Airports/Airspace

On 2006-03-15, wrote:
Lets get to the bottom of this.
I constantly hear people refer to Airports as being class B,C or D
Airports. Any of you who have thorough knowledge and understanding of
Airports will know that there are only two kinds of Airports in all of
our National Airspace System (NAS). There is Towered and Non-Towered
Airports. We have Class A,B,C,D,E and G Airspace.
snip

But in casual talk, that's not useful. When talking to your DE, or
having an in-depth discussion with the FAA, the distinction MAY be
useful - but for every day piloting, calling it a 'class D field' tells
the listener in a very concise way that the field has a control tower
with class D airspace. The listener will understand exactly what you
mean and the consequences without having to say 'a towered field with
class D airspace' which takes longer to say.

There is no mention of a 'stop and go' in the regs either, but if an FAA
inspector sees '3 stop and goes' in your log book by the entry for a
Cessna 140, and it was less than 90 days ago, he knows you are current
in tailwheel aircraft. '3 landings to a full stop' takes up much more
space in that tiny area you get to make remarks in your log book.

On the other hand, if you keep up with this pedantry, you and Stephen
McNicholl will be a force to be reckoned with :-)

--
Dylan Smith, Port St Mary, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
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Fine, just don't teach them to land on "zero eight" or tell them that
the departure (straight out from the runway) is "upwind". Also, "cross
controlled" stalls aren't the bad ones, it's stalls in a skid that flip
you over on your back. Might teach them something about the importance
of leaning and how and when to do it. And on most engines there is
nothing wrong with "oversquare".

As for Class B airport, you are technically correct, although Ketchikan
is neither (I guess the exception prooves the rule). But it's a LOT
easier to say "Las Vegas is a Class B airport" than to say "Las Vegas
is a towered airport (duh?), with overlying Class B airspace".
Somethings get said and people know what you mean. I don't see the
harm.