Canceled clearance to land while on final

roncachamp said:
If continued flight would lead to conflict in spacing on the runway it means there was a need to adjust the pattern or speed.
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The controller can't always predict exactly what the first aircraft will do, and the controller has to protect him/herself. I can't count the number of times my landing clearance was delayed until the contoller was sure the aircraft ahead would clear the runway. If the controller has already cleared me to land, and then with my concurrence sticks another plane between me and the runway, it makes sense for the controller to withdraw my landing clearance until that separation is assured. We're both betting that the plane ahead won't do anything like that joker in the jet four posts up did to me, but sometimes it happens, and the controller needs to know that if I go NORDO, I won't cornhole that jet.
 
At places like LGB, I may have had 'privileged' clearances (and even got a 'welcome home' from tower when I flew 69SA in for AOPA:D) because the controllers knew me since day one of my training.
 
Henning said:
No, I didn't miss it, so are you saying you figured out why he cancelled the landing clearance? I've had the exact same thing happen and did the same thing with the same outcome. It's all good, he can't tell me what to do with my plane, he can only tell me what I can't do, ' I can't land right now'. What I do from there to deal with it is up to me. As long as the slipped in traffic is courteous, it's all good.
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No, I'm saying if there was no need to adjust the pattern or speed there was no reason to cancel the landing clearance.
 
At KSEE (Gillespie Field in El Cajon) they like to give you "S" turn instructions on final At KMYF I've gotten a lot of circle right or left instructions. I was on approach to 27 R at KMYF about a year ago, just under a real low ceiling and was told to circle right when I was at Cowls Mountain. I did my circle about a hundred feet above the dirt pile and was then cleared to land.

When I was off the runway waiting for taxi instructions, I looked back and the top third of that mountain was in the clouds. Had I been instructed to circle again I couldn't have done it. The airport was IFR only when I was cleared to taxi.

That is one of the big advantages to flying mostly at towered fields, you get to experience most everything they can throw at you. I'm no longer even remotely intimidated when approaching a "D" towered airport. I've never done C or B. Probably not much different, I would guess.

-John
 
Ron Levy said:
The controller can't always predict exactly what the first aircraft will do, and the controller has to protect him/herself.
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True, but does not change the fact that there's no reason to cancel the landing clearance if there's no need to adjust pattern or speed.

I can't count the number of times my landing clearance was delayed until the contoller was sure the aircraft ahead would clear the runway. If the controller has already cleared me to land, and then with my concurrence sticks another plane between me and the runway, it makes sense for the controller to withdraw my landing clearance until that separation is assured. We're both betting that the plane ahead won't do anything like that joker in the jet four posts up did to me, but sometimes it happens, and the controller needs to know that if I go NORDO, I won't cornhole that jet.
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The controller doesn't need your concurrence. He can clear as many operations in front of you as will fit, you have no say in the matter.
 
roncachamp said:
No, I'm saying if there was no need to adjust the pattern or speed there was no reason to cancel the landing clearance.
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Well, considering that the CFI in the OP decided to just slow down and create spacing to clear the problem, I would think it would be a reasonably safe assumption that such a conflict existed when the controller temporarily retracted the landing clearance. I'm just not seeing the great stretch in the imagination for a cancellation of the landing clearance to be appropriate here.:dunno:
 
Henning said:
Well, considering that the CFI in the OP decided to just slow down and create spacing to clear the problem, I would think it would be a reasonably safe assumption that such a conflict existed when the controller temporarily retracted the landing clearance. I'm just not seeing the great stretch in the imagination for a cancellation of the landing clearance to be appropriate here.:dunno:
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Nothing in the OP suggests there was a spacing problem or a need to slow down.
 
roncachamp said:
Nothing in the OP suggests there was a spacing problem or a need to slow down.
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Ok, you're the controller, I just thought that having a jet 'under take' a slower plane inside 2 miles on final would be a set up for that type of separation issue, but again, I have no basis for that.
 
roncachamp said:
The controller doesn't need your concurrence. He can clear as many operations in front of you as will fit, you have no say in the matter.
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Maybe that's how you do it in Green Bay, but most controllers are more courteous than that when they want to resequence someone in front of another pilot already sequenced and cleared to land. They also remember favors, and repay them. But that's just most controllers, and you may be different.
 
Ron Levy said:
Maybe that's how you do it in Green Bay, but most controllers are more courteous than that when they want to resequence someone in front of another pilot already sequenced and cleared to land. They also remember favors, and repay them. But that's just most controllers, and you may be different.
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What I said applies everywhere and involves no favors.
 
