parking ground called and asked if I was up.

I affirmed that I was ground gave me a mild tongue lashing and told me what I did was dangerous. I explained approach didn't answer my first two calls to hand me off. He said we hear that excuse a lot. And before I was in class Delta I should have called the tower and hung up on approach.

I apologize to thank him for his counsel and that was the end of the transmission. I was in a pickle. Yeah. I know leaving approach would create a thing but not switching over to tower after repeated attempts to raise approach also cause the thing. What should I have done golf golf? Oh man. Yeah. See it is you they put you in a really weird spot because imagine unsolicited.

You had just left approach. But they there was still some traffic conflict or something that hadn't been resolved. How mad would approach be? What? You just went to the tower. I was trying to call traffic, you know, and you were just gone left me. I was going to cancel your approach clearance. I didn't have the spacing I need anymore.

Yeah. I mean there. I don't know. I feel like it's safe to say what you did was the right thing to do despite the tower control not being happy with it because they're taking out their frustration on approach. Sounds like they do this often if he says I hear that excuse a lot. Yeah. Well then maybe it's not the pilots. Maybe there's something happening over here in frequency land. Right.

You need to pick up a phone and say, hey, I understand that you guys are busy. I did the thumbs up thing again. I didn't do a thumbs up. Yeah. But can you guys work on getting these guys handed off to us sooner because we had pattern traffic and that one was tricky. It was too late. He showed up on a mile final. Whatever. I'm not sure how close you got.

I feel like you did the right thing. You're not going to make everybody happy on that. Don't just leave approach. They should be the one saying contact the tower. If you're legit Nordow and it was VFR and you can see in the pattern squawks 7600 and do your best to look for a like on signal and get on the ground. But you you could hear people and you were you were able to get in touch with somebody.

But I feel like you did everything the right way. Yeah. I mean maybe you know in theory. Well, no, that doesn't even work. I was going to say that tower has their airspace. It's protected from approach. But that's not really even true because we own part of cigarettes. Yeah. We own part of their delta. So that isn't entirely true. But as a general rule, maybe you could say.

Yeah, by the delta, I should be I probably should have been handed off by now. And if you're in that situation, I guess that is really the guideline that I would use. If you cannot get approach at all and they haven't switched you. By the delta, that's when I would say would be a good would be a place if you had to pick one. Where I would say go over to the tower on your own. Hopefully that you shouldn't have to do that.

This is advanced. If you're listening, I do not think this will work for everybody. If most planes and all but one that I've flown have a second radio, you can reach out to the tower on that second radio.

There's some there's some button push and it has to happen. And it's not a good time to be doing changing workloads, especially if you're solo pilot IFR. But if you're good on the radios and you have a good flick on how to quickly go over to this other frequency on an and still keep radar or approach in your calm one or come to whatever the opposite one was. Then you could do that.

Hey, approach hasn't handed me off yet. I'm getting close. I see you have pattern traffic. What do you want me to do? Yeah. Then that's your eye for that's completely that's a totally I mean that's even a totally different world. But in this case where it was just flight following.

So I feel like the Delta boundary is if you're IFR. Yeah, that is that is a much different kind of thing. Now the Delta boundary doesn't really mean as much. And I'm more with our age on this one like you need to be on calm. Calm, calm other trying to raise the tower and tell him hey, I can't get approached. They didn't switch me. You know, I'm inbound on whatever. Okay, I just thought of something we didn't mention.

The third paragraph up there. I called a third time and which the controller responded. I just got on station. So if I took over for AG, you just gave me the position. And part of his brief was he's talking to tower. I don't know the strips gone. I'm not thinking about that airplane anymore. Yeah, AG may have said contact the tower five minutes ago. The pilot didn't hear it. But we're not that airplane is off our brains go.

It's totally possible. It's gone. It's like, who is this person that keeps calling me? Oh, it's this guy at a three mile final going into cigarette. That would be alarming. Yeah. Why are you still talking to me? Yes, AG said you were gone. You would never do that. I'm just using it. That could have happened in the background. Sure. Okay. Now the new controller's like contact the tower. Yeah. Who?

The worst thing you could be asking yourself when you take over for another controller after they've done their overlap and they walk away is, who's this? Those are questions. Those are the questions that need to be resolved during the overlap. Not a great feeling. That's terrible. Yeah. Or when a random airplane you don't have on your scope says are we still with you? Who are you? Where are you? Should what? Should you have handed us off by now? What? Probably.

No. All right, I get the last one here. Thank you. Golf golf. All right. Paytrend Alpha Bravo Mike, AG and our age Alpha Bravo Mike here from a coffee town. First, just to close the loop on my previous feedback regarding the emergency, we declared a few months back. We have never received a call or contacted by the big brother from the FAA. I guess that the emergency was too minor to follow up on.

