Class C phraseology and fuel pressure questions from a low-time private.

[smltk1]

1. I fly in Los Angeles so I have a lot of airspace around. I recall one time during training, my instructor and I were heading to BUR, a class C airport, from SMO and we did not talk to SoCal to land there; we simply contacted tower and notified them of our position, altitude, ATIS code, etc. for landing. My instructor told me that we don't need to talk to approach because we were under the outer ring and approaching the core of the class C airspace. I just want to clarify that this is allowed because I have never read/heard about this anywhere, except from my instructor.

2. When talking to clearance delivery in a class C, I report the ATIS and request a VFR clearance to X airport and give them my aircraft/equipment and cruising altitude. Is this the correct way, or in other words, is there anything that I don't need to say? Additionally, say I am departing and would like to just depart to get clear of the class C airspace and squawk VFR. What would i say to the controller?

3. Transitioning C airspace, I make initial contact with approach with my call sign first and then they give me an altimeter setting and squawk code. After that, I tell them my aircraft type, position and altitude, and my route of flight through the transition. Should I give them all this information upon initial contact with my callsign? I suppose the reason why I'm asking this is because I once did this and the controller had me repeat everything again because he was offline or not listening. I don't have mic fright at all; I'm just trying not to "clog" the airwaves, so to say since LA has so much different types of airspace and I'd like to learn the best/proper phraseology.

4. One of our DA40s has a problem with the fuel pressure sensor. Frequently it reads 0 or goes up and down from zero to whatever the fuel pressure is. I once had 2 friends on board and cancelled our flight on run-up, just to be safe, because the fuel pressure was stuck at 0 during the entire runup. I was worried about an engine failure on takeoff but I suppose I was being somewhat too paranoid, scrapping the flight because on run-up, the engine was working perfectly fine. Another instance, the fuel pressure sensor was replaced but on run-up, I saw the fuel pressure went to 0 again and stayed there. Run-up was fine but I taxied back and shut it down and called the owner of the club and asked about the fuel pressure. It had problems again.

What would happen if the fuel pressure was actually at 0? I'm assuming that the engine will die out without the electric fuel pump running due to lack of fuel when I'm doing a run-up or on takeoff roll? I'm kinda sick of being worried about the faulty fuel pressure on the plane and I'd like to know a little bit more about this issue, even though it's probably something that I feel like I should know from private pilot training.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: one more. I've been reading these engine topics in this forum. I can't for the life of me find out what ROT means. I know LOP means lean of peak, ROT = rich of peak? And when leaning the engine to LOP, you're essentially leaning the engine until you get peak EGT and CHT temps or right before the engine loses power?

 

[Velocity173]

1. I fly in Los Angeles so I have a lot of airspace around. I recall one time during training, my instructor and I were heading to BUR, a class C airport, from SMO and we did not talk to SoCal to land there; we simply contacted tower and notified them of our position, altitude, ATIS code, etc. for landing. My instructor told me that we don't need to talk to approach because we were under the outer ring and approaching the core of the class C airspace. I just want to clarify that this is allowed because I have never read/heard about this anywhere, except from my instructor.

2. When talking to clearance delivery in a class C, I report the ATIS and request a VFR clearance to X airport and give them my aircraft/equipment and cruising altitude. Is this the correct way, or in other words, is there anything that I don't need to say? Additionally, say I am departing and would like to just depart to get clear of the class C airspace and squawk VFR. What would i say to the controller?

3. Transitioning C airspace, I make initial contact with approach with my call sign first and then they give me an altimeter setting and squawk code. After that, I tell them my aircraft type, position and altitude, and my route of flight through the transition. Should I give them all this information upon initial contact with my callsign? I suppose the reason why I'm asking this is because I once did this and the controller had me repeat everything again because he was offline or not listening. I don't have mic fright at all; I'm just trying not to "clog" the airwaves, so to say since LA has so much different types of airspace and I'd like to learn the best/proper phraseology.

4. One of our DA40s has a problem with the fuel pressure sensor. Frequently it reads 0 or goes up and down from zero to whatever the fuel pressure is. I once had 2 friends on board and cancelled our flight on run-up, just to be safe, because the fuel pressure was stuck at 0 during the entire runup. I was worried about an engine failure on takeoff but I suppose I was being somewhat too paranoid, scrapping the flight because on run-up, the engine was working perfectly fine. Another instance, the fuel pressure sensor was replaced but on run-up, I saw the fuel pressure went to 0 again and stayed there. Run-up was fine but I taxied back and shut it down and called the owner of the club and asked about the fuel pressure. It had problems again.

