New HPN Tower Procedure for VFR traffic

The following just got forwarded to me (I did some minor
reformatting). I thought people here might be interested and/or have
comments to make. For those not familiar, WAA is the Westcheter
Aviation Association, a HPN user group.

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From: Jeffrey W Lee ]
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2005 11:44 AM
To:
Cc:
Subject: New HPN Tower Procedure for VFR traffic


All,

Some of you have noted a new procedure for VFR traffic departing HPN.
The tower is requesting that you contact Clearance Delivery prior to
contacting Ground Control. I have asked the tower manager, Tom Cahill
about this change and here is his response.

Jeff - The new procedure is a result of an operational
error/deviation that occurred on 11/23. The local controller
mistook a IFR aircraft as being VFR. The obvious solution is
to have a flight progress strip for all aircraft landing and
departing HPN. the strips will indicate IFR,VFR, SVFR, or
class "B". This should preclude another error of the same.

Tom is requesting our feedback on this new procedure over the next
couple of weeks to see how it is working or might be improved.
Please send your feedback to me and I will ask Tom to address this
topic at our December 12th breakfast meeting. Thanks.
Jeff
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On 1 Dec 2005 12:06:51 -0500, (Roy Smith) wrote:
Some of you have noted a new procedure for VFR traffic departing HPN.
The tower is requesting that you contact Clearance Delivery prior to
contacting Ground Control.

It was just a matter of time. For years the tower has refused entry
to people calling in unless they go through NY approach despite there
being no references on any charts nor in the AFD that they're other
than a regular Class D airport. This new procedure will just complete
the symmetry of their pretending to be Class C.

-Dave Lindenauer, N212MT

Wasn't the "operational error/deviation" caused by that clueless
trainee controller (the one that barely speaks English) that they have
working in the tower? That bonehead is hysterical - a few weeks ago,
he cleared a plane for takeoff right in front of me (I was cleared to
land) when I was about 1/4 mile from the threshold. THEN, when I
pointed out that I'm going to be landing on top of the departing
traffic, rather than halting the departing traffic, he tells ME to do a
few S-TURNS for spacing!

I hope that trainee never finds himself in a real tower.

I've never understood why HPN wants everyone to have a handoff from New
York Approach - is there an actual reason? I know that HPN likes to
pretend they are Class C, but is that really the only reason?

As far as the new rule, I have no problem talking to Clearance Delivery
prior to contacting Ground, but I don't see why they would want to make
that kind of rule in response to a trainee controller mistake. Of
course, if there's a strip, are we now supposed to expect Tower to hand
us off to Departure?

Oh, well...

Daf