Re: ATC question

On Apr 16, 4:56 pm, Matt Whiting <whit...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

A question for Stephen, Newps or other folks knowledgeable in the finer
points of ATC. A friend of mine flew into Reading, PA last week with
another pilot. Since Reading is a class D airport with no TRSA, but
with radar approach control, they elected to simply call tower directly
6 or so miles out. My friend said that the controller was quite nasty
and told them they had to contact approach first if they wanted to land.
By then they were even closer in, but they called approach who
"informed" them gruffly that they were now 4 miles from the airport and
needed to contact tower "immediately." They then called tower and landed.

My friend is a new private pilot (last December) and both he and the
person flying (a pretty experienced pilot, I believe) were rather taken
aback by this. What authority does a class D tower have to refuse entry
to an airplane that hasn't called approach control?


None. There are certainly reasons for a tower controller in Class D
airspace to deny entry, but that is not one of them.



Even a TRSA is
voluntary, so I can't imagine that a non-TRSA, non-class B, non-class C
airport can mandate use of approach control.


Reading approach provides Basic radar service for VFR aircraft. Basic
radar service consists of safety alerts, traffic advisories, limited
radar vectoring when requested by the pilot, and sequencing at
locations where procedures
have been established for that purpose. I examined the RDG SOP, there
are no procedures for sequencing VFR arrivals.



Is there some new regulation that I've missed?


No.


.

Relevant Pages

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