No, but it wasn't probably too. It didn't need to follow up. Everything was set on that call. We've said it a hundred times. There's no package of paperwork that goes out. Yeah. So wait a minute, a few months. Well, it could, you know, that that huge folder of papers is probably, you know, making its way via its own special FedEx truck. Right.

Korea. Yeah. Okay. Next to my question, when flying compassion flights, not comfort flights. Like I said, a million times on frequency one day with super embarrassed. C M F is the call sign. Doesn't it look like comfort? Sure. The pilot kept answering it. They are providing comfort to these passengers. They are. I feel it's totally legit.

When flying compassion flights, we were assigned a specific call sign we can use. Is that enough to add that call sign in the call sign field of the flight plan. So it can be used with ATC. This is a great question. Or will that cause confusion since the transponder ADSB amidst the planes November or tail number, which is different from the call sign. Keep up the great work. All right. I'm going off of memory here. I don't have official document in front of me.

Four flight experts and transponder rule followers. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I've been in the plane on an angel flight. Kilo kilos flight. You can and should be changing what comes out of your transponder on our ADSB display on scope. You can change that to your compassion call sign.

If your transponder does not have that ability to do that and you're using a call sign that you filed and will show up on your flight plan on your strip, we will get a mismatch on the scope. They should match. What your transponder is sending out into the world should match the code on your flight plan. I think that's right. But they did away with the call sign mismatch.

That's gone. We don't get that anymore. Okay. Forever. It's suppressed. I think so. I have not seen. We did talk about that at one point. Yeah. We haven't seen that in a long time call sign mismatch. We used to get it all the time, especially with the Honda guys. But I haven't seen it in ages. What I have seen very recently in the last couple days is an angel flight with an NGF call sign tagged up on the scope.

Okay. Now I didn't I don't check to see what their ADSB out is. But you could there's a button we could hit. Yeah. And we want to bet 99 out of 100 times they match. Okay. Well, I can I can experiment with that today and see if I can get somebody to, you know, to change it and see what happens. But I'm I'm going to assume that somewhere in the NAS through our airspace, someone's has had a mismatched.

Yes, I am. Yes. And I haven't seen one in years. So you can apply for a call sign with four flight. And I asked it's been a while since this question got posed. I asked our flying club president. If we could change our transponder out the call sign. And I believe the response was yes, but we don't teach that because naturally a lot of people would forget the next.

And the club member gets in the plane and then they assume that the end number inside the transponder, which could be updated is going to match because why would you change it. And now they don't know how to change it because they didn't read the, you know, the procedure for it. It's not something they're used to so they keep them all in the same code.

And they. I think they discourage us from doing that. But if you're saying the mismatch is gone, the harm to ATC and the confusion on the scope is gone. The F.A. might have something different to say about that. They don't want to sending out to the right things. Right. And I don't know what the rule is on that. I'm not sure on the pilot side if you're supposed to be doing that or not the next time I have an angel flight or some or a compassion or someone like that.

Or a four flight. I'll ask them. Hey, because we're getting these four flights a lot now. What are you doing with your eighties be out? Is it matching that I know in the army on our transponders. We just changed it to whatever. If we were flying on a wing call sign or a pat call sign, we just changed it. The eighties be out to whatever it was we were using. Oh, you know what? Speaking to those guys, I know we're running really long, but now that we're this long, we might as well just keep going.

I had a an army king here flying over not that long ago a few weeks ago filed on a certain call sign. Their eighties be out was something totally different. And it never said. I've never said anything, but you could see that you could see the separate. Yes, the chat rooms going crazy right here pilots and controllers in there saying yes, it is a violation not to have the two match.

So, okay, whether or whether or not they knew you were violating the rule alpha problem, I just ask if I can't remember if this is your plane or you're renting it, I apologize. You need to know how to change that that call sign field and the transponder so what ATC tags you up at as matches what your transponder your eighties be out is telling the world.

It's not difficult once you know how to do it, but you also have to come up with a procedure to turn it back to the correct November call sign when you land. It's the same thing that we use as a plane next or when you're not on a compassion flight. It's both matching November's. Right fair. I think so. All right, we have feedback up to January. Do we change the state? We didn't and I.

People know that their feedback was going to be on the show again because I saw. And there's a bunch of stuff that's in the inbox that needs to be responded to that I just haven't got to it. So the date is all messed up just more than were definitely up to the 27th because that was last week. So we might still be to the 27th. I don't know. Okay.

All right. If we missed a feedback, let us know. Anything to add? All right. Closing out episode 325 of opposing bases air traffic talk. Romeo hotel and alpha golf. Goodbye everyone.

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