I accidentally followed ATC's instructions

W

WadntSpospdaDoDat

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Student pilot here. On my solo XC under a Class B shelf on flight following. The plan was to fly under the Class B and then climb to my cruise altitude. Approach asked me for my final cruise altitude. After I responded, they cleared me into the bravo and gave me climb instructions and vectors..... so I climbed and turned.

I don't have a Class B endorsement. Whoops.
 
You should have advised them and accepted flight following instead staying under the shelf. Not a good idea making that post ...
 
Not the worst "oops" a student pilot can make. Long as you were being safe, can't really fault you for following instructions before mentally taking stock of what student endorsements you have, as I assume you had plenty on your plate being in busy Bravo airspace. One would assume that ATC turned you for traffic avoidance reasons anyway, hard to argue that it wouldn't be prudent to follow the instruction.

Good lesson learned, though. Situational awareness is key in the cockpit, including knowing what you can/can't/are not supposed to do.
 
Student pilot here. On my solo XC under a Class B shelf on flight following. The plan was to fly under the Class B and then climb to my cruise altitude. Approach asked me for my final cruise altitude. After I responded, they cleared me into the bravo and gave me climb instructions and vectors..... so I climbed and turned.

I don't have a Class B endorsement. Whoops.
You have self endorsed:fingerwag:
 
Not a good idea making that post ...
Well, it’s anonymous, so no harm, no foul.

If I understand correctly, the only boo-boo that was made was flying into Bravo airspace without an endorsement. Do I have that correct? On a list of mistakes that can be made, that’s about as minor as they come and I’d bet this happens a whole lot more often than people realize. Not sure what the need for filling out a NASA report would even be for this.

Lesson learned. It’s really not a big deal. It sounds like you followed their instructions just fine.
 
Well, it’s anonymous, so no harm, no foul.

If I understand correctly, the only boo-boo that was made was flying into Bravo airspace without an endorsement. Do I have that correct? On a list of mistakes that can be made, that’s about as minor as they come and I’d bet this happens a whole lot more often than people realize. Not sure what the need for filling out a NASA report would even be for this.

Lesson learned. It’s really not a big deal. It sounds like you followed their instructions just fine.

You understand correctly. I had an open VFR flight plan w/ SE-SAR, but being my first real solo cross-country, I decided I wanted flight following as well. So I hit up the approach controller with a vfr flight following request, got assigned a couple of different squawk codes for coordination with center. Then a different controller on freq asked me for my final cruise altitude. I provided it and she cleared me into the bravo and gave me climb instructions and a vector. I accepted the clearance when I should have replied "Unable" and explained that I was a student w/o endorsement for the Class B and needed to stay clear of the Bravo. However, I usually fly out of a Class D with radar coverage and am relatively used to traffic advisories and basically doing whatever ATC says as long as I don't see anything outside or on ADS-B that would make me worry. After a few minutes in the Bravo on assigned heading, I was cleared on course and within another minute or so was under the outer ring of the Bravo again and handed off to Center for continued flight following.

After I got home, I checked the FAR to validate that I screwed up--I couldn't recall with certainty if it was landing at a Class B airport or entering Class B airspace entirely that needed an endorsement. I filed an ASRS report more as a CYA than anything else, as safety was never really at issue.
 
You understand correctly. I had an open VFR flight plan w/ SE-SAR, but being my first real solo cross-country, I decided I wanted flight following as well. So I hit up the approach controller with a vfr flight following request, got assigned a couple of different squawk codes for coordination with center. Then a different controller on freq asked me for my final cruise altitude. I provided it and she cleared me into the bravo and gave me climb instructions and a vector. I accepted the clearance when I should have replied "Unable" and explained that I was a student w/o endorsement for the Class B and needed to stay clear of the Bravo. However, I usually fly out of a Class D with radar coverage and am relatively used to traffic advisories and basically doing whatever ATC says as long as I don't see anything outside or on ADS-B that would make me worry. After a few minutes in the Bravo on assigned heading, I was cleared on course and within another minute or so was under the outer ring of the Bravo again and handed off to Center for continued flight following.

After I got home, I checked the FAR to validate that I screwed up--I couldn't recall with certainty if it was landing at a Class B airport or entering Class B airspace entirely that needed an endorsement. I filed an ASRS report more as a CYA than anything else, as safety was never really at issue.
Technically, it would count for both, since Bravo airspace extends to the surface at the primary airport.

