Poll: FSS radio at untowered fields

[RotaryWingBob]

As I'm sure everyone knows, the protocol when approaching a field where there is a FSS but no tower, for example KMIV in New Jersey, is to talk to the FSS rather than simply self announce.

Do you think this is a good thing and should the FAA (or Lockheed Martin) continue this practice?

 

[Maverick]

I don't know if I'm missing the point of this poll but I like the idea of having a radio link to FSS at an uncontrolled field especially for getting IFR clearances. My home field, PHN, used to have a radio link to Lansing Flight Service but the previous airport manager decommissioned it in favor of a GCO as a cost saving measure. Trouble is the GCO never works. Now I either have to take off and try to get my clearance in the air from Selfridge approach or use my cell phone to call FSS.

Jeannie

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

Jean I think Bob refers to having the FSS staff used as a pseudo-control tower. I have seen this only in Canada. Seemed like adding another layer of confusion at the time but I'm sure its not always like that.

 

[wsuffa]

Dave is right.

At certain non-towered airports, the FSS provides an advisory service on the CTAF. The one I'm most familiar with is Jonesboro, Arkansas.

They can't actually see the traffic, and sometimes it can be confusing if traffic left the runway or took off without knowledge of the FSS. It is useful to have the ability to open and cancel IFR directly, but that function is the same as it is on a regular FSS frequency.

I'm not sure it adds a ton of value compared to an RCO arrangement.

 

[Anthony]

I really don't have a problem with it, but it can be confusing to some.

 

[AdamZ]

My only experience is at KMIV. If they just offered advisories fine. But IMHO the folks at KMIV think and act like they are a tower and lieterally try and run the show. It can be a pain in the butt and create confusion. Anyone with different experience at KMIV should feel free to chime in. Perhaps other fields are different.

 

[Maverick]

Jean I think Bob refers to having the FSS staff used as a pseudo-control tower. I have seen this only in Canada. Seemed like adding another layer of confusion at the time but I'm sure its not always like that.

Ok, I was thinking solely of the RCOs and not what you're referring to. I can't say I've ever encountered a time when FSS was acting in place of a control tower at any airport I've gone into.

Jeannie

 

[Carol]

My only experience is at KMIV. If they just offered advisories fine. But IMHO the folks at KMIV think and act like they are a tower and lieterally try and run the show. It can be a pain in the butt and create confusion. Anyone with different experience at KMIV should feel free to chime in. Perhaps other fields are different.

The folks at KAND are like this. Well, one guy is that I know of. Was confusing to my friend who was a student pilot. She was wondering if she should respond as though he was ATC. I told her it was advisory and to fly the airplane and pay attention to what the other airplanes were saying.

 

[mikea]

When I flew into IKK, the CTAF was a CTAF. At least *I* treated it that way.

Now that I think about it, when I stopped briefly on one of my long pre-PPL XCs, I asked the briefer in person what frequency I could use there to talk to him. I wanted to update my position on my flight plan. I guess my visit in person did, too. My CFI called the FSS for my position and he said, "Were you worried about that guy? He just left."

 

[Everskyward]

Can't comment. It's been so long since I landed at an non-towered airport with an on field FSS that I've forgotten whether it's a boon or a bane.

I encountered one in Columbus, NE a few weeks ago. Made it easy to pick up our IFR clearance on the ground. There are plenty of them still in Canada but the ones in Canada seem to want to act more like a pseudo-tower than the ones down here. Ugh, I must be old because I can remember when there were quite a few in the States too.

 

[pete177]

I self announce on CTAF, if they want to talk to me on that freq, thats fine as long as I'm not busy. I wouldnt accept instruction from them unless they could see me as well as all of the other traffic. If they're tying up the radio so as to force other pilots to wait to transmit they're locations and directions then it's a problem.

As I'm sure everyone knows, the protocol when approaching a field where there is a FSS but no tower, for example KMIV in New Jersey, is to talk to the FSS rather than simply self announce.

Do you think this is a good thing and should the FAA (or Lockheed Martin) continue this practice?

 

[RotaryWingBob]

My only experience is at KMIV. If they just offered advisories fine. But IMHO the folks at KMIV think and act like they are a tower and lieterally try and run the show. It can be a pain in the butt and create confusion. Anyone with different experience at KMIV should feel free to chime in. Perhaps other fields are different.

MIV is precisely what I had in mind, Adam.

I remember one woman there who insisted on reading the entire current METAR to every pilot who called Millville Radio. Talk about using up bandwidth that pilots could have used to self announce.

It also is confusing. At MIV after your initial call up they ususally tell you to announce midfield on the downwind. Some pilots (incorrectly, I think) interpret that to mean that's the only announcement thay have to make.

FSS manning CTAF may have been useful at one time, but it seems to me to be useless and confusing these days...

They get snotty at MIV sometimes as well. I flew in there a few years ago with a CFI to work on something which I no longer recall. I had called for a briefing and was told that 14-32 was closed (I think they were repainting the runway markings).

