This is meant as a polite safety recommendation. If you were not at the FAASTeam Wings event this evening at Clow (1C5) regarding the ATC ops at KLOT, please get up to speed on the situation there before venturing into the KLOT Delta. There is no radar, no FDIO, and no current plans to add any additional equipment. There are only 3 total controllers to cover all hours and all operations. They often have a single controller to staff ground, tower, phones, etc. They need to work with Chicago (C90) to manage any IFR handoffs they have but no way to track them. They had almost 8,500 operations in February and are projecting +/- 100,000 annually. Pilots were encouraged to consider flying during off times the school students were not. They have specific blocks when they have many student solos in the pattern, etc. the suggested to avoid. It sounded to be a very over stressed situation. Multiple attendees expressed concerns over near misses they had experienced recently.
It's a good reminder of what a tower actually does and does not do, as well as limitations. I had an not so NMAC at KARR where I was cleared to land and on final and a student turned base right in front of me. I broke off turning away from the base traffic, quick 360 and then back onto final. Even under a tower, you should have eyes/awareness on everyone. This is surprising as DuPage is 110-130k All this being said, I can't think of a reason to fly there anyway. When the wind is blowing hard from the west, it's good training landing on 27 as there are trees on the approach end and they create a good amount of turbulence on short final.
I guess I usually fly “around” there at night and never ran into an issue, usually it’s dead. Keep eyes open, adsb-in helps but use the good ole eyes as well. New pilots, can’t really see traffic, I’m still working at finding traffic myself, newer pilots are so busy learning new things, we should be aware of this.
It's not too bad other than the ski jump on the north end, and the helicopters who don't use their radio. Yeah...what's up with that?
I heard from one of the attendees of the Clow event that it was a bit tense and there was some verbal confrontation about those situations. I'd heard someone even threatened to get news of the safety infractions published on the front page of the chicago tribune lol. For me... We stopped doing IFR training at KLOT after their tower went live because it was much different experience from ARR/DPA. It was clear they were not coordinated the same way. The worst was when we got Chicago approach clearance for a practice localizer on RWY 2 when the prevailing, heavy student traffic was landing RWY 20. They were still clearing planes to land 20 that were headed right for us on their upwind, and theyn it became clear they didn't know where we were. We flew away and haven't been back since. Last week my friend, a student pilot, did a XC w/their instructor and planned to overfly KLOT but tower wouldn't even clear them into the delta. Based on the number of operations you're saying they handle, and the fact they only have 4 controllers to cover 14 hour shifts every day, while also doing everything manually... It sounds like they're probably in rough shape and stretched thin.
