Can student pilot fly into non-towered pattern of another airport?

[Ravioli]

"nonstandard phraseology" and "uncontrolled field" in a the same sentence? <-- see what he did there?

 

[AggieMike88]

See 14 CFR 61.93 (FAR 61.93).

61.93(a) provides the limitation and 61.93(b) provides the method for authorization.

Talk to your instructor about getting the authorization, under 61.93(b), to practice landings at a suitable non-towered field.

This response brings up a point I wish my instructor had done.... provide FAR reference to the item he is teaching during the ground portion of the training. Even if it was a simple half page review of the subject(s), but had the FAR/AIM reference, that page would have been kept and likely helped to expand my knowledge bank of the FARs. Then when I had questions, I'd be more likely to look for the actual citation and proceed from there.

 

[AggieMike88]

Buy Sporty's VFR Communications DVD.

Another good item for the library....

 

[Jeff Szlauko]

It all comes down to the environment you're accustomed to. If you're training out of a towered field and all you've ever known is communicating with that tower, going to an uncontrolled field and broadcasting out into the CTAF void and getting no response (or worse, a whole bunch of responses at the same time, many using nonstandard phraseology) is going to be weird and certainly won't do anything positive for you as far as staying ahead of the plane goes.

I imagine it's a similar feeling for a student from an uncontrolled field having to contact ATC for the first time.

Well, it turns out that I am training out of a class D airport, so tower communication has been present from the start. No wonder the non-towered stuff seems so unusual, as I am simply not used to it. I imagine one day I'll look back at all this comm stuff, and wonder what the big deal was. Still working on getting the image in my head to match what I hear people say, and also what I need to say that matches the image I have. Certainly seems to be the correct way to do it, as anyone can be a parrot, and for instance just repeat back what they heard the tower say to them. But what's most important is to visualize what is happening, and then repeat back to the tower what it is you have pictured in your head. At least, that's my take on it at this point. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Once again, thank you all for your input.

 

[AggieMike88]

Who is more authoritative than the PIC? I know as student I thought the controllers know everything, but now I see their rookie mistakes [lots of new peeps at our local airports] and "clarify" things with them. On occasion there is the quick apology from them afterwards to which I always say "we're all learning here."

Next time, say, "That's okay, I have a phone number for you"

 

[wayne]

You normally fly from a TOWERED airport and you're worried about communications at a NON-TOWERED airport? Usually it's the other way around.

It's a matter of what one is used to doing. I remember setting up some $100 hamburger runs with other pilots years ago. Those that trained at untowered airports wanted to go to other untowered airports. Those that trained at towered airports wanted to go to other towered airports. It's what each was more comfortable with.

I still prefer towered airports, but that's mostly due to flying IFR. If the weather is nice I don't care if the airport has a tower or not. But in cruddy weather I much prefer a tower. It just makes getting a clearance and departing soooo much easier than the phone call, or worse one of those dreaded GCO's.

My wish for better IFR is an antennae at each airport that goes to some ATC clearance staff. Then I talk on the radio to them like I would to ground/clearance, get my clearance and make it easier to depart from BFE in IMC.

 

[Larry in TN]

This response brings up a point I wish my instructor had done.... provide FAR reference to the item he is teaching during the ground portion of the training. Even if it was a simple half page review of the subject(s), but had the FAR/AIM reference, that page would have been kept and likely helped to expand my knowledge bank of the FARs. Then when I had questions, I'd be more likely to look for the actual citation and proceed from there.

Yes, you'll see that come up as a recurring theme in my posts.

 

[mscard88]

"nonstandard phraseology" and "uncontrolled field" in a the same sentence? <-- see what he did there?

You talkin' to me! Huh!

 

[Jeff Szlauko]

Why is having an instructor sitting next to you "pressure?" Pressure is when the DPE is sitting next to you. Having your instructor next to you should be fun and if not, you should find another instructor.

Yes, how true. It should be fun.
I just made the decision to take a break from lessons, and have just informed my CFI via a text message. May even step away from further soloing...haven’t made the final decision on that yet. Just so tired of feeling stressed. Maybe a break will clear my head, or maybe a different instructor is in order. Not really sure, but I really got to get into a place where I can have fun with this. I really do enjoy flying, which is funny, as I was always afraid of flying before taking lessons. Now, I can cruise along in the plane, admiring the scenery, and even with turbulence, can simply enjoy the flying. Just can’t shake this “pressure” thing.
My CFI just replied to my text message, and after numerous texts back and forth, he threw out the option to me of just going up for a fun flight, with no instruction, where I can just kick back and enjoy the flight. So, that’s what we are no set to do next Saturday. I said that perhaps he can fly, and I’lll do the radio stuff. That is, If I’m up for it. We’ll play it by ear.
Maybe it’s just what I need. A flight where there is no expectations, and I can do as much, or as little, as I feel I want.

