Class E Tower?

DesertNomad

DesertNomad

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DesertNomad
KFNL is Class E but has a tower which is unusual. How is this any different from a Class D towered field?

91.127(c): Communications with control towers. Unless otherwise authorized or required by ATC, no person may operate an aircraft to, from, through, or on an airport having an operational control tower unless two-way radio communications are maintained between that aircraft and the control tower. Communications must be established prior to 4 nautical miles from the airport, up to and including 2,500 feet AGL.

So operationally it would look to behave exactly like a Class D, correct?

I understand it is a remote tower.
 
The only operational difference to the pilot is that the "airport traffic area" is 4 miles circular from the tower, rather than whatever the charged surface area of controlled airspace designated for an airport would otherwise be. This wasn't supposed to happen. The FAA promised us that uncharted goofy airspace like this was a thing of the past when they crammed the half-assed compliance with ICAO controlled airspace down our throats. It lasted about two months until they realized that it takes a rule making cycle to establish a class D airspace, so if they wanted to just turn on a tower on a whim, they had to change the regulations to add 91.127(c) (and it's related section for class G towers).

Note that prior to alphabet airspace, control towers didn't actually have controlled airspace associated with them by default. An Airport Traffic Area was 5 SM around and operating control tower and required communication, but was uncharted. It only was coincidentally controlled airspace if there was a Control Zone (what we now call with the mouthful: surface area of controlled airspace designated for an airport) which was charted.
 
Does the communication requirement apply to all flights within the area or only those that will operate on, in, under, etc the airport?
 
iamtheari said:
Does the communication requirement apply to all flights within the area or only those that will operate on, in, under, etc the airport?
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All flights. To, from, and thru the area, up to 2,500 agl.
 
Brad Z said:
All flights. To, from, and thru the area, up to 2,500 agl.
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"To, from, through, or on an airport" is what it says. The word "area" is not used.
 
A crazier one is East Hampton NY, just changed to a private airport, has a cummerbund control tower and still depicted as Class D airspace during the summer.
 
Seems a little crazy. If I’m not flying there, I’m probably not reading the airport tag on the sectional and would assume it’s merely class-E to the surface. If I miss the CT, then I miss the only indication I can see it’s a tower.
 
It is class E to the surface (or perhaps class G).

The airport symbol is still BLUE if it has a tower even if it doesn't have a class D.

api


Of course, this one is an oddity. The statement reasoning for the class G/E tower regs is to handle TEMPORARY control towers. Think about like the one erected at FLD every summer. This one his a sick perturbation of the rulemaking procedure. It takes well over six months to paint things right on sectionals, FAA rulemaking isn't quite that slow.
 
bflynn said:
Seems a little crazy. If I’m not flying there, I’m probably not reading the airport tag on the sectional and would assume it’s merely class-E to the surface. If I miss the CT, then I miss the only indication I can see it’s a tower.
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upload_2022-5-31_5-32-53.png
 
midlifeflyer said:
91.126(d) (Class G) and 91.127(c) (Class E) are pretty explicit.
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I think the language is ambiguous:

Unless otherwise authorized or required by ATC, no person may operate an aircraft to, from, through, or on an airport having an operational control tower unless two-way radio communications are maintained between that aircraft and the control tower. Communications must be established prior to 4 nautical miles from the airport, up to and including 2,500 feet AGL.
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The underlined sentence's use of "communications" has no meaning without reference to the first sentence, so the mandatory communications in question are arguably those defined in the first sentence, between an aircraft operated "to, from, through, or on an airport" and the tower.

Of course I am going to call the tower before I fly through its comfort zone, but as a purely regulatory question I think that this is, at a minimum, ambiguously worded. It wouldn't take much revision to make it unambiguous. It was probably just written by junior counsel new to aviation and never seriously studied because it's not supposed to come up that often. Do you know of any court or chief counsel interpretations that sort it out?
 
I agree ari. Comms are only required if you're just passing through the 4 mile ring without going to the primary airport. Back in the old Airport Traffic Area days, you didn't need to call the tower if you were operating to a non-towered airport in the area (but did for transitions).
 
flyingron said:
I agree ari. Comms are only required if you're just passing through the 4 mile ring without going to the primary airport. Back in the old Airport Traffic Area days, you didn't need to call the tower if you were operating to a non-towered airport in the area (but did for transitions).
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I have a slight handicap in this discussion because I learned how to fly much more recently, after all the old control zones and whatnot had been phased out. I never had to learn the rules for those situations and, if they happen to be identical to the control tower in G or E airspace rules, I lack the basis for comparison.

I can't figure out how the FAA can authorize and chart a permanent control tower like KFNL faster than they could designate Class D airspace for it. And my personal opinion is that a TFR should be used for temporary control towers. Of course, my other personal opinion is that the essentially permanent TFR supporting drone operations at KRDR is stupid and should be replaced with Restricted airspace by now. Clearly, my opinions on these things are not being incorporated into FAA decision making. :)
 
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iamtheari said:
I have a slight handicap in this discussion because I learned how to fly much more recently, after all the old control zones and whatnot had been phased out. I never had to learn the rules for those situations and, if they happen to be identical to the control tower in G or E airspace rules, I lack the basis for comparison.

I can't figure out how the FAA can authorize and chart a permanent control tower like KFNL faster than they could designate Class E airspace for it. And my personal opinion is that a TFR should be used for temporary control towers. Of course, my other personal opinion is that the essentially permanent TFR supporting drone operations at KRDR is stupid and should be replaced with Restricted airspace by now. Clearly, my opinions on these things are not being incorporated into FAA decision making. :)
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It’s happened before that a Tower gets commissioned, but the date of commissioning didn’t coincide with the dates of the Chart Cycle. So things are out of whack for awhile. Notams are issued. A TFR would kinda be over kill I think. As far as designating the Class E Surface Area, Tower got nothing to do with that. There’s probably hundreds of them with no Tower or any plan to ever have a Tower. I dunno if FNL had one long ago before all this let’s do this Remote Tower thing started, but it’s certainly possible.
 
luvflyin said:
It’s happened before that a Tower gets commissioned, but the date of commissioning didn’t coincide with the dates of the Chart Cycle. So things are out of whack for awhile. Notams are issued. A TFR would kinda be over kill I think. As far as designating the Class E Surface Area, Tower got nothing to do with that. There’s probably hundreds of them with no Tower or any plan to ever have a Tower. I dunno if FNL had one long ago before all this let’s do this Remote Tower thing started, but it’s certainly possible.
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I edited my post to correct the Class E typo. I meant Class D airspace.
 
FNL had a class E surface area before the robotower.

Yes, I understand towers being built before the charting cycle catches up, it took many chart cycles to get HEF and SBY colored blue. I can even understand the tower being put into operation before the rulemaking catches up. However in the case of FNL, it appears they intend to operate the stealth tower without ever creating the proper airspace for it.
 
luvflyin said:
Hmm. How do you operate through an airport? Is that like a Touch n Go or Low Approach. Just havin some funnin with the wordin.
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Through flights involve a landing and a takeoff. The flight just doesn't originate or terminate there.
 
bflynn said:
Seems a little crazy. If I’m not flying there, I’m probably not reading the airport tag on the sectional and would assume it’s merely class-E to the surface. If I miss the CT, then I miss the only indication I can see it’s a tower.
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And the blueness.
 
I used to have a list of Class E/G airports with control towers. Seems they've all been made Class D since then. Granted it wasn't a long or comprehensive list, just ones I happened to notice on charts.
 
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