What would happen if the fuel pressure was actually at 0? I'm assuming that the engine will die out without the electric fuel pump running due to lack of fuel when I'm doing a run-up or on takeoff roll? I'm kinda sick of being worried about the faulty fuel pressure on the plane and I'd like to know a little bit more about this issue, even though it's probably something that I feel like I should know from private pilot training.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: one more. I've been reading these engine topics in this forum. I can't for the life of me find out what ROT means. I know LOP means lean of peak, ROT = rich of peak? And when leaning the engine to LOP, you're essentially leaning the engine until you get peak EGT and CHT temps or right before the engine loses power?

Although the sectional will say contact approach within 20 nm, this is not required. I do it because it gives approach the ability to sequence you in with his IFR arrivals. But yeah, technically your instructor is correct.

On initial call up approach has no clue who you are, so yeah you're probably gonna get a say again on that. I don't always do a wake up call but in that situation I do. Another problem without doing a wake up is you could rattle of all that info and you might be out of range, blocked, or he might be on the line with another controller.

As far as talking to clearance delivery, your format is the correct way of handling it. When leaving class C, a roger to what the controller said will suffice. Too often people try and readback everything and it just creates frequency congestion. The AIM and the 7110.65 are good references to find what should be read back. If you can get your hands on. DOD General Planning manual that covers readbacks as well.

No psi sounds like an instrumentation problem and not an actual fuel problem. Either way I wouldn't fly it until it is fixed.

 

[Aeric]

4. One of our DA40s has a problem with the fuel pressure sensor. Frequently it reads 0 or goes up and down from zero to whatever the fuel pressure is. I once had 2 friends on board and cancelled our flight on run-up, just to be safe, because the fuel pressure was stuck at 0 during the entire runup. I was worried about an engine failure on takeoff but I suppose I was being somewhat too paranoid, scrapping the flight because on run-up, the engine was working perfectly fine. Another instance, the fuel pressure sensor was replaced but on run-up, I saw the fuel pressure went to 0 again and stayed there. Run-up was fine but I taxied back and shut it down and called the owner of the club and asked about the fuel pressure. It had problems again.

What would happen if the fuel pressure was actually at 0? I'm assuming that the engine will die out without the electric fuel pump running due to lack of fuel when I'm doing a run-up or on takeoff roll? I'm kinda sick of being worried about the faulty fuel pressure on the plane and I'd like to know a little bit more about this issue, even though it's probably something that I feel like I should know from private pilot training.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: one more. I've been reading these engine topics in this forum. I can't for the life of me find out what ROT means. I know LOP means lean of peak, ROT = rich of peak? And when leaning the engine to LOP, you're essentially leaning the engine until you get peak EGT and CHT temps or right before the engine loses power?

The problem with intermittent/faulty indications of any kind is that you don't know what the value actually is. The correct thing to do is not fly.
As for "ROT", I'm thinking it's ROP being autocorrected...

 

[denverpilot]

1. If you're not in the airspace, you're not in the airspace. The L.A. Basin is very crowded airspace though, and not availing yourself of an extra set of eyes is your call.

2. It can vary at different Class C airports. Listen to the ATIS for any special instructions. Otherwise, nothing wrong with your method. They'll prompt you for anything else they need. If you hear them promoting you for something specific every time, just start adding it. For a departure where you're not looking for flight following to a specific location, just give a cardinal heading... "VFR Southwest".

3. When things are busy, shorter is usually better, but some controllers actually do prefer the entire call-up. You really can't win on this one, go with the flow. Basics are who you're calling, who you are, where you are and what you want.

4. Don't fly it until they fix it.

(5.) ROT is a typo. ROP.

 

[Jaybird180]

Edit: one more. I've been reading these engine topics in this forum. I can't for the life of me find out what ROT means. I know LOP means lean of peak, ROT = rich of peak? And when leaning the engine to LOP, you're essentially leaning the engine until you get peak EGT and CHT temps or right before the engine loses power?

ROP and LOP operations are done using EGT. You lean to peak EGT (highest number) then continue leaning further and the EGTs will get cooler.

As Mr. Deakin says, 'ROP more fuel is cooler, LOP less fuel is cooler'. Just imagine a bell curve.