Unapproved radio calls poll, which are you?

[wombat]

14 CFR 61.89(a)(7) A student pilot may not act as pilot in command of an aircraft: 

...

(7) When the flight cannot be made with visual reference to the surface; or

[DXB]

1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

But by not saying what runway you just cleared, can imply that all the other runways are also clear, which may not be true.

"Mooney's  clear all runways"  NOT "clear all runways"

How is that ambiguous?

[Vance Harral]

1 hour ago, wombat said:

Does anyone know where the last 50 mid-air accidents have occurred in relation to towered Vs. untowered airports Vs. not in the vicinity of an airport?

I've tried internet searching this on a couple of occasions, and have never found a Paul-Bertorelli-style scientific treatment.  The best info I have is the accident stuff that shows up in my FIRC, which is pretty sparse.  Mostly what the data indicates is that mid-airs are rare events, which makes them hard to analyze statistically.  To study the last 50 mid-airs in the United States, you'd probably have to look back at least a decade, and if you try to use data from 2014, people will understandably (and maybe correctly) argue that the world is different now.

For what it's worth, I'm aware of four mid-airs in the Denver Metro area since I moved here in 1997.  None occurred in the traffic pattern at an uncontrolled airport.  One occurred in the traffic pattern of a controlled airport (KAPA, 2021).  One occurred under the shelf of the Denver Class B, involving two aircraft that both departed controlled airports (KAPA and KBJC, 2003), one of which was receiving flight following and the other not.  The other two accidents (2012 and 2022) involved airplane pairs that both departed uncontrolled fields, but the actual collisions occurred several thousand feet and several nautical miles away from any airport.

So four MACs in 27 years, but in three of the four, the airport environment wasn't a factor.  This is anecdotal data involving only one metropolitan area, so not really any good for statistical analysis.  But even so, I feel pretty confident saying there is "no evidence" that controlled airports are statistically less likely to experience a MAC vs. uncontrolled airports.  Again, if someone has actual data to the contrary - as opposed to just their personal scary story - I'm all ears.

[Yetti]

I am located 1.37 miles from the normally active (see what I did there) runway threshold of an airport that used to be a very popular lunch spot.    Listening to the radio one day listening to position reports and then spotting the plane was entertaining to say the least.   Pretty much no one did good position reports.    That was 12 years ago.  Hopefully things have improved with more GPSs and ADSB.

[dkkim73]

12 minutes ago, Yetti said:

Hopefully things have improved with more GPSs and ADSB.

That's adorable. (I mean no disrespect)

Seriously, though, I wonder if people are more or less oriented when they believe they can instantly know where they by looking down. You can walk up to a person staring at their cell phone and say, "hey, which way is North?" and maybe not get a good answer. 

[Schllc]

59 minutes ago, dkkim73 said:

I think there are two confounders to this conversation: 

1.  a heterogeneity of pilot types/attitudes/experience levels, and how they are distributed geographically

2. a heterogeneity of controller cultures, incl. contract towers and regional practices

Many of the above anecdotes are positively hair-raising to me and where I fly now. It's pretty civilized around here. Class D and C and lots of uncontrolled. Haven't flown in dense areas/class B for over a decade, maybe my old stomping grounds near SEA and MSP have changed. 

The same way we have stereotypes about Cirrus and some small jets, there are also regional stylistic differences ("I think it's reasonable so if you don't agree you're a wimp"... e.g. everyone on the road slower than you is stupid, everyone faster is crazy). FWIW I have seen more of a divergence of regional driving styles, too. I think it's a more "expressive individualistic" age where people talk less and spend more time on the internet.... the GA equivalent is flying ADS-B instead of the social and tactical milieu around you, of which ADS-B is just a part. 

 

This is a pretty good point, there are infinite permutations which would preclude making a generalization about pilots. 
What I think I would add to clarify my message is….

It stands to reason, that if you are going to run into, rusty, inexperienced, sloppy, or generally dangerous because of bad habits, pilots, it will more likely be at an uncontrolled field, than a towered airport.
I am NOT saying that because you prefer uncontrolled fields, that you fall into that category, merely that those that do, are more likely to be found there…

My experience is purely anecdotal, and is a pretty small sample, but the above factors are pretty relevant and carry more weight than my scant evidence.  
I would rather take a chance with a controller error, while I’m in a space which requires everyone to have Adsb.  

If had to guess and  ascribe a percentage of  pilot mistakes at uncontrolled fields that were due to arrogance, or intentional disregard for others, I would say it’s less than 5%. The other 95% are probably just honest mistakes.

