Apparently, the tower just closed

saddletramp

saddletramp

Line Up and Wait
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saddletramp
I had different experience today with one of my students. Our mission was to take his new to him 182RG to a nearby class D airport & get his transponder certified. I noticed when looking through his logbooks that it was a few months out of date. We reviewed the flight before departing our uncontrolled field.

We landed without event & got the certification done. When we began to taxi out & was about to call ground we heard the tower announce they were closing. This was at 13:00 hours local & since the airport has numerous airlines flying in & out I thought this was a bit unusual. My student was a bit baffled. I told him we're now at an uncontrolled field. We switched to tower freq & started self announcing. We intended to do some touch & go's which was great because as we were on downwind a Skywest airline flight called on 4 mile final. We told them we'd extend our downwind leg & this gave my student some wake turbulence avoidance training too.

I later learned that the tower was closing occasionally due to short staffing issues. It was interesting hearing other aircraft trying to contact the tower. Sometimes Notams can sneak up on you.

It ended up being a great training flight for my pre-solo student.
 
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Our class C tower & approach were on shortened hours in 2020. It was weird hearing the CRJ's and bizjets self announcing, even moreso when you screw up the conversion from Zulu and expected it to be open. Clue #1 is when you get an AWOS instead of an ATIS.
 
Our airport is untowered so we hear airliners and jets use CTAF all the time. You can sometimes tell the pilots that don't do it often.

When I instructed we would fly to a nearby towered airport during XC training. Their tower normally closes at 1800 local. As we approached the airport at 1758, we were repeatedly told to continue to final, but we were never given the "cleared to land." As we were on 1/2 mile final the clock hit 1800 and the tower promptly announced closing and use CTAF procedures, good night!

I presume if they cleared us to land, there would be some assumption of responsibility to ensure we land? It was an interesting scenario for my student.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Our airport is untowered so we hear airliners and jets use CTAF all the time. You can sometimes tell the pilots that don't do it often.

When I instructed we would fly to a nearby towered airport during XC training. Their tower normally closes at 1800 local. As we approached the airport at 1758, we were repeatedly told to continue to final, but we were never given the "cleared to land." As we were on 1/2 mile final the clock hit 1800 and the tower promptly announced closing and use CTAF procedures, good night!

I presume if they cleared us to land, there would be some assumption of responsibility to ensure we land? It was an interesting scenario for my student.
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Reminds me of my IFR checkride. We went out about 50 min. before tower closing time, again due to shortened covid hours (we had done some stuff earlier in the day and just had to do the approaches). On the last approach they warned us they would be closing, gave us very tight vectors, and told us to keep our speed up. We touched down and they announced the tower was closed while we were still rolling out. They don't mess around with closing times lol.
 
We get 4 flights a day from a regional, all untowered. I get a kick out them calling just like the bug smashers and when busy, trying to squeeze into the conga line. And yes, most of the them also say "any traffic, please advise" and "last call" just like the rest of us do. They fly a 5 mile final. If they can do it, why can't the Cirrus pilots?:idea:
 
When AUS tower and approach closed a few years ago due to flooding, it was interesting hearing the British Airways 787 self-announce.
 
Sounds like the tower closed n your instance so the operator could go a a medical appointment or similar.
 
Anyone know the cause of short-staffing?
 
Midday is unusual. I've heard towers closing unscheduled due to smoke in the cab and because of substantial storms. I was flying at HEF one night and asked to do a stop and go on the runway and they told me I could do whatever I wanted because they were leaving.
 
National went uncontrolled a few years ago because the night shift controller had fallen asleep and the supervisor had locked himself out of the building.
 
weilke said:
National went uncontrolled a few years ago because the night shift controller had fallen asleep and the supervisor had locked himself out of the building.
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cg4dabaa637043f.jpg
 
We have had almost all the towers close down around here due to COVID. One minute it’s open, next minute they say they are closing.
 
Pretty sure I woke a guy up @ HSA once “gooo... crash, crash, silence” a bit later he was back.
 
saddletramp said:
I had different experience today with one of my students. Our mission was to take his new to him 182RG to a nearby class D airport & get his transponder certified. I noticed when looking through his logbooks that it was a few months out of date. We reviewed the flight before departing our uncontrolled field.

We landed without event & got the certification done. When we began to taxi out & was about to call ground we heard the tower announce they were closing. This was at 13:00 hours local & since the airport has numerous airlines flying in & out I thought this was a bit unusual. My student was a bit baffled. I told him we're now at an uncontrolled field. We switched to tower freq & started self announcing. We intended to do some touch & go's which was great because as we were on downwind a Skywest airline flight called on 4 mile final. We told them we'd extend our downwind leg & this gave my student some wake turbulence avoidance training too.

I later learned that the tower was closing occasionally due to short staffing issues. It was interesting hearing other aircraft trying to contact the tower. Sometimes Notams can sneak up on you.

It ended up being a great training flight for my pre-solo student.
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Skywest, slow to 70 knots for the 172 to land.
 
I departed Willow Run planning to go north around Ann Arbor’s class Delta, the tower told me Ann Arbor tower was closed to proceed westbound. I almost didn’t make the CTAF announcement but I got caught up on my workload and I said Ann Arbor traffic, departed Willow Run westbound 2,500 feet. Then someone said Ann Arbor tower, …. I was like woah I almost blew through that airspace.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Can't speak for anyone else but in Tucson the reason is Covid.
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So vast numbers of controllers have COVID? All at the same time? And no one got over it and went back to work?
 
Domenick said:
So vast numbers of controllers have COVID? All at the same time? And no one got over it and went back to work?
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Too many incentives to not work over the past couple of years, people realized spending time at home with family is more important, and being relaxed (I might even throw in the word lazy, lots of weed legalization too across the country too which I think also contributed to stay at home potheads). Also, a lot of people are afraid of Covid too. My opinion on the topic.
 
Domenick said:
So vast numbers of controllers have COVID? All at the same time? And no one got over it and went back to work?
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No, not if it's anything like the place I worked at. One controller has tested positive. Everyone who has come into contact with them now has to stay home for a week or two. Voila! Short-staffed.
 
SkyChaser said:
No, not if it's anything like the place I worked at. One controller has tested positive. Everyone who has come into contact with them now has to stay home for a week or two. Voila! Short-staffed.
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Until recently ago Gov workers were sent home for 10 day quarantine for being in contact with someone positive. Now the kicker is no proof needed. I have had people at my job be off work, with pay totaling almost a year. All they do is call up, say so so is positive. Boom 10 days.
 
KLAS's tower controller had a medical event, pre-COVID, and I think the airliners had to play CTAF for a while.
 
Maybe my favorite tower closing story was at KTOP. Pretty sure I was turning to final and there were 3-4 other aircraft either in the pattern or coming in to land. Tower asked each of us to give a position report, then said “tower is closed”. It all worked out.
 
TommyG said:
Until recently ago Gov workers were sent home for 10 day quarantine for being in contact with someone positive. Now the kicker is no proof needed. I have had people at my job be off work, with pay totaling almost a year. All they do is call up, say so so is positive. Boom 10 days.
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We have been told to use ‘leave of our choice’. No freebees. But we have a lot of ‘teleworking’ Your tax dollars at work. My wife is a (The ‘C’ word) ward nurse and I haven’t missed a day yet. Fortunately the good news is parking is a lot easier now.
 
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