Confusion

Jim Carter wrote:

Maybe I'm confused too, but I thought we always told Ground Control that we
were ready to taxi IFR or VFR, especially if we picked up our clearance from
some other controller. Is this no longer the norm?


You really have to see how a busy VFR tower works from the inside to see
how it's easy to lose an aircraft. At GFK every morning we'd have 25
aircraft on the taxiway, all ready to depart and more taxiing out. That
was the easy part, no arrivals. Now have the same number ready to go
but you have six airplanes doing touch and goes on your runway and six
more the other tower controller is working on his runway. Aircraft 3
miles away needing to be sequenced into one of the patterns. Aircraft
still on the ground you pay little attention to as that's only a small fire.

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
...
On Nov 28, 4:18 am, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:


And if the tower respnds by telling you you're released? What do you do?


That's never happened.


It hasn't happened to you yet. What will you do when it does?



Any needed release should have been obtained during the taxi so that when
you are ready for takeoff you can be so cleared.


ATC seems to be able to secure the release during taxi at most 40% of
the time. Usually when you tell tower you are ready to go they tell
you that they are still waiting for your release from departure.


That's rather inefficient.



I believe the AIM uses "ready for departure".


Since that almost killed me once, I'm not going to do it again.


Please explain how reporting "ready for departure" almost killed you.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:


Every clearance was as filed. Always. There's nothing to digest if you
flight planned properly.


Nobody ever filed an unacceptable route? That seems VERY unlikely.


They let departure give him a reroute as soon as they handed him off :-)

Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Nov 27, 1:56 pm, wrote:
Whenever you are cleared for takeoff and do not get some kind of
instruction from tower (fly runway heading, turn left xxx., etc), be
suspicious.

Have you ever not been given such instructions when VFR?? I've never
gotten a VFR takeoff clearance that didn't include some instruction on
what heading (or at least direction) to fly until leaving the class D.


From class B's and certain class C's it was given to me prior to
taxi. The Dulles standard VFR departure is:

Cleared into the class B via fly runway heading maintain vfr at
or below 1500 departure frqeuency 126.1 squawk 0423

Very unusual at class D towers to be given any restriction after
takeoff.

Jim Carter wrote:
Maybe I'm confused too, but I thought we always told Ground Control that we
were ready to taxi IFR or VFR, especially if we picked up our clearance from
some other controller. Is this no longer the norm?

Nope, not at Dulles. The guy who gave me my clearance has dropped the
strip down the rack by the appropriate ground controller. The call
is usually "Dulles Ground Navion 5327K TAXI". They already know where
I am and obviously where I need to go.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:


Every clearance was as filed. Always. There's nothing to digest if you
flight planned properly.


Nobody ever filed an unacceptable route? That seems VERY unlikely.
They let departure give him a reroute as soon as they handed him off :-)


Sounds like ZMP.

I was always taught (and always use!) "IFR" in my comms with both
ground and tower/clearance delivery. "Cessna 1234 at ... ready to
taxi, IFR" AND in the runup area "Cessna 1234 at ... ready for IFR
departure". I do NOT wait for my release at the hold short line,
because if there is a delay (incoming traffic etc), I will be blocking
traffic departing VFR.

--Jeff

On Nov 27, 1:14 pm, "Jon Woellhaf" wrote:
I recently filed IFR and received a clearance from Ground. As part of the
clearance, I was told, "... after departure turn left heading 300 ..." I
taxied to the active, did my run-up, called Tower and said I was ready for
departure. I was soon cleared for takeoff.

At about 1000 AGL, I began the left turn to 3000.

About a minute later, when I hadn't yet been told to contact departure, I
asked Tower if they wanted me to contact departure. That's when the
confusion began. The controller said, "I didn't know you wanted to go to
departure, but, yeah, you can contact departure. Good day." "Well, I'm IFR,"
I replied. After a brief pause, Tower said, "Roger. Do me a favor, squawk
1200. I can't give you departure. You didn't tell me you were IFR. I didn't
get you a release."

I said I'd proceed on course VFR and asked if they'd get me a clearance.
They soon got it and handed me off to departure.

Guess I'll remember to remind Tower that I'm IFR from now on, although I
didn't think that was necessary. At least in this case, it was.

Jon

"Newps" wrote
You really have to see how a busy VFR tower works from the inside to see
how it's easy to lose an aircraft. At GFK every morning we'd have 25
aircraft on the taxiway, all ready to depart and more taxiing out. That
was the easy part, no arrivals. Now have the same number ready to go but
you have six airplanes doing touch and goes on your runway and six more
the other tower controller is working on his runway. Aircraft 3 miles
away needing to be sequenced into one of the patterns. Aircraft still on
the ground you pay little attention to as that's only a small fire.

I can't imagine how anyone can be a controller. I can barely keep track of
where one plane (me) is. Kudos to all of you!

Jon

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
...
On Nov 27, 10:14 am, "Jon Woellhaf" wrote:

I said I'd proceed on course VFR and asked if they'd get me a clearance.
They soon got it and handed me off to departure.

Guess I'll remember to remind Tower that I'm IFR from now on, although I
didn't think that was necessary. At least in this case, it was.

This has happened to me several times. Now I *NEVER* tell the tower
I'm ready for take off if I'm IFR, I say "Ready for Release". Since
then I've never had a problem.

BTW: Once this could have been really dangerous. I was flying out of
Santa Barbara where they often use a different runway for IFR and VFR.
I told the tower I was ready to take off on runway XXX. Tower
responded with "Cleared for take off". I said "that airliner on final
looks really close". Tower said "Oh, I thought you were VFR I didn't
realize you were at runway XXX". So bottom line, never say "take off"
when you're IFR.

The pilot should only use the words "take off" when reading back the take
off clearance. No confusion then. When ready, I call the tower with "ready
for departure".

Patrick wrote:
Jon,

The turn should have started at 400 agl, right?

When the weather is less than VFR, yes. If it is VFR your first
responsbility is to exactly what he did because of the conflicting VFR
traffic.