The problem with this is the same thing I used to tell my cycling club when they complained about drivers and accidents.  
“Always make eye contact with a driver before you make your move, and make sure they acknowledge you, because the right of way doesn’t do you a lot of good under the car.”
 

Lastly….
I go to uncontrolled fields all the time, and I will continue to do so.   But if there is a towered alternative that is close with comparable prices, I will choose that as my destination.  
And if I go to an uncontrolled field and there is the usual shenanigans, I will calmly back out and wait for a spot where I am completely clear.  I don’t argue, I don’t complain, I don’t fuss at anyone, I just wait.  It’s not worth an incident just to “right”.

[Vance Harral]

1 minute ago, Schllc said:

It stands to reason, that if you are going to run into, rusty, inexperienced, sloppy, or generally dangerous because of bad habits, pilots, it will more likely be at an uncontrolled field, than a towered airport.

With due respect, I can only say that this opinion seems to be based on narrow experience.

You know the biggest flight training schools in the world all operate out of towered, airports, right?  KDVT, KPRC, KDAB, KGFK to name a few.  Have you been to any of those towered airports?  Ever been to KBJC in the Denver area during the weekday morning "push" of students from ATP?  I've flown at 4 of these 5 airports at least once, and the mix of brand-new student pilots (some with poor command of English), and low-time instructors, makes for some pretty amazing experiences.  You know that arguably xenophobic joke about the student pilot who responds to, "Say on course heading", with "Rog-ah, on course heading!!!"?  That's not a joke to me.  As God is my witness, I actually heard this exchange take place between tower and an outbound UND aircraft, while inbound to KGFK.

Other than that, I respect, appreciate and agree with everything else said in your last post.

[wombat]

5 minutes ago, Schllc said:

Lastly….
I go to uncontrolled fields all the time, and I will continue to do so.   But if there is a towered alternative that is close with comparable prices, I will choose that as my destination.  
And if I go to an uncontrolled field and there is the usual shenanigans, I will calmly back out and wait for a spot where I am completely clear.  I don’t argue, I don’t complain, I don’t fuss at anyone, I just wait.  It’s not worth an incident just to “right”.

That's a great attitude, in my opinion.   You fly your aircraft following the regulations and in a way and in locations that are compatible with your personal safety standards.  When you see a situation that isn't compatible, you wait for a bit, and maybe just go somewhere else.

28 minutes ago, Vance Harral said:

I've tried internet searching this on a couple of occasions, and have never found a Paul-Bertorelli-style scientific treatment.

... (Much conversation omitted)

  Again, if someone has actual data to the contrary - as opposed to just their personal scary story - I'm all ears.

Yeah.  I would love for there to be a good study done on this, but it takes either more money than I'm willing to spend, or more time than I'm willing to spend to do it myself.

 

 

Personally, I don't have much of a preference on if an airport is towered or not when I am picking destinations.  Other than I will tend to pick airports where I can stroll down to a river or lake when I can, and those tend to be non-towered.

 

I might avoid a super-busy non-towered field (S43 on Labor Day Weekend, for example) if there is a reasonable alternative.  But if there isn't... Well, I was there on Sunday, so I guess that speaks for itself. 

[Fly Boomer]

4 hours ago, NickG said:

I believe you are correct. I think she needed more training 

Or the controller could be helpful without busting her balls, and just say "Visual Climb Over Airport approved".  That ends the conversation and teaches the student something at the same time.

[Vance Harral]

8 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

Or the controller could be helpful without busting her balls, and just say "Visual Climb Over Airport approved".  That ends the conversation and teaches the student something at the same time.

This may or may not be allowed by their rules, but I'm not a controller.

Controllers have a tough job, I have great respect for them.  But they're only human, and sometimes they get it wrong.

Last week, I listened to what was obviously a new student pilot, struggling to read back a taxi clearance at a multi-runway towered airport, that involved crossing one runway and holding short of another.  This airport is known for training ops, students need taxi and pattern/landing clearances repeated probably 100 times per day.  The instructor on board was allowing the student to struggle.  It was a busy day, so maybe that was a bad call by the instructor.  But it's essentially always busy, and I've done similar (how else to learn?)  It wasn't so busy that safety was compromised - at least not in my opinion.

After the 3rd readback mistake, the controller was over it.  Fair enough.  The appropriate action would seem to be calmly saying something like, "Nxxxx, have your instructor read back your taxi clearance".  Instead, the controller groused on frequency, "Nxxxx, your instructor isn't doing you any favors!"  They probably thought this was an appropriate tough-love message to the instructor.  But from my 3rd-party vantage point, what it accomplished was to teach the student their instructor was unreliable, and also that the student should fear controllers even more than they obviously already did.  Not a great look, and if I'd been sitting in the right seat I'd have been righteously P.O.'d about it.