But it happens, I really wouldn’t bat an eye.

Lesson learned. :)
 
I think you should talk to you CFI, describe the scenario, and have them decide if your operation(s) will need the Bravo endorsement.

My non-CFI read is that you were fine, since you didn't land at a Bravo airport and did not enter without clearance. You aviated/nagivated/communicated ICW the intent of the regs.

Stated shortly, get the endorsement.
 
Technically, it would count for both, since Bravo airspace extends to the surface at the primary airport.

Operating in Class B airspace and operating at a Class B airport each require endorsements, not necessarily the same one.
 
If I understand correctly, the only boo-boo that was made was flying into Bravo airspace without an endorsement. Do I have that correct? On a list of mistakes that can be made, that’s about as minor as they come ...

Seems what happened here was not a big deal at all. But entering the Bravo without a clearance and then arguing with the controller about it ... nah, that would never happen!:rolleyes:
 
Operating in Class B airspace and operating at a Class B airport each require endorsements, not necessarily the same one.
My logbook just has a single endorsement for operation within Bravo airspace.
 
My logbook just has a single endorsement for operation within Bravo airspace.
Mine has none. Heck, it was years before I was ever allowed into a bravo. Lol
 
Student pilot here. On my solo XC under a Class B shelf on flight following. The plan was to fly under the Class B and then climb to my cruise altitude. Approach asked me for my final cruise altitude. After I responded, they cleared me into the bravo and gave me climb instructions and vectors..... so I climbed and turned.

I don't have a Class B endorsement. Whoops.

if you were my student and came back and told me, I,would appreciate the honesty, bust your chops about it. But as long as nothing really happened, I would still just bust your chops.
 
if you were my student and came back and told me, I,would appreciate the honesty, bust your chops about it. But as long as nothing really happened, I would still just bust your chops.
If you knew the plan was to fly under the shelf, is there any reason you wouldn't arrange for some instruction and give the student a class B endorsement ahead of time?
 
Not sure what the need for filling out a NASA report would even be for this.

1) An inadvertent violation should be reported to protect the pilot. It seems unlikely the FAA seeing this post will go after the OP, but why take the chance.
2) NASA reports lead to improvements to the system. This is a data point they will not otherwise have.
 
1) An inadvertent violation should be reported to protect the pilot. It seems unlikely the FAA seeing this post will go after the OP, but why take the chance.
2) NASA reports lead to improvements to the system. This is a data point they will not otherwise have.
It’s not an airspace bust or a pilot deviation and nothing happened that would be reportable. Besides, the only one who would ever know about this would be the OP and maybe his or her flight instructor.

Just leave it be, it’s a lesson learned.
 
It’s not an airspace bust or pilot deviation, so there’s nothing to protect and nothing happened that would be reportable. Besides, the only one who would ever know about this would be the OP and maybe his or her flight instructor.

Just leave it be, it’s a lesson learned.
It's a regulatory violation. Even if the risk of getting caught is low, I'm not seeing any downside to using the ASRS process, and it's pretty convenient to do online.

https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/
 
It was a veiled reference to a recent thread about the pilot that entered Bravo without a clearance and then argued with the controller that she had to give him one!

Remember this guy? He got a slap on the wrist:

I saw the video, but didn't see the result ... what was "the slap"?
 
Cool. I was cleared into the B airspace (there's no such thing as bravo airspace) yesterday without asking for it, and I never actually entered. I was heading to an airport under the outermost shelf, and was only remaining at altitude to avoid traffic. It was nice of the controller to offer it, but I thanked her and terminated flight following before descending to the pattern.
 
Cool. I was cleared into the B airspace (there's no such thing as bravo airspace)...
Yeah, there's no need for phonetics in written or typed communications. (I think I've managed to avoid pointing this out until now. ;))
 
I saw the video, but didn't see the result ... what was "the slap"?

If you can believe what you hear on the internet (the story starts at 2:28 and the supposed verdict is given at 8:56):

 
Meh...I once accepted a LAHS clearance as a student pilot with the Chief Instructor in the right seat during a stage check after telling Tower "Unable, student pilot" then getting backlash from controller...it happens, no one died.
 
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