How to find out where the "practice area" is?

Mistake Not...

Mistake Not...

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Mistake Not...
I hear pilots ask to go to the "northwest practice area" or the "northeast practice area". I've even flown with a local instructor, who couldn't tell me exactly what the extent of the areas are.

Are these published somewhere? If not, can I call the tower and ask? I know what I want them to be... I want them to be a place I can go do air work and still get traffic advisories (flying out of a class C), and not be in anyone's way.
 
Local knowledge, to the best of my....knowledge. Tower probably would not have a clue. Rely on your CFI to tell you where to go.

General rule: Not along the extended centerline of a runway.

Bob Gardner
 
I may learn that I am wrong here but I believe "practice Area" = "Where your CFI likes to do maneuvers w/ students"

You can go anywhere you would like to practice in class E airspace, and request traffic advisories.

Edit: At altitude, preferably a smart distance from airports, yatta yatta.
 
"Practice area" is an imprecise term. There is no special airspace set aside as such (unless you're in the military). Different folks will have different "practice areas" so ask around to see if there is some consensus near your airport.
 
The tower will probably know and have a preferred area where you are out of the other traffic's way. The last tower guys I talked to did. Take a tower tour while you are at it.
 
Mistake Not... said:
I hear pilots ask to go to the "northwest practice area" or the "northeast practice area". I've even flown with a local instructor, who couldn't tell me exactly what the extent of the areas are.

Are these published somewhere? If not, can I call the tower and ask? I know what I want them to be... I want them to be a place I can go do air work and still get traffic advisories (flying out of a class C), and not be in anyone's way.
Click to expand...

Ask anyone on the field. Usually it's local knowledge...but the Tower will know where all of it is, the waypoints, the landmarks and the practice areas.
 
bobmrg said:
General rule: Not along the extended centerline of a runway.
Click to expand...

:wink2:

Now that I'm working (slowly) on an instrument rating, it occurs to me not to be on any part of an approach, on an airway, on a straight line between two local airports, etc.

From the comments on this thread, I'm beginning to wonder if "practice area" isn't just a short cut to say "hey... I'd like to go out and fly around seemingly at random within a fuzzy area that isn't too much in the way. Could you help us watch for traffic while we putz around?"
 
write-stuff said:
"Practice area" is an imprecise term. There is no special airspace set aside as such (unless you're in the military). Different folks will have different "practice areas" so ask around to see if there is some consensus near your airport.
Click to expand...

True for a lot of areas. Some do indeed have Alert areas marked for concentrated flight training (not just for military).That airspace covers a good part of the local practice areas but definitely not all.
 
davidm767 said:
True for a lot of areas. Some do indeed have Alert areas marked for concentrated flight training (not just for military).That airspace covers a good part of the local practice areas but definitely not all.
Click to expand...

At a place Dave and I used to work, practice areas were defined by an agreement between the flight school and the local TRACON facility.
 
bobmrg said:
Local knowledge, to the best of my....knowledge. Tower probably would not have a clue. Rely on your CFI to tell you where to go.

General rule: Not along the extended centerline of a runway.

Bob Gardner
Click to expand...
Yep..
 
In busy areas you can find a Frequency box that has a freq. and Caution, Flight training, i.e. KLGB San Pedro, Queen Mary area. TV
 
Around here, unless you get "the new guy", all the tower and approach/departure controllers know what the "east practice area" is. I went over to one of the flight schools and they have a chart on the wall with boxes hand drawn.
 
At my airport where I trained we had a lot of flight schools and students on the field and we had three defined "practice areas". Not defined on the sectional but more of an agreed area that was out of the tower's way of inbound and outbound traffic. We were even advised when asking for a departure to the "south practice area" that there were already several planes in that area and we would choose another even though it was outside their Delta airspace.

But as mentioned...it was very much a locally established thing, not officially defined.

Only thing I have ever seen is in So Cal there are lots of flight training areas notated but more as a warning to to traversing aircraft.
 
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I'm betting controllers know more than most think. At a minimum, they've probably noticed patterns of where people are staying when they say "the practice area." The other end being like my university which had about a dozen practice areas that were designed in close cooperation with the local military base to not interfere with their ops. There were LOAs and charts that were published for controllers and pilots, so everyone knew the exact bounds of the areas. All that was needed was something such as, "Approach, Muleflight 123, area 4 high."
 
CTLSi said:
Ask anyone on the field. Usually it's local knowledge...but the Tower will know where all of it is, the waypoints, the landmarks and the practice areas.
Click to expand...
I think tower will usually know roughly where it is for airports with active flight schools, but that's about it. Generally these are established by the flight schools themselves. Sometimes, where there are multiple schools, the schools will coordinate them with each other -- but not always, and that makes for real fun. In any event, it is rarely published anywhere other than in the flight school's student handouts or posted on their bulletin board.
 
It can be quite interesting in some places. I've seen planes come pretty close to each other in the "south practice area" south of San Antonio. I usually ended up taking students elsewhere because of that when I used to teach at Stinson. Made me really appreciate flight following more, too.
 
Phoenix has a chart out there on with the practice areas, reporting points and their frequencies published. That's what happens when there's a midair a year though. Nothing irritates me more than some non local guy passing stanfield vor at 4500 feet. Yikes.
 
bobmrg said:
Local knowledge, to the best of my....knowledge. Tower probably would not have a clue. Rely on your CFI to tell you where to go.

General rule: Not along the extended centerline of a runway.

Bob Gardner
Click to expand...

I don't recall ever having my CFI call out an area as the practice area. But I'm sure going to second Bob's suggestion above.
 
Check with the flight school. Also a call to the tower can be a big help.
 
HighFlyingA380 said:
I'm betting controllers know more than most think.
Click to expand...

Yeah, our local class C controllers are very familiar with the "east" practice area most folks use for training. If you ask nice, they'll even give you a code and traffic advisories should others go steaming through the practice area.

Always nice to have a second set of eyes looking out for you, IMHO.
 
For FDK the west traffic area is to the west of the approach path to IAD and the east area is northwest of FDK between P40 and BWI. Until the tower went up at FDK it was usually not expressed with just a departure to the east or west. Obviously North and South of FDK are not options for those of us that teach out of FDK.
 
Some areas have the flight schools and the local ATC guys get together and set up formal practice areas. It's all over SOCAL and we have some around Lynchburg, VA for sure.
 
Mistake Not... said:
:wink2:

Now that I'm working (slowly) on an instrument rating, it occurs to me not to be on any part of an approach, on an airway, on a straight line between two local airports, etc.

From the comments on this thread, I'm beginning to wonder if "practice area" isn't just a short cut to say "hey... I'd like to go out and fly around seemingly at random within a fuzzy area that isn't too much in the way. Could you help us watch for traffic while we putz around?"
Click to expand...

Practice areas are often just places that are relatively uncongested. Have a straight road for turns. Have a landmark for turns around points. Have a flat area in case of emergency landing. And are not too far from the airfield if possible. Some, as in Las Vegas have their own Unicom frequencies. And one near Las Vegas sits inside A-481 an MOA.
 
Practice Areas, especially in the south, are often defined by an area of fields. Our practice areas are defined this way.
 
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