[Yetti]

All this is interesting in the light of all of us pilots are supposed to have a flight review every 2 years.

[Hank]

50 minutes ago, Schllc said:

My experience is purely anecdotal, and is a pretty small sample, but the above factors are pretty relevant and carry more weight than my scant evidence.  
I would rather take a chance with a controller error, while I’m in a space which requires everyone to have Adsb.

You do realize that ADS-B is only required within Class B airspace, and above 10,000 msl, right? So do you spiral climb above 10K before heading to your destination, then spiral back down? If not, please don't run over me while looking at your screen, because I won't show up there. You'll be safe from me inside Atlanta Bravo, because the controllers have never let me in there, even before ADS-B, except when I'm going to an airport underneath the shelf. But I am allowed to fly in other Bravo spaces!

[NickG]

1 hour ago, Fly Boomer said:

Or the controller could be helpful without busting her balls, and just say "Visual Climb Over Airport approved".  That ends the conversation and teaches the student something at the same time.

Actually, she was the one with the attitude. Controller asked her numerous times what she meant/wanted. She kept saying "box climb over the airport" - this was a request she was making during her IFR readback. Keep in mind, this was Labor Day and HND was super busy with all the bizjet folks going home after a long weekend of drunken debauchery. People were waiting for nearly 45 mins for their clearances. She wasn't getting a VCOA in CAVU regardless of how she asked.

[Schllc]

2 hours ago, Hank said:

You do realize that ADS-B is only required within Class B airspace, and above 10,000 msl, right? So do you spiral climb above 10K before heading to your destination, then spiral back down? If not, please don't run over me while looking at your screen, because I won't show up there. You'll be safe from me inside Atlanta Bravo, because the controllers have never let me in there, even before ADS-B, except when I'm going to an airport underneath the shelf. But I am allowed to fly in other Bravo spaces!

Actually….

The FAA requires ADS-B Out capability in the continental United States, in the ADS-B rule airspace designated by FAR 91.225:

Class A, B, and C airspace;

Class E airspace at or above 10,000 feet msl, excluding airspace at and below 2,500 feet agl;

Within 30 nautical miles of a Class B primary airport (the Mode C veil);

Above the ceiling and within the lateral boundaries of Class B or Class C airspace up to 10,000 feet;

Class E airspace over the Gulf of Mexico, at and above 3,000 feet msl, within 12 nm of the U.S. coast.

[Hank]

3 hours ago, Schllc said:

I would rather take a chance with a controller error, while I’m in a space which requires everyone to have Adsb.

Please don't run over me on Friday the 27th going into Tampa. My non-ADS-B Mooney will be going into (controlled) Peter O. Knight airport (inside the Tampa 30nm veil) probably around or just after 1100 EDT.

[Pinecone]

10 hours ago, DXB said:

"Mooney's  clear all runways"  NOT "clear all runways"

How is that ambiguous?

My field has 01/19 and 10/28.

If you call clear and landed on 01, someone might think that 10/28 is also clear, but another aircraft may be on it.

If you call clear of 01, it does imply you are also clear of 19, but you are not commenting on 10/28.

[Pinecone]

6 hours ago, Hank said:

Please don't run over me on Friday the 27th going into Tampa. My non-ADS-B Mooney will be going into (controlled) Peter O. Knight airport (inside the Tampa 30nm veil) probably around or just after 1100 EDT.

KTPF is not a controlled field.

[Hank]

4 hours ago, Pinecone said:

KTPF is not a controlled field.

No, but it's inside the 30nm veil for Tampa, which is "ADS-B required airspace." Except I'll be there too, with no installed ADS-B. So please don't look at your tablet, not see me, and run me over.

[Fly Boomer]

14 hours ago, NickG said:

Actually, she was the one with the attitude. Controller asked her numerous times what she meant/wanted. She kept saying "box climb over the airport" - this was a request she was making during her IFR readback. Keep in mind, this was Labor Day and HND was super busy with all the bizjet folks going home after a long weekend of drunken debauchery. People were waiting for nearly 45 mins for their clearances. She wasn't getting a VCOA in CAVU regardless of how she asked.

As usual, there is more to the story than first meets the eye -- I had not listened to the tapes.  Yeah, Bad Attitude usually doesn't get you very far with ATC.  Still, at a super busy airport crawling with bizjets, it might have made more sense to just say "denied" rather than get into a long-winded conversation on the radio.

[DXB]

5 hours ago, Pinecone said:

My field has 01/19 and 10/28.