 

[James331]

Just get your CFI to give you the ink, don't know why this would be a big issue

 

[denverpilot]

My wish for better IFR is an antennae at each airport that goes to some ATC clearance staff. Then I talk on the radio to them like I would to ground/clearance, get my clearance and make it easier to depart from BFE in IMC.

That’s called an RCO and they do exist at a few airports. I assume your “GCO” is one of those annoying things that listens for a number of radio clicks and dials a phone number and makes an patch between radio and telephone line. Those suck.

RCOs cost money to pay for the monthly telephony circuit to the controlling facility and FAA has been dumping them for years due to lack of use.

We have some here that aren’t on airports, they’re on mountain peaks to provide coverage down into the valleys. Most of ours aren’t paid for by FAA they’re paid for by the State.

My CFI just replied to my text message, and after numerous texts back and forth, he threw out the option to me of just going up for a fun flight, with no instruction, where I can just kick back and enjoy the flight. So, that’s what we are no set to do next Saturday. I said that perhaps he can fly, and I’lll do the radio stuff. That is, If I’m up for it. We’ll play it by ear.
Maybe it’s just what I need. A flight where there is no expectations, and I can do as much, or as little, as I feel I want.

Let us know how it goes. Yes, that may be exactly what you need. Many students feel task saturation as “compression” or “pressure” and a flight where you can sit and watch and practice something difficult for you while the instructor handles other things will often remove that feeling.

What it also often will do, is after you’ve been sitting there a while and practicing whatever you wanted to practice, you’ll notice that you WANT to fly again... Hey, it’s kinda boring sitting here watching this instructor fly the plane... I can do that...

Because the “pressure” is off, you get to see the cockpit as a relaxed, normal place again, and it’s not triggering a stress reaction. Look around, enjoy the scenery, notice how relaxed the instructor is just flying the plane with two fingers and the trim wheel, listening for radio calls and processing them without too much effort... that’s you soon, as PIC after you’ve gotten more practice at it all. If that’s who you want to be, you’ll be asking for the yoke and wanting to do some flying probably, part way through the flight.

Speak up if you do, the instructor will gladly say, “Your airplane!” They want you to succeed.

Here’s another tip. If you’re getting task saturated with the radio, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “I’d like you to take over flying the aircraft and I’ll focus on these radio calls for this lap around the pattern. I want to do one lap right and then I’ll fly and talk.” Nothing wrong with that at all.

Later in training the instructor might say, “No, you’ve got this...” but early on? Just ask if you need the instructor to play autopilot for a few minutes. You’re supposed to be learning to utilize ALL onboard resources as PIC anyway, right?

Wake Otto over there in the right seat up, and make him show you a nice short field landing while you make a few radio calls. He won’t let you do it forever... (I mean, he does need to get back to his nap, and all...!), but most instructors will definitely take the controls for something like that.

Go enjoy the flight. Re-gain that sense of wonder that you had on flight number one. If someone is doing a hamburger run or breakfast run, see if you can be a back seat passenger once in a while.

Also maybe ask your instructor if you can ride along in the back and watch a lesson he or she is giving to an advanced student. It’s surprising how relaxed you are back there watching while an instrument student in the left seat is sweating profusely with the hood on, and the instructor tosses you a grin or two over their shoulder as they poke an instrument cover over an instrument and the guy or gal in the left seat starts sweating (and maybe swearing) even harder. LOL.

 

[dmspilot]

That’s called an RCO and they do exist at a few airports. I assume your “GCO” is one of those annoying things that listens for a number of radio clicks and dials a phone number and makes an patch between radio and telephone line. Those suck.

RCOs cost money...

RCO is for FSS. You are talking about a GCO.

 

[flyingron]

Our GCO was THANKFULLY replaced with a direct remote. I.e., you just transmit and PCT hears you. The click a bunch of times to make the thing autodial was a kludge.

 

[wayne]

That’s called an RCO and they do exist at a few airports. I assume your “GCO” is one of those annoying things that listens for a number of radio clicks and dials a phone number and makes an patch between radio and telephone line. Those suck.

RCOs cost money to pay for the monthly telephony circuit to the controlling facility and FAA has been dumping them for years due to lack of use.

Yep, a GCO and I feel the same way about them. I love it when I can reach ATC straight from the ground. Doesn't happen at a lot of non-towered airports, but when it does it's nice.

I'm not sure why a connection would be expensive in today's communication world. They should be able to do a VOIP over an internet connection. They could use an airport/FBO internet connection that already exists, which would push those airports that don't have that to get one. Then the cost would just be the low power antennae at the airport. Not exactly pocket change, but....

When the weather's nice I'm fine with towered or non-towered airports. When the ceilings get low I greatly prefer towered. Makes getting back out of there sooooo much easier.

 

[denverpilot]

Yep, a GCO and I feel the same way about them. I love it when I can reach ATC straight from the ground. Doesn't happen at a lot of non-towered airports, but when it does it's nice.

