Confusion

On Nov 27, 2:09 pm, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:
"Jon Woellhaf" wrote in message

...







I recently filed IFR and received a clearance from Ground. As part of the
clearance, I was told, "... after departure turn left heading 300 ..." I
taxied to the active, did my run-up, called Tower and said I was ready for
departure. I was soon cleared for takeoff.

At about 1000 AGL, I began the left turn to 3000.

About a minute later, when I hadn't yet been told to contact departure, I
asked Tower if they wanted me to contact departure. That's when the
confusion began. The controller said, "I didn't know you wanted to go to
departure, but, yeah, you can contact departure. Good day." "Well, I'm
IFR," I replied. After a brief pause, Tower said, "Roger. Do me a favor,
squawk 1200. I can't give you departure. You didn't tell me you were IFR.
I didn't get you a release."

I said I'd proceed on course VFR and asked if they'd get me a clearance.
They soon got it and handed me off to departure.

Guess I'll remember to remind Tower that I'm IFR from now on, although I
didn't think that was necessary. At least in this case, it was.

It isn't necessary, the local controller in this case screwed up big time.
I wouldn't have been as accommodating as you were.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That's one way to look at it. However fortunately in this case the
weather was clear and there were probably minimal safety issues. If
pilots give ATC some slack when needed, hopefully they'll be nice when
the pilots mess up. He did eventually get the clearance straightened
out. Nobody's perfect, and as long as we all realize and learn from
mistakes, I don't see why there's a need to be anal about it.

It's a two-way street.

--Dan

Dan wrote:
That's one way to look at it. However fortunately in this case the
weather was clear and there were probably minimal safety issues. If
pilots give ATC some slack when needed, hopefully they'll be nice when
the pilots mess up. He did eventually get the clearance straightened
out. Nobody's perfect, and as long as we all realize and learn from
mistakes, I don't see why there's a need to be anal about it.


The clear weather may have contributed to the confusion in this case. If it
were a certifiably crappy day, everyone should have understood that all flight
ops were under IFR.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote in message
...
Dan wrote:

The clear weather may have contributed to the confusion in this case. If
it were a certifiably crappy day, everyone should have understood that all
flight ops were under IFR.

No one should not make assumptions under either scenario.

"Dan" wrote in message
...

That's one way to look at it. However fortunately in this case the
weather was clear and there were probably minimal safety issues. If
pilots give ATC some slack when needed, hopefully they'll be nice when
the pilots mess up. He did eventually get the clearance straightened
out. Nobody's perfect, and as long as we all realize and learn from
mistakes, I don't see why there's a need to be anal about it.

It's a two-way street.


Why does ATC need some slack in this case? Ground control knew he was IFR,
that controller issued an IFR clearance and taxi instructions to the OP.
Presumably the ground controller passes a flight strip to the local
controller on all departures that shows the aircraft to be IFR or VFR. This
is about as basic as it gets in ATC, there's no excuse for this error and
certainly no excuse for compounding it by asking the OP to squawk VFR after
departure.

Steven P. McNicoll wrote:

Why does ATC need some slack in this case? Ground control knew he was IFR,
that controller issued an IFR clearance and taxi instructions to the OP.
Presumably the ground controller passes a flight strip to the local
controller on all departures that shows the aircraft to be IFR or VFR. This
is about as basic as it gets in ATC, there's no excuse for this error and
certainly no excuse for compounding it by asking the OP to squawk VFR after
departure.


I agree no excuse, but do the so-called VFR towers have strips?
The ones I used to visit didn't use to have printers and didn't
seem to use them for VFR ground movements. The Oshkosh tower
sup was even lamenting to me that they FAA took away the printer
after the airshow each year.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...

I agree no excuse, but do the so-called VFR towers have strips?
The ones I used to visit didn't use to have printers and didn't
seem to use them for VFR ground movements. The Oshkosh tower
sup was even lamenting to me that they FAA took away the printer
after the airshow each year.


Use of strips for VFR departures could be matter of local procedure, but if
they're not used then some other means of passing the information to the
local controller must be used.

Ron Natalie wrote:

I agree no excuse, but do the so-called VFR towers have strips?

We only used strips for IFR aircraft. The GC reads the clearance to the
aircraft and gives the strip to the flight data man. Data mans job is
to get the release and give the strip to the local controller at the
proper time. Until that happens the local controller has no idea the
aircraft is IFR. At our facility we made both local controllers go read
the departure list off the ground controllers pad. That was the only
effective way to to get the information. All three positions were too
busy to make the GC somehow get that info to the local controllers. The
local controllers would get them as time was available and as he saw
them starting to stack up for departure.


The ones I used to visit didn't use to have printers and didn't
seem to use them for VFR ground movements.


We didn't have a printer when I was there and there was no point in
writing strips for VFR's as we wouldn't have counted them anyways, they
were trash as soon as you were done with them.



The Oshkosh tower
sup was even lamenting to me that they FAA took away the printer
after the airshow each year.


OSH doesn't have any traffic other than for the airshow.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...

The Oshkosh tower
sup was even lamenting to me that they FAA took away the printer
after the airshow each year.


I don't think that's been the case for quite some time now.

As I recall, there were limits on the number of printers the Flight Data
Processing computer could support. During the EAA convention OSH would have
a printer at the expense of DBQ tower. It was strange because OSH had a
higher annual traffic count than DBQ.

On Nov 28, 5:08 am, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:
"Dan" wrote in message

...



That's one way to look at it. However fortunately in this case the
weather was clear and there were probably minimal safety issues. If
pilots give ATC some slack when needed, hopefully they'll be nice when
the pilots mess up. He did eventually get the clearance straightened
out. Nobody's perfect, and as long as we all realize and learn from
mistakes, I don't see why there's a need to be anal about it.

It's a two-way street.

Why does ATC need some slack in this case? Ground control knew he was IFR,
that controller issued an IFR clearance and taxi instructions to the OP.
Presumably the ground controller passes a flight strip to the local
controller on all departures that shows the aircraft to be IFR or VFR. This
is about as basic as it gets in ATC, there's no excuse for this error and
certainly no excuse for compounding it by asking the OP to squawk VFR after
departure.

Agreed, ATC completely screwed up. My point was only this - suppose
you bust an altitude because you were distracted, etc. If it didn't
cause a loss of seperation, would you rather the controller said,
"please check your altitude" or "please call this number when you land
to discuss FAA administrative action."

In this scenario, the tables were turned. Let's treat ATC how we
would like to be treated.

Nobody is perfect all of the time. It's just a question of how to
handle things when someone does occasionally screw up.

--Dan

"Dan" wrote in message
...

Agreed, ATC completely screwed up. My point was only this - suppose
you bust an altitude because you were distracted, etc. If it didn't
cause a loss of seperation, would you rather the controller said,
"please check your altitude" or "please call this number when you land
to discuss FAA administrative action."


I'd rather the former, and that tends to be the case where no loss of
separation has ocurred.



In this scenario, the tables were turned. Let's treat ATC how we
would like to be treated.

Nobody is perfect all of the time. It's just a question of how to
handle things when someone does occasionally screw up.


I don't have an issue with the initial error, the controller not knowing the
guy was IFR. I have an issue with the controller trying to cover up that
error.