Checkout_my_Six
Touchdown! Greaser!
yup....I suppose he'd be reporting the angle of the dangle....otherwise known as the AoD.
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Reporting your position inbound
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eman1200
Touchdown! Greaser!
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Bro do you even lift
this is why 'north up' is the only way to fly on the gps. <eman ducks while putting on flame-retardant suit> AAAAAAAAAAAAAND go...............
We're overthinking this. West vs. WSW or whatever isn't going to make a damned bit of difference. Pilots have always been lousy distance estimators as well (not to mention we used to have a controller at CHO years ago who would get into arguments about where pilots were located on position reports, she was hoot). Anything from 225 to 325 bearing from the airport is good enough for west as far as initial call ups are concerned. By the time the controller answers you're going to be somewhere else anyhow.
I think (and maybe I misunderstood) that the OP was talking about all three of the airplanes approaching the airport at the same time, and the best way to communicate position so that both the tower and the other pilots understood where he was. Not that he was out there alone and what should be his report from each of the three positions.
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Velocity173
If that's the actual question and the OP is wondering how all of that will work out real world, there are so many variables you can't even list them all. There's no written formula in the controller's manual that specifically addresses this. One local controller might handle it differently from another.
A basic scenario:
They could all report quadrants or visual reporting points. Tower will give general traffic calls on each that could vary depending on radar vs nonradar. Tower will hopefully log their positions and aircraft types (speed) in the back of their head and then start a basic sequence. ATC service is provided upon first come first served but that doesn't necessarily mean number one for the airport. Once they enter the D, which I would have all of them report, you whittle down your sequence plan even further. If there is a tie, have one follow the other, or they could have one enter the downwind while another is directed to base.
Multiple ways this all could play out. For the OP, just report your position as best you can and then let tower take it from there.
In my experience, the tower will set one he perceives as closest (or arriving first) up as number one and then tell the other person to look for the traffic and be number two, etc.. Sometimes he has to change has things progresses.
Remeber, he's just arranging an orderly sequence to the runway NOT PROVIDING SEPARATION.
Remeber, he's just arranging an orderly sequence to the runway NOT PROVIDING SEPARATION.
MAKG1
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MAKG
Occasionally, it matters. If there is another VFR aircraft that is actually southeast, you have created a problematic situation.
Yes, I recently had a situation like this, flying a 206 about a mile west and parallel to a 172, at the same altitude, both arriving at the same airport. Tower confused the two aircraft. We both knew about each other and were able to correct.
What you actually do when you're flying directly to the airport, is look at your DG and report whatever the bottom says. If it says SE, report SE.
SkyDog58
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Canis Non Grata
Can't you just say "Han Solo inbound for landing. Please clear the taxiways"?
SoCal RV Flyer
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SoCal RV Flyer
Or Han Solo inbound in a Cirrus! Man, that's carte blanche to do anything!!Can't you just say "Han Solo inbound for landing. Please clear the taxiways"?
danhagan
En-Route
Whatever is opposite on the heading indicator. Altitude report helps too (yours didn't include it) as some towers don't have radar and they're trying to find you visually. If going to a new field and they respond,"Report Granny MaMa's Cookie factory" or some other local's only landmark simply reply "Unfamiliar with area-first time arrival" or "Request vectors"
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
You don't even have to do that if you know where you're at in relationship to the airport. It's not that complicated.
Tower didn't have radar? They're supposed to ask for an IDENT.
Doesn't work if you have a really nasty crosswind.
iflyvfr
Pattern Altitude
No those were just examples. I'm the only one approaching and was interested in "where i am" for each general location. I was definitely overthinking it and I also doubt they have radar because I've heard tower ask other a/c inbound for updated position reports.
This has been bugging me for a really long time so I do appreciate everyone's feedback.
Harold Rutila
Pre-takeoff checklist
An IDENT isn't going to do anything when the targets are too close to be individually distinguished. This exact situation is why a precise position report can be a good idea.
Everything I posted before relates to 4+ years of experience flying and teaching in Lafayette (LAF) before there was a tower radar display installed. I've experienced the same thing as MAKG1 regarding parallel arriving aircraft at the same position from the airport.
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
The radar display in the tower, if they even have one, is usually a repeater from approach control's radar. I got out of ATC in '88, and there's no way for the tower to have an aircraft ident. Again, it's just a display, unless they have something else these days.
MAKG1
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I get asked to ident when reporting in to some local Class D's, but not all of them, on the rare times when I'm not handed off from flight following.