I'm not sure why a connection would be expensive in today's communication world. They should be able to do a VOIP over an internet connection. They could use an airport/FBO internet connection that already exists, which would push those airports that don't have that to get one. Then the cost would just be the low power antennae at the airport. Not exactly pocket change, but....

When the weather's nice I'm fine with towered or non-towered airports. When the ceilings get low I greatly prefer towered. Makes getting back out of there sooooo much easier.

Usually Voip wouldn’t be used without a way to monitor it and definitely not on a path that someone else could unplug or hammer by downloading their celebrity photo stash into the FBO computer. LOL. No way they’d use the airport’s bandwidth unless they had approved the engineering of the connection and had 24/7 access to both the gear and a tech. In other words, never. They want to roll their own trucks and people anytime they want to fix things.

 

[wayne]

Usually Voip wouldn’t be used without a way to monitor it and definitely not on a path that someone else could unplug or hammer by downloading their celebrity photo stash into the FBO computer. LOL. No way they’d use the airport’s bandwidth unless they had approved the engineering of the connection and had 24/7 access to both the gear and a tech. In other words, never. They want to roll their own trucks and people anytime they want to fix things.

So, 1950's.

 

[denverpilot]

So, 1950's.

Perhaps, but there’s reasons. The last thing I want to hear when I key up an airplane radio is some controller breaking up due to packet loss because some doofus inside the FBO is watching Spongebob in the pilot’s lounge.

 

[wayne]

Perhaps, but there’s reasons. The last thing I want to hear when I key up an airplane radio is some controller breaking up due to packet loss because some doofus inside the FBO is watching Spongebob in the pilot’s lounge.

Network QoS solves that. Voice doesn't need much bandwidth.

Plus the IFR clearance phone line could be the back-up for that. And it's for clearance delivery, not getting a traffic warning. Meaning if they have to repeat it or you have to call in, it's annoying, not dangerous.

 

[denverpilot]

Network QoS solves that. Voice doesn't need much bandwidth.

Plus the IFR clearance phone line could be the back-up for that. And it's for clearance delivery, not getting a traffic warning. Meaning if they have to repeat it or you have to call in, it's annoying, not dangerous.

No, it really doesn’t. Not on a typical FBO router.

I thought you said this was supposed to run on the FBOs piece of crap router from their crappy ADSL provider? You want something an engineer has to design properly now?

Not that it would work anyway. You don’t just need an audio path, you need a keying and a receiving signal path for a single frequency solution. Usually done with an E&M circuit.

Now there are VoIP routers that can do E&M and there’s an even smaller subset that can do E&M and completely ignore the E&M signals and act as a passthrough (this used to be a Cisco only software feature added for Motorola and only given to Public Safety agencies via the TAC long ago, but almost no vendors do it still to this day, and it’s buried as a hidden feature in most Cisco telecom routers today) but there’s no FBO on the planet that owns one.

Then there’s frequency coordination, publication of the frequency in all pubs, and some sort of monitoring and backup power.

Yeah, they’re not going to engineer this for something used once a day only when the weather is bad. They’re going to say exactly what you did for “backup”, as primary. Just dial the phone number with your cell phone, and buy an aviation headset with Bluetooth for more “convenience”.

It’s not outdated tech. Interfacing VoIP to a half-duplex radio that needs a keying signal from the controller’s PTT all the way to the radio isn’t a cheap solution.

The cheap working solution are those autopatch boxes with VOX for the controller’s voice to key the local radio and a dedicated 1MB POTS line that dial a preprogrammed phone number when they receive the correct number of clicks. That’s why FBOs install those.

I know a guy who made those autopatch boxes for decades and sold a lot of them and his worked really well. Problem is, he stopped because the components to make them went EOL including the voice chip with the pre-programmed Aviation phrases and words, around the time RoHS hit a decade or more ago. He looked at his sales numbers and realized there was no point in spinning a new surface mount board, and doing a redesign of the thing for the tiny sales as airports got cheaper and cheaper and many are closing. They wouldn’t even pay $450 for his box and a monthly measured business phone line.

They’re sure as hell not going to pay for an even more unreliable VoIP solution, and FAA isn’t going to install a couple thousand bucks of gear and a fixed E&M circuit for an RCO unless there’s a line of bizjets waiting on IFR clearances daily at an uncontrolled field. Let alone the spectrum management people going to tie up multiple frequencies for hundreds of miles at altitude for low volume services.

Having built a number of autopatch equipped radio systems, this is the typical “the non-expert doesn’t know what they don’t know” scenario. There’s no simple VoIP solution for RCOs. There’s pro gear that will certainly do it, but you’re not going to plug it into an FBO’s 1.5 Mb/sec ADSL on piece of crap Linksys and expect it to work.

 

[Jeffythequick]

To the OP, Bob Gardner’s book, Say Again, Please is a great help, and secondly, use that while flying the pattern at the non-towered airport in X-Plane. Last (or maybe this should be first) my experience is that pilots love to help other pilots, and if you screw something up, they’ll more than likely let you know, and in my case, in a good way.