Henning said:
Ok, you're the controller, I just thought that having a jet 'under take' a slower plane inside 2 miles on final would be a set up for that type of separation issue, but again, I have no basis for that.
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"Under take"?
 
It is kind of odd for a landing clearance to be outright cancelled. I've had controllers amend it to #2 or #3 behind... before.
 
I've never had a landing clearance "cancelled" per se...

I had tower instruct me to go around once when spacing on the runway got a little too tight for their liking, I was watching it too and still thought it was marginally OK but was spring loaded to go around. Towers threshold was lower than mine, they pulled the plug first.

A couple of times I've been on long straight-in final and cleared to land and tower has advised me that I am now number two to land behind some other traffic turning base-to-final in front of me, and asking if I have visual of them.
 
Ron, understand what you're saying about the regs that they don't have to cancel.

I suspect at KAPA (because they do the "cancel landing clearance" and then re-issue it when it looks like the runway separation distance will be okay, or the preceding aircraft has cleared... ALL the time...) that they're thing it to some physical thing they're doing in the Local chair, like restacking strips or something. Local policy?

Something along the lines of, "If you shuffle the strips, you need to cancel the landing clearance for the aircraft you had in that first slot."

That'd be my guess anyway, since they're a training tower.

Can ask the next time I run into the manager or one of the controllers. They're super nice folks and being a night owl, I regularly keep the weekday night guy company in the pattern or wander off and he's always cheerful when we get back later.

One night a bunch of us accosted him and asked for an impromptu tower tour and he laughed and said we needed to call 'em first, and it had to be a night where they had enough folks up there to handle an escort. The student pilot sounded all bummed. I was just laughing. Never heard three aircraft joking with a guy telling him "We want to come up there! When can we pick on you in person?" before. ;)

The controller at KBJC was definitely bored tonight. After a couple of night full-stop/taxi-backs I said we'd be departing to the Southeast. She gave a takeoff clearance and said, "We're not exciting enough here for ya?" Haha. Karen and I laughed. I said, "Nah... We're based at Centennial, we're just going home." :)

Someone was getting light gun signals at KAPA when I got back in a Cirrus. Controller was asking the pilot if they were seeing it okay, "we were having a problem with this light gun earlier and had to use the other one, how does it look?"... or something like that. Dude in the Cirrus was mumbling so bad the controller asked a couple of times and I couldn't understand the guy either.

Love our controllers around here. Great folks.
 
This happened ot me a few weeks ago at KVNY when they were training a new ATC person. I woudl get clearnaces form one person then a few seconds later someone would take it away. It was nuts, the guy was having a hard time spacing slow trainers on one runway with jets on the other and timing our arivals. We cant land parallel each other. On one occasion he canceled on me about 10 seconds from touchdown and I just went around. On another about 1/2 mile away on final he canceled and asked me to turn back to the downwind leg... as much as it was frustrting it was one of my most fun lessons as I had to react to him making odd requests and I was able to comply and comunicate on every one. My Instructor said I handled it all very well. It built up more ATC confidence so all in all it was a positive experience...
 
Ron Levy said:
60 knots ground speed on final is pretty typical for a light single, and you slow further at the threshold.

Well, in my 43 years of flying, I've never seen that as an issue outside of someplace like O'Hare or Hartsfield. OTOH, I have many times had controllers ask me to slow down behind traffic in front of me either to stay behind them or make a hole for someone else, but YMMV.
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I remember one of the first cross countries that I flew, to a busy Class C airport, they told ANOTHER PILOT about my speed. I took it as a negative, they said something to the plane behind me like "reporting only 70 knots on the 172" and then they made him circle or something. They did not ask me to hurry up since they I think cleared me to land or something and then an airliner took off so they asked for a 200-something (some manuever). Thank goodness I had another pilot in the plane I had no idea what they wanted. Just some sort of turn or circle on one of my legs. But I was all set up in my pattern and remember thinking "why is that huge airliner taking the runway now????" Yet another reason I don't like towered airports, never know what will happen....
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Yet another reason I don't like towered airports, never know what will happen....
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Actually, towered airports are way more predictable than small uncontrolled airports where some people decide to just cut in final to land without announcing and with complete disregard to other traffic in the pattern. The whole notion of having to work with atc and tower might be intimidating at first, but after a while its easier and then you might only want to land on controlled fields to avoid random crazyness and close calls with rusty once every two months weekend pilots.:dunno:
 
cirrusmx said:
Actually, towered airports are way more predictable than small uncontrolled airports where some people decide to just cut in final to land without announcing and with complete disregard to other traffic in the pattern. The whole notion of having to work with atc and tower might be intimidating at first, but after a while its easier and then you might only want to land on controlled fields to avoid random crazyness and close calls with rusty once every two months weekend pilots.:dunno:
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I went to three towered airports last night (thanks Eric). They did crazy things. I would NOT have been OK jumping in the deep end like that.