If you call clear and landed on 01, someone might think that 10/28 is also clear, but another aircraft may be on it.

If you call clear of 01, it does imply you are also clear of 19, but you are not commenting on 10/28.

still makes zero sense to me - i am only reporting my own position and i dont see how it could be construed otherwise. Here “Mooney’s clear all runways” is elegant shorthand for “Mooney has  exited 01/19 and has not turned  onto 10/28 in the process in case anyone is using that one”. If I had turned onto another runway in the process its my obligation to say so. There is no situation where reporting your own position leads to inference of anyone else’s at nontowered field so I fail to see why it would here.

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, DXB said:

still makes zero sense to me - i am only reporting my own position and i dont see how it could be construed otherwise. Here “Mooney’s clear all runways” is elegant shorthand for “Mooney has  exited 01/19 and has not turned  onto 10/28 in the process in case anyone is using that one”. If I had turned onto another runway in the process its my obligation to say so. There is no situation where reporting your own position leads to inference of anyone else’s at nontowered field so I fail to see why it would here.

I think the main risk of the "clear of all runways" call is that somebody paying partial attention (which is very common), or just hears a garbled version of that due to radio noise or interference, may hear "all runways are clear", which may not be the case.   The potential ambiguity of how it might be understood is a risk.   I've only heard somebody make this call once or twice, and it's also a little odd for a single runway field.    I think it can cause a little distraction that way, too, since then you're trying to sort out what the heck you're talking about for a moment.

It's not a big deal, but I think "clear of all runways" is not optimal and certainly not better than just "clear of the runway".   Just my dos centavos.    

[bcg]

This guy is constantly giving the "Meow" on guard.  I can't stop him, no matter what.  He's solid on his comms otherwise though.

[DXB]

3 hours ago, EricJ said:

I think the main risk of the "clear of all runways" call is that somebody paying partial attention (which is very common), or just hears a garbled version of that due to radio noise or interference, may hear "all runways are clear", which may not be the case.   The potential ambiguity of how it might be understood is a risk.   I've only heard somebody make this call once or twice, and it's also a little odd for a single runway field.    I think it can cause a little distraction that way, too, since then you're trying to sort out what the heck you're talking about for a moment.

It's not a big deal, but I think "clear of all runways" is not optimal and certainly not better than just "clear of the runway".   Just my dos centavos.    

Sorry to keep pulverizing this particular horse carcass, but that's what the internet is for since no one puts up with me in real life 

To avert any ambiguity, I've not been saying "clear of all runways." I've been saying "MOONEY is clear of all runways" specifically at a field with multiple runways because it doesn't demand the listener to have been keeping track of what runway I was using - it just says I'm no factor for anywhere you might want to take off or land.  At a field with one runway, I say "Mooney is clear of the runway." By your logic, the latter would be prone to the same confusion potential as the former - i.e. suggesting I'm declaring the one runway is clear, even  though once I turn off, someone could have already have entered either side and I've stopped watching. 

I personally hate hearing "XXXX is clear of the active" for the reasons outlined by others above, so I don't use it.  I suppose given dislike for my preferred options as well, I'll just start saying "Mooney's clear of 01/19" or similar going forward.  I could also say nothing since it seems like all of this is nonstandard, but I generally find it helpful when others announce exiting the runway so I'd like to do the same.   

[MikeOH]

My $0.02:

The following potential scenario is why I specifically state the runway I am clear of.  Say the airport has TWO runways and there just happens to be TWO Cessnas in the air each one going to DIFFERENT runways.  I am waiting to take off and one of the Cessnas lands on the runway I'm waiting for...then I hear Cessna XX "clear of all runways"...was that THE Cessna that just landed on my runway or the other Cessna on the other runway?  If I'm not fully engaged on whether it was Cessna XX or Cessna YY then I'm not certain.  Sure, you can blame me for not paying closer attention, but why is it so difficult to just state the actual runway you are clear of?  I don't see the upside of making it "all runways", or being non-specific.

Obviously, it's not necessary at airports with just one runway but I like to standardize my procedures as much as I can.

[201er]

I'll use a different variation of "last call" at my home field from time to time and that is "switching Newark." I hear the helicopters do it all the time. We are about 1-4nm outside Newark tower airspace depending on which direction you're going. And vertically, the traffic pattern is at the boundary of bravo airspace above. So if you want to go in 2 out of 4 directions or up, you gotta negotiate a bravo clearance while possibly still in the uncontrolled pattern. When announcing "switching Newark", it's letting local traffic know you will neither be reporting further or hearing their announcements but you will also be moving into airspace they can't go into momentarily.