I think that your instructor has overstated the cast to some extent. Sector
boundaries are not changed all that often, and certainly do not depend on
wind direction. There are letters of agreement between terminal and center
facilities outlining who is responsible for what. I have in my hot little
hand a "Depiction of Seattle Approach Airspace and Sector 01 and 31 of
Seattle ARTCC airspace" and it says nothing about wind or anything
else...there are some overlays, where Approach controls the airspace below
certain altitudes, but that's it.

Sector responsibilities can change with the wind, though. The controller on
120.4 can be Seattle Departure one day and Seattle Approach the next,
depending on which way Sea-Tac is landing.

I'm sure that Steve M has a more cogent explanation.

Bob Gardner

"Guy Elden Jr." wrote in message
...
I don't think there's a thing you could have done. BHM was listed
as the approach facility, I would have waited until transferred to BHM
to ask for the approach I wanted. If it was less than 30 nm out, might
query ATC facility I'm talking to "N123 requests RNAV 33 at EET", which
would probably get you a "I'll be handing you off in a minute, ask them"
response most of the time but would have helped this time.

A while back on these newsgroups, I was asking how to get a chart of
the airspace different facilities control. I was told I might as well
ask for the moon, more likely.

My instructor told me that the airspace that a particular facility
controls
can change on a day to day basis, depending on which runways are in use at
the various airports in the affected areas. Airspaces tend to overlap, so
when the winds shift around, causing different runways to be in use, the
tracons will adjust their airspace boundaries. Or something like that.

Bottom line is exactly what was said... use the charts as a guide, not as
an
absolute rule for who owns the airspace on a given day. And ignore ATC
when
they "complain" that you should be able to read their minds.