Another IFR "oops"

"Sydney Hoeltzli" wrote:
I don't see why you feel you 'should have been ready'.

That ol' PIC thing. I'm trying to determine if I missed some available
information necessary to the safe completion of the flight.

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.

I think that's the right answer: it's a situational awareness issue. Next
time I'm getting that close to a little airport destination and haven't been
handed off, I'll ask.

What I don't understand is why the BHM controller didn't just
coordinate with Montgomery for you instead of shipping you back.
They obviously can talk to each other -- why wouldn't it be easier
to just have Montgomery approve whatever it was BHM needed for
you to fly the approach, since the airport was apparently in their
airspace?

Or, why didn't MGM say something? Surely they know by now they own the
airspace for that approach. Don't TRACONs have special procedures for such
situations?
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM