Generic TPA/weather question

ircphoenix

ircphoenix

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So say I'm taking off from a controlled airport that is reporting OVC at 1300 feet. From the airport I can see that a few miles away the sky opens up to SKC (common when dealing with a marine layer). Also assume that the TPA for the airport is 1000 feet. In order to maintain the TPA, you necessarily have to bust the weather minimums.

So can you depart the area at 800 feet and be good even though it's below TPA? Or do you just request special VFR and then you're legal anyway?
 
The only truly legal way to do this is by requesting (and receiving) SVFR. Unless of course you have your Instrument Rating.

KFRG, Republic Airport on Long Island NY has a legend circling around it that two CFIs went up to do some TnGs in the situation you describe. They could not get to pattern altitude without busting cloud clearance mins so they flew the pattern at 800 feet agl, which gave them the required cloud clearance. FSDO busted them for this.

That said, it seems as if these two clowns had a reputation at the FSDO and they were looking for a way to bust their stones. And bust them they did!

Fly safe!

-Skip
 
ircphoenix said:
So can you depart the area at 800 feet and be good even though it's below TPA? Or do you just request special VFR and then you're legal anyway?
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Minimum altitudes above people and obstructions still apply...I'm guessing this is what Skip's legendary CFIs got busted for.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Minimum altitudes above people and obstructions still apply...I'm guessing this is what Skip's legendary CFIs got busted for.
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Yes, KFRG is surrounded by an urban area. 1000' TPA unless taking off or landing. They got them on the downwind!

-Skip
 
MauleSkinner said:
Minimum altitudes above people and obstructions still apply...I'm guessing this is what Skip's legendary CFIs got busted for.
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No, they don't.

Read it. There is an exception for "when necessary for takeoff or landing." It would really suck to have to remain 1000 feet over the airport fence.

SVFR is the "right" way to do this, but TPA is not regulatory like cloud clearances are.

Some of us have a policy never to use SVFR for a departure. If you need/want it, the ceiling is too low. SVFR is a backup, never a primary option.
 
MAKG1 said:
No, they don't.

Read it. There is an exception for "when necessary for takeoff or landing." It would really suck to have to remain 1000 feet over the airport fence.

Some of us have a policy never to use SVFR for a departure. If you need/want it, the ceiling is too low. SVFR is a backup, never a primary option.
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What is the FAA's interpretation of "when necessary for takeoff or landing"? Sounds like it doesn't match yours.

Some of us have a policy to use all the tools at our disposal if the flight can be safely conducted. SVFR for departure is a tool at our disposal.
 
ircphoenix said:
So say I'm taking off from a controlled airport that is reporting OVC at 1300 feet. From the airport I can see that a few miles away the sky opens up to SKC (common when dealing with a marine layer). Also assume that the TPA for the airport is 1000 feet. In order to maintain the TPA, you necessarily have to bust the weather minimums.

So can you depart the area at 800 feet and be good even though it's below TPA? Or do you just request special VFR and then you're legal anyway?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you are departing, not staying in the pattern. Does the TPA apply here??
 
I had this happen to me but the ceilings were reported at 1500 and TPA is 900. I was wondering what I would have had to do to be legal if the clouds had come in any lower. Good to know. Thanks all!
 
ircphoenix said:
So say I'm taking off from a controlled airport that is reporting OVC at 1300 feet. From the airport I can see that a few miles away the sky opens up to SKC (common when dealing with a marine layer). Also assume that the TPA for the airport is 1000 feet. In order to maintain the TPA, you necessarily have to bust the weather minimums.

So can you depart the area at 800 feet and be good even though it's below TPA? Or do you just request special VFR and then you're legal anyway?
Click to expand...

Why do you need to maintain the TPA? Would there be a problem if the TPA was 800 feet?
 
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roncachamp said:
Why do you need to maintain the TPA? Would there be a problem if the TPS was 800 feet?
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Honestly I don't know. I didn't know the regulatory significance of a TPA really other than being a seemingly arbitrary number that individual airports make up.
 
The TPA means little and even less when you're not in the traffic pattern. Then 1000' ceiling and the availability of SVFR only applies to surface areas of controlled airspace which usually but not universally occurs at towered fields (there are a few odd cases where you have a tower without class D, C, or B airspace).
 
So, just to feed this beast a little more, say you depart SVFR to clearer skies just on the outside of the surface area, and viz at the airport goes below 1 mile. Then you've got a need to return to the now LIFR airport with no instrument rating, what's your next course of action?
 
MauleSkinner said:
What is the FAA's interpretation of "when necessary for takeoff or landing"? Sounds like it doesn't match yours.

Some of us have a policy to use all the tools at our disposal if the flight can be safely conducted. SVFR for departure is a tool at our disposal.
Click to expand...

Just so you realize what you're saying, if that claim is true, all pattern operations at Hayward, CA (KHWD) are illegal. One TPA is 600, the other 800. It's very, very urban. And don't be high on that 600 foot TPA or you'll make an airliner at Oakland go around, and possibly have some fun with wake turbulence at low altitude. That TPA is there for a reason.