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Velocity173
They do. It's not like the old BRANDS crap we had. The BRITE and newer models are certified tower radar displays. Some Ds have CTRDs some don't. The catch is, what they can do with them all depends on their facility letters.
For instance, RYY is a contract class D tower in Atlanta. Their stuff is certified by they can't provide radar services. It's only used as tool to help them identify aircraft. They, like PDK, will have you ident but will never call radar contact on you. That's to prevent the assumption of receiving flight following. Now class Cs, that's a whole other animal and the LC can provide flight following based on their qualifications.
That's why I say to the OP, as a general rule, they can see you on their radar feed but never assume you're getting flight following from any class D tower. Most likely you are not.
denverpilot
Tied Down
APA has people Ident all the time. I'd have to ask 'me what version of radar system they have, but I'm sure it's fed from whatever DEN TRACON sees. From the photo someone posted elsewhere today, looks like it's a color LCD monitor and a pretty big one, too.
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
We always had Brite (Brite 2 maybe?) at Air Force bases and it was useful for aircraft position but definitely not used for vectoring or radar identification. I retired in '88 from the AF so I as I wrote, don't know what they have now.
BRITE appeared to be pretty lame in the day. The controllers at our local fields never seemed to use it much. The D-BRITES look better. Some towers use it more than others. GYY for example makes pretty extensive use of it when I blast through there. My local tower (HKY) sometimes uses it but it's mostly a sleepy place and I think they recognize me now and know where I am before I even tell them.
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
It was good for clearing departures as you could judge arrivals and how soon they'd be a factor, especially when dealing with fast movers at Air Force bases. Also when someone reports their position you could look up at the Brite and see where they actually were, most of the time. No info tags or altitude info at all, just a target.
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Velocity173
My brother's facility gets these put in the tower next month. They'll have like three different displays up there. All certified in providing radar service. Just depends if the LC is also qualified on approach or has attended an FAA CTRD class.
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
Wow, a long ways from the BRITE I worked with. Is approach control up in the tower cab? There used to be some towers that had the scopes up there, GPT being one.
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Velocity173
Yeah these color displays are nice. Not sure I care for the precip depiction though. Looks like they've got level 1-2 selected at the top.
They work approach up there at his facility when traffic is light. It's a whole other display though. Like a big screen tv. Think Sony makes it.
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
I know our radar back in the day had filters to lessen/eliminate precip, so they can probably deselect it from the display.
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Good ol' circular polarization. They started "digitizing" primary Radar quite awhile back. Even the skin paint echos. All the "blips" were perfect little rectangles. Wet clouds came through as symbols, like dots and *'s. Big improvement over big white blobs
mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
Can you deselect so you can see the primary target?
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yup. You didnt really need to though. You could track it through the dots and other symbols depicting weather easy enough. Even that is old stuff now.
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Velocity173
CP worked pretty darn good back in the day, even on PAR. I think only the heaviest tstorms would show through.
luvflyin
Touchdown! Greaser!
Yeah, it did. On the older ASR's it would lose the littler airplanes targets sometimes though. What was the one that removed all but the leading edge of a target? FTC, Fast Time Constant? You would just get the leading edge of a weather return. Problem was that you'd lose some of the airplanes behind it.
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Velocity173
Yep, FTC. Wanna say we had both FTC and MTI on all the time for the PAR and CP only when weather got bad.
Of course there was the occasional "Servo left! I'm losing my target!"
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mscard88
Touchdown! Greaser!
Oh man, I remember that stuff on our surveillance scopes, probably on the PARs too.
RudyP
Cleared for Takeoff
I have been based at Bolton (KTZR) for 7 years and I agree with Velocity173. They seem to be asleep half the time in the tower so a wakeup call is a good idea. Expect the response from them to be more along the lines of 'Heh, hmmm.. Hello, aircraft calling Bolton say again" regardless of the amount of detail in your initial call up. After that, I agree - I tend to call them at 10 miles with one of the 8 main cardinal points (N, NE, E, SE, etc...) and it works fine.
Also, KTZR does not have a remote radar feed from Columbus Approach. At least they didn't last time I was up in the tower a few years ago. They're going by what you tell them and what they see through the binoculars. They've even recently lost the ability to get digital release from Columbus approach when you are departing IFR and have to now call up approach on the land line to clear you for takeoff - not sure why that is.
denverpilot
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I know y'all get used to it, but that screwed up keyboard would drive me insane. LOL.