A tower-induced go-round

On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 16:58:26 -0500, "Peter Dohm"
wrote:


At many airports (in the US), giving multiple a/c clearances to land
without the runway being clear is not unusual. The controller is betting
he'll have the required clearance when you get there. Most of the time it
works out. Sometimes not shrug.

The controllers at one of the local Class D airports in southeast Florida
have a reputation for being rather cautious--and not doing that. (That's a
deliberate understatement, although there some extenuating
circumstances--including a high volume of IFR traffic.)

I strongly suspect that many (perhaps most) pilots pilots usng that airport
would be much happier with a quicker flow of traffic and more frequent
go-arounds.



It's places like BOS and other big city airports where the practice is
common.

I've been in situations where I've not been given a landing clearance until
the runway was clear.

I've also been in a situation where I was flying a Cessna 150 cleared to
land 15 hold short of Rwy 5 -- This was just after clearances to land had
been issued to a KC-135 for RWY 5; and a C-130 for Rwy 33!! (The C-130 was
practicing downwind landings).

--ron