I used to get a clearance like this on a regular basis, lazy Sunday
afternoon, Grand Forks North Dakota, only aircraft in the area.

He "tower" is authorizing continuous traffic pattern operations.. with
landing clearance.. "cleared for the option" is a landing clearance, stop
and go, touch and go, or go around..

I would get "cleared for the option, all runways".. then when someone else
approached Tower would ask me to "keep it on the east runway while NWA
lands.. he's coming in from the south", and I would acknowledge and do as
cleared.

Could really work some figure 8 patterns with a double north/south runway
plus one east/west runway. Take off north on the west side, left turn out,
downwind for the east runway, left base, left turn to final landing east,
left turn on take off, left downwind for the south runway on the east side,
left base, left turn to final, take off south bound, right 180 to final to
the north on the west runway.. then mix it up a bit.. take off north.. right
180 to land to the south, left pattern to land to the west on the cross
runway.. right turn out to land to the south on the west side... yada yada
yada..

I doubt there is a play station in the tower cab, but he's got weather
observations to record, plus other administrative papers, plus logging every
landing for his traffic count. His pay is based on traffic count.. every
landing and departure you make counts.. he does not want to miss one.

BT

"Greg Esres" wrote in message
...
One of our Class D controllers has taken issuing clearances such as

"Seneca 1234X, continuous closed traffic approved, cleared for the
option, no need to report base, I'll let you know of any arriving
traffic."

What he's basically authorizing is operating in the traffic pattern at
will without landing clearances. I suspect that he's engrossed with
his PlayStation that they have in the tower and doesn't want to be
bothered with a sole aircraft doing pattern work.

Anyone else had clearance such as this? (I'm not quite comfortable
with it. Just seems wrong.)