On my initial call up the briefer said the winds favored 14. I asked him to confirm that 14-32 was open because the briefer had told me it was closed. Which I thought was a reasonabl request. He came back and snottily said "I wouldn't have told you to use it if it were closed". Sheeesh. He could have just said it reopened a half hour ago.

I paid him back, though. I taxiied to 14 for t/o, looked for traffic, and announced I was departing 14, closed traffic. The same briefer came back on and asked me if I was remaining in the pattern. I snottily said "I wouldn't have told you closed traffic if I wasn't going to remain in the pattern".

Dead silence on the radio. CFI sitting next to me doubled up in laughter.

 

[Gary]

But IMHO the folks at KMIV think and act like they are a tower and lieterally try and run the show. It can be a pain in the butt and create confusion.

Hmmm... I'm into MIV quite a bit for breakfast and to visit Mom. Can't say I've ever run into any of the problems others have mentioned. Always found them to be reasonalby efficient and helpful to traffic.

The place does get busy at times, maybe you experience a bit of "controller stress"? Since they can't see the traffic, I would think that makes it much more difficult for them.

BTW, a short tour of the FSS is always fun, they have never turned me down.

Gary

 

[grattonja]

The only place I have used this was KEKN in W.Va. I was on my long dual for IR. It was helpful to have a professional rendition of conditions on the ground, particularly since we had until recently been in the clag (I was still hooded but we had been in actual), and EKN has some interesting terrain around it. Getting the clearance on the ground over CTAF was a snap too. On the whole, I would classify that one as a positive experience.

Jim G

 

[ejensen]

Kind of like getting a unicom advisory; winds, altimeter, last reported traffice, and L notams. Some try to be more like towers than others. And sometimes they can see close in traffic depends on where their office is located.

 

[MSmith]

My only experience is at KMIV. If they just offered advisories fine. But IMHO the folks at KMIV think and act like they are a tower and lieterally try and run the show. It can be a pain in the butt and create confusion. Anyone with different experience at KMIV should feel free to chime in. Perhaps other fields are different.

Also at KMIV.

I have two kinds of experience there:

1. The controller thinks he's in Class B airspace, and tries to run things from inside a room with no windows.

2. It's really convenient when they offer to open or close flight plans for you just by recognizing your callsign.

On the other hand, there have been times down by Cape May (KWWD) when I couldn't get a response from FSS on any other frequency (122.5, 122.65, 122.45) and I end up calling them on 123.65. I then get chewed out for using the CTAF, when I just wanted to get SOME response on SOME frequency.

 

[Greebo]

1. The controller thinks he's in Class B airspace, and tries to run things from inside a room with no windows.

I've had that experience at KMIV. I was a student on solo at the time and didn't know what authority they had.

It's important to remember that an FSS is NOT part of ATC and they have *no* authority, and NOBODY is required to be talking to them. It is all too tempting to become complacent and expect that everyone is talking to them and let your scan falter. Naturally this shouldn't happen even in truly towered airspace, but it's even more important in a place like MIV, because at least in towered airspace everyone SHOULD be talking to tower. (Not that everyone does - what was the recent story about a bozo landing at a D airport w/o ever talking to tower?)

 

[4CornerFlyer]

Those who've been around a while will recall that prior to the consolidation of the FSS system in the late 80's, all FSS's provided Airport Advisory Service. Those located at towered airports would assume that service when the tower closed. At uncontrolled fields, FSS service would be whatever hours the station was open (not always 24 hours).

The larger AFSS's (A for Automated) that replaced the smaller FSS's generally did not provide advisory service. Even though there was an FSS on the field, pilots would self-announce on CTAF, and receive no response from the station. Millville was a notable exception, because the station chief was convinced of the value of advisory service.

In many ways the service is helpful, in that you can get at least some information about the airport and the participating traffic. However, the problem at Millville is that they spend so much time on the frequency repeating the observations and local notams, that there is little time for traffic reports.

Suggestions: listen as you approach an airport with AAS. If you hear him read the weather to another aircraft, on your call-up, say that you have the weather. Report your position as you normally would at an uncontrolled field, frequency-congestion permitting.

Does MIV still insist on asking you to "report airborne?" I was unsuccessful in convincing them that this call was not made at any other airport, that we generally announce taking the runway for departure. The preferred technique gives someone a chance to say, "Wait, I'm still on the runway," or the like, whereas calling once airborne doesn't really help anyone. I always announced the way the AIM said to do it, even at Millville.

Jon

 

[RotaryWingBob]

Does MIV still insist on asking you to "report airborne?" I was unsuccessful in convincing them that this call was not made at any other airport, that we generally announce taking the runway for departure. The preferred technique gives someone a chance to say, "Wait, I'm still on the runway," or the like, whereas calling once airborne doesn't really help anyone. I always announced the way the AIM said to do it, even at Millville.

Jon

MIV asked me to report airborne last time I was there.

 

[gismo]

FSS airport advisory service once served a useful purpose, but IME no longer provides any benefit beyond the regular FSS radio duties (providing wx, opening/closing flight plans etc).