You surely must have encountered the situation where the actual ceiling is hundreds of feet lower than ATIS says, right? I've had to tell Tower they were IFR more than once due to marine layer encroachment.
 
Again, unless you are trying to acquire some specific aeronautical experience or currency that requires it, there's no requirement to fly in the traffic pattern, let alone worry about the TPA.
 
MAKG1 said:
Just so you realize what you're saying, if that claim is true, all pattern operations at Hayward, CA (KHWD) are illegal. One TPA is 600, the other 800. It's very, very urban. And don't be high on that 600 foot TPA or you'll make an airliner at Oakland go around, and possibly have some fun with wake turbulence at low altitude. That TPA is there for a reason.

You surely must have encountered the situation where the actual ceiling is hundreds of feet lower than ATIS says, right? I've had to tell Tower they were IFR more than once due to marine layer encroachment.
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I'm referring to the OPs question mostly.
 
Skip Miller said:
The only truly legal way to do this is by requesting (and receiving) SVFR. Unless of course you have your Instrument Rating.

KFRG, Republic Airport on Long Island NY has a legend circling around it that two CFIs went up to do some TnGs in the situation you describe. They could not get to pattern altitude without busting cloud clearance mins so they flew the pattern at 800 feet agl, which gave them the required cloud clearance. FSDO busted them for this.

That said, it seems as if these two clowns had a reputation at the FSDO and they were looking for a way to bust their stones. And bust them they did!
Click to expand...

The legal issues here come under FARs 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General, and 91.155 Basic VFR weather minimums. Under basic VFR the aircraft must remain at least 500 feet below clouds. FAR 91.119 sets a minimum altitude of 500 feet above the surface over other than congested areas, and 1000 feet above the highest obstacle within 2000 feet horizontally over congested areas. The KFRG legend, which was related by a rather unreliable source, has it that the area around airports is a congested area and that the "except when necessary for takeoff or landing" proviso of FAR 91.119 applies only to the descent from and climb to TPA. The problem with excluding TPA from the exception and declaring airports to be congested areas is it puts pattern altitudes of 1000 feet and less in violation of FAR 91.119. That's also true of the circling maneuver on an IAP, but circling as low as 500 feet AGL is common.

The AIM states in paragraph 4-3-3, "Traffic pattern altitudes should be maintained unless otherwise required by the applicable distance from cloud criteria (14 CFR Section 91.155)." The KFRG legend is likely fiction.
 
Where is it stared that TPA is regulatory?

I've actually operated out of FRG below normal TPA, it's not that dense, and staying in the pattern for TOUCH & GOES is almost the definition of a TAKE OFF AND LANDING.
 
ircphoenix said:
Honestly I don't know. I didn't know the regulatory significance of a TPA really other than being a seemingly arbitrary number that individual airports make up.
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There is some regulatory significance to TPA, but not a lot. FAR 91.129(e) states:

"Minimum altitudes when operating to an airport in Class D airspace. (1) Unless required by the applicable distance-from-cloud criteria, each pilot operating a large or turbine-powered airplane must enter the traffic pattern at an altitude of at least 1,500 feet above the elevation of the airport and maintain at least 1,500 feet until further descent is required for a safe landing."

That wouldn't apply to your scenario as you were departing and you're probably not operating a large or turbine-powered airplane. Note that, like the AIM, the regulation has the minimum altitude requirement give way to the distance-from-cloud criteria.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Ok...so around an airport is "other than congested", but not "sparsely populated" or "open water"?
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Depends on the airport. I've seen airports that fit into congested areas, other than congested but not sparslely populated, and surrounded by open water.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Ok...so around an airport is "other than congested", but not "sparsely populated" or "open water"?
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"Airport" does not appear in the regulation. FAR 91.119(c) seems very clear to me:

(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

In other words, when flying over other than congested areas, you must maintain an altitude not lower than 500 feet above the surface, unless you're over open water or a sparsely populated area. In those two cases you may operate at an altitude within 500 feet of the surface as long as you maintain a distance not less than 500 feet from all people, vessels, vehicles, and structures.
 
roncachamp said:
"Airport" does not appear in the regulation. FAR 91.119(c) seems very clear to me:

(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

In other words, when flying over other than congested areas, you must maintain an altitude not lower than 500 feet above the surface, unless you're over open water or a sparsely populated area. In those two cases you may operate at an altitude within 500 feet of the surface as long as you maintain a distance not less than 500 feet from all people, vessels, vehicles, and structures.
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"Airport" appears in this thread discussion, however.

What's the difference between "other than congested" and "sparsely populated" that makes "sparsely populated" irrelevant to this discussion?
 
flyingron said:
Depends on the airport. I've seen airports that fit into congested areas, other than congested but not sparslely populated, and surrounded by open water.
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Given that the FAA does not define "congested area," how do you know that?

Most people assume it means urban areas, but the FAA has never said that.

Is San Francisco Bay a congested area? Most of us who have flown there would describe it that way, but there are no houses in the middle of the bay (excepting Treasure Island, which is easily dodged -- and it's pretty easy to stay 500 feet from all structures and vessels).
 
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