See and Avoid applies to both IFR and VFR

I think Sydney meant 800ft above the traffic pattern of a non-towered field.

"Newps" wrote in message
...


Snowbird wrote:


but because the controller needs to understand that *if he is
going to vector IFR traffic 800 ft above a non-towered airport,


There's no vectoring going on 800 feet above an uncontrolled field. The
MVA is always at least 1000 agl.

"Brad Z" wrote in message news:BkHJc.86409$a24.57049@attbi_s03...
I think Sydney meant 800ft above the traffic pattern of a non-towered field.

Yes, thank you Brad. That's what I meant, I just left out "TPA".
Me bad, not proofing for sense.

The point is, in the situation you described, the controller chewed
your butt for not getting on his freq. faster and getting off the
CTAF, in a situation where I think safety was best served by what
you did: staying on CTAF until you climb above TPA at the airport.
If the controller doesn't want to hear big iron telling him about
TCAS alerts and deviating for them, he needs to change his procedures
so as not to vector big iron around 800 ft above TPA at a small
airport.

Cheers,
Sydney

Snowbird wrote:

Kudos to you for not getting into it on frequency, but IMO I would
strongly consider filing an ASRS on this, not because YOU did anything
wrong, but because the controller needs to understand that *if he is
going to vector IFR traffic 800 ft above a non-towered airport, the
IFR traffic *is* going to get TCAS alerts and need to deviate. Around
here, at least, it's pretty standard to overfly the airport 500 ft
above TPA then descend to TPA.

How would filing an ASRS help the controller understand?

FWIW, a fellow club member had a real nasty ATC encounter recently. Inside
the FAF in IMC, the pilot was given a frequency change to something not on
the plate (the tower of an airport near the untowered field where landing
was intended). And just to make things really nasty, the tower operator
(accurately, as it happens) thought that the pilot should be with approach.

This was brought to the QA person at TRACON, who "fixed things" so that it
won't happen again. Supposedly, some LOA (letter of agreement) "got lost".

Sounds to me as though some controllers need to be educated, and I
hear that the ASRS forms really do get reviewed.

At that level of detail? The controller in Brad's example would receive a
phone call?

- Andrew

Andrew Gideon wrote in message agonline.com...
Snowbird wrote:
Kudos to you for not getting into it on frequency, but IMO I would
strongly consider filing an ASRS on this, not because YOU did anything
wrong, but because the controller needs to understand that *if he is
going to vector IFR traffic 800 ft above a non-towered airport, the
IFR traffic *is* going to get TCAS alerts and need to deviate. Around
here, at least, it's pretty standard to overfly the airport 500 ft
above TPA then descend to TPA.

How would filing an ASRS help the controller understand?

Well, it seems to me that there are two general principles here,
one of which the controllers at that facility (most non-pilot
controllers?) may not be aware of at all, and the other of which
he may only be aware of peripherally (as in, it was mentioned
at some point, but may not be part of their world view).

The two principles I see a
1) Within 5 miles of a non-towered airport and 1500 AGL, the safest
thing for GA pilots is to monitor CTAF and focus on see-and-avoid.
They should not be expected to initiate contact with ATC at
this point.
2) All aircraft, IFR and VFR, are expected to practice see-and-avoid
in VMC

A correllary of point 2) is that if it's a problem for the controller
to have the planes he's sequencing respond to TCAS alerts, don't
take them within 1000 ft of the TPA for a non-towered airport.

I see these as potentially systemic problems, caused by lack of
understanding, on one side of the mic, of all the factors which
affect safety on the other side of the mic.

My understanding is, it's exactly these sorts of problems that the
ASRS system was designed to look into and communicate about. Some
people I respect in the FAA tell me it works, though I imagine like
everything else there is variation depending on the individuals
involved.

Sounds to me as though some controllers need to be educated, and I
hear that the ASRS forms really do get reviewed.

At that level of detail? The controller in Brad's example would receive a
phone call?

I'm not sure what you mean by "at that level of detail" -- as explained
above, I see the situation as a potentially systemic problem where there
may be more than one controller who thinks a GA pilot who has filed IFR
ought to be on his freq. ASAP after takeoff, and they need to understand
that the GA pilot is going to have other necessary safety concerns whilst
in the vicinity of the traffic pattern at a non-towered airport, and plan
accordingly.

I don't think the specific controller needs a phone call, though
the facility would probably get one from me, in which as politely
as possible I explain what my safety concerns are immediately after
takeoff from a non-towered airport. If it were local I would offer
a ride to anyone interested to sort of see the issues from the "other
side of the mic".

Thanks for all the replies. I've started planning a trip to Potomac Tracon
with my students so that they can get a better understanding of how the
system works. I think I will add this scenario to our list of questions for
the tour. As long as homeland security doesn't upgrade us to orange, we
will have a chance to chat with the controllers that work the Richmond
sector.

"Brad Z" wrote in message
news:ONwJc.61657$WX.41886@attbi_s51...
After the cold front passed last night, my instrument student and I took
off
VFR from FCI, about 11 miles from Richmond Intl (just outside of Class C).
We had just departed 33, climbing though 1200MSL when I spotted traffic in
the distance to the west. On this particular evening, Potomac approach
was
bringing in IFR arrivals to RIC down to 2000 right over FCI. The traffic
pattern at FCI is 1200. Upon spotting the traffic we leveled off at about
1400, and turned towards the north. Meanwhile, we just switched over from
CTAF to the Potomac Approach facility, were the controller was pointing us
out to the MD80, who only saw us on TCAS. After the traffic was no longer
a
factor, we climbed to 2000, proceeded on course, and requested advisories
from Approach.

After the controller gave us a squawk code, he chewed us our for not
calling
him sooner. "You should call us before you reach about 1200 ft because we
have arrivals from the west and you caused a MD80 to get a TCAS RA." I
suspect our initial climb out of the pattern was interpreted by TCAS as
being on a collision course.

I replied, "Roger, we had the traffic in sight and changed our course
accordingly."

The controller replied "fine, but I don't know you had him in sight. Call
us earlier next time."

me: "Roger."

Conditions were good VFR. I think the controller was annoyed that the
MD80
had to change his course to avoid traffic. I don't think it's reasonable
to
expect us to be contacting approach before we leave the pattern in VFR
conditions. I wasn't going to argue that over the frequency.

Points to Ponder-
-Always scan for traffic
-Follow the Right-of-way rules (my student initially wanted to turn to the
left, but the traffic was proceeding directly towards us)
-ATC knows how to control traffic, but they're not pilots (usually) so
they
may not consider operations that don't involve them, i.e. non-towered
pattern operations.
-Airline crews need to practice see and avoid in VFR conditions even if
they're IFR, especially when proceeding over an airport traffic pattern at
1800 AGL.