Greetings:Once again, these are by no means intended to be all-inclusive, but simply a few points of reference for future flight operations.
We had flights from several different areas this evening, but I'll keep it simple just discuss two of them:
Flights arriving from the North:
- KPRB is a non-towered airport. While their Class E airspace extends from the surface to 14,500 feet, there's no need to announce transitioning their airspace when overflying at, if I recall correctly, 4,500' (airport elevation is 836'). I understand that the flight called KPRB tower for permission to transition their airspace by mistake (i.e. there is no tower at KPRB), the only time this would be required is when transitioning the airspace of a towered airport.
- The height limits of the airspace of towered airports are indicated on a sectional.
o Class D (dashed, blue lines) airspace (KSBP for example) will have four blue square "corners" with a number inside it. In this example, KSBP airspace extends to 2,700'. If this number has a minus sign (-) next to it, it means the airspace extends up to that number. For example, a -27 means the airspace does not extend/include 2,700'.
o Class C (solid magenta lines) airspace (KSBA for example) will have a "fractional" number (two numbers on top of each other separated by a horizontal line), which will indicate the airspace limits. At KSBA, the circle in the center shows 40 over SFC. This means the airspace extends from the surface to 4,000' (just as a tid bit, most Class C will only extend to 4,000' AGL-remember KSBA's elevation is only 10'). The outer ring around KSBA indicates 40 over 15. This would mean that the airspace in this area is from 4,000' down to 1,500'.
o Class B (solid blue lines) airspace (KLAX for example) has the same time of "fractional" indicator as Class C, except in blue. The top of Class B airspace nearly always extends to 10,000' MSL.
General points:
- When ATC calls traffic for you, a good response is "Contact <last 3 digits of your callsign>" if you see the traffic. If you don't see the traffic, "Looking <last 3 digits of your callsign>" is a good response. When you do finally see the traffic, a call to ATC such as "Contact <last 3 digits of your callsign>" would be appropriate.
- Always be ready for a go-around. This should be the first option whenever you're going to land. We had an aircraft create "some debris" on the runway and had to send subsequent aircraft around. Remember, there's no shame in going around (as long as you have fuel on board-and you do have enough fuel on board, don't you!).
- We issued S-turns to an aircraft following an aircraft on a slower approach to increase spacing (we'd have to issue an go-around if it didn't work). In this instance, the spacing problem was an ATC miscalculation (we're all human!), but generally, spacing is also the responsibility of the following aircraft. When S-turns are cleared, they're usually to one side of the centerline. In our case, right traffic RWY11 was in effect, so S-Turns were cleared to the north on final.
- Installing our VoiceCOM utility will change the behavior of how MP mode starts (so it won't automatically throw you into your default flight).
As always, questions and/or comments are welcome.
Until next flight!
Ben
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