SQL was denying pattern work at times, due to short-staffing, but they are fully staffed now, so that problem has gone away. I was denied a practice approach once to PAO (I think) due to heavy pattern traffic, but Norcal Approach said they could clear me if I could accept an IFR clearance (which I could).
I'm not concerned. It is a lag phase in a recovery process, and it may slow training down for a while, but there are still plenty of non-towered fields to use in the meantime.
Exactly. The flight training business is booming in Florida. Some schools are sending dozens of flights up every day and until well past midnight. If a flight school is struggling these days, they don’t know how to bring in business or their pay sucks so bad that not even desperate 300 hour wonders won’t work there.
It is KLGB tower and SOCAL Approach that I have been hearing this over and over again for the last year. I marked advanced IFR training as much of the time in the SOCAL areas they will not allow practice approaches. If anyone is also in these areas please join in the conversation.
Here in the Los Angeles/Inland Empire area there are not too many uncontrolled airports. Many pilots are doing this which just adds to the cost of getting a license here in California.
Not the case of too many in the pattern here in Socal area. They have just stopped pilots from training.
They haven't learned how to do that yet.
I would hope to God that flight instructors know how to do that.
KLGB Tower and at least some SoCal sectors have a LiveATC.net feed. Can you give some examples of recent time stamps when they refused touch-and-go and practice approach clearances that were requested on the air?
I am not that computer savvy, sorry! How about we ask our members in the Socal area, and at the flight schools at KLGB? I know when I go up to do my IFR currency flights I am frequently denied approaches, and there does not seem to be much traffic. It does not matter if I am in the KRAL areas or in the KTOA areas. KTOA and KHHR towers are swamped and doing a great job. So our new pilots are training there. I am hoping this is just an isolated problem here, but if not that we start looking into it for more information. From having a flight school myself I can see the aircraft sitting at ATP and Long Beach Flyers just sitting on good flying days. With the fixed costs so high, especially the insurance and maintenance costs, it does not take much to close a flight school down. I will get back to you with some specific times that this happens.
I am posting here about this issue to find out if this is a national problem, or just one to the SOCAL area. That’s all.
Although my comment was tongue in cheek, you'd be surprised how much some flight instructors don't know and how uncomfortable some of them are in non-towered field operations.
That’s disheartening.
I'm having trouble getting worked up about the cost of doing anything in California.
…and creates major safety issues when they do. :/
Per controllers on this and other forums, all towers are training towers.
And I didn't realize until recently that they pretty much always work at one geographical tower once they are hired.
It is the opposite problem here. We teach at an uncontrolled field, and as part of the training, our students have to learn Class D operations. But other than one towered airport nine miles away, we'd have to fly a long way to find another Class D airport. The nearby one has started to limit our pattern work, and it's quite frustrating at times.
I interned in Congress earlier this year, and learned all about our industry's shortcomings. We all have a role to play in promoting aviation and educating Congress, or these types of concerns will only worsen.
They don't want them either.
My brother was just telling me tonight they lost a lot of their AF traffic at ABI because controllers denying practice approaches. Used to get a lot of transient T-1s, T-6s and T-38s. They all found somewhere else to go.Oh that one's easy. AUS soooooooox. When they're not putting freighters on top of cattle wagons on cat III days, they're playa-hatin' on us friendly neighborhood red-blooded Cat E mafia. Artisan coffee sippin' overpriced real estate payin' hacks can't vector worth a damn, then get lippy on the radio when they lose the bubble in public. Now ask me how I really feel...