1. First (departing) airport gave code.

2. Second tower approved us to transition through their airspace, then told us to cross their runway (at or below 1500 which they had cleared us through due to nearby charlie restriction, this was a delta) then said no delay apparently we didn't cross fast enough.

3. Then we get handed off to San Jose International, so many talks no time for ATIS. We land and all is fine, takeoff they ask us to make a left turn when able then go BACK OVER THE RUNWAY. Pilot says "doing a 270" which he would have hoped they would have asked for. A big jet coming in or leaving. Gosh I would have sucked at all this.

4. Then next airport nothing odd though left pattern for 31 right made pilot ask if they were sure not 31 left. Finally most were closed after 9 or 10pm so my "comfort" increased as they all turned CTAF late last night and we flew from number 4 back to number one avoiding all charlie and going the long way with just 1200 and no more ATC.

Here is the CRAZY TAC / sectional for that area with my notes (notice split delta on number one because right and left patterns have different TPA's due to the salt marshes vs. the homes meaning noise abatement):


7113571363_731d20c54c_b.jpg
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
I went to three towered airports last night (thanks Eric). They did crazy things. I would NOT have been OK jumping in the deep end like that.

1. First (departing) airport gave code.

2. Second tower approved us to transition through their airspace, then told us to cross their runway (at or below 1500 which they had cleared us through due to nearby charlie restriction, this was a delta) then said no delay apparently we didn't cross fast enough.

3. Then we get handed off to San Jose International, so many talks no time for ATIS. We land and all is fine, takeoff they ask us to make a left turn when able then go BACK OVER THE RUNWAY. Pilot says "doing a 270" which he would have hoped they would have asked for. A big jet coming in or leaving. Gosh I would have sucked at all this.

4. Then next airport nothing odd though left pattern for 31 right made pilot ask if they were sure not 31 left. Finally most were closed after 9 or 10pm so my "comfort" increased as they all turned CTAF late last night and we flew from number 4 back to number one avoiding all charlie and going the long way with just 1200 and no more ATC.

Here is the CRAZY TAC / sectional for that area with my notes (notice split delta on number one because right and left patterns have different TPA's due to the salt marshes vs. the homes meaning noise abatement):


7113571363_731d20c54c_b.jpg
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Imagine what it would be like with all the traffic in the area moving around with no ATC? Way too busy to not have a referee.
 
Rex Kramer said:
Imagine what it would be like with all the traffic in the area moving around with no ATC? Way too busy to not have a referee.
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I can't even imagine. Plus, the tower guys at SJC International were super cool sounding to me. Very laid back.

Then again it was late at night on a weeknight. We probably saw / heard oh I don't know less than 5 jets total.
 
Rex Kramer said:
Imagine what it would be like with all the traffic in the area moving around with no ATC? Way too busy to not have a referee.
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:dunno: People flying all over around there not talking to anybody, it's not that tough in Nor or So Cal to not talk to anyone except for take off and landing. Normally I take FF and they grant it, but mostly it's as a courtesy not a necessity. There are times when they're too busy and I just duck and weave through the airspace which granted is much easier these days with moving maps than it was 20 years ago when small GA traffic was more than twice what it is now.
 
Henning said:
:dunno: People flying all over around there not talking to anybody, it's not that tough in Nor or So Cal to not talk to anyone except for take off and landing. Normally I take FF and they grant it, but mostly it's as a courtesy not a necessity. There are times when they're too busy and I just duck and weave through the airspace which granted is much easier these days with moving maps than it was 20 years ago when small GA traffic was more than twice what it is now.
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Yes on the way back last night (see below) we stayed on 1200 - everyone was CTAF anyways and no towers were open except SJC. Different colors represent flight / taxi / next flight / etc. I drew this from memory, didn't have Cloud Ahoy or an iPad and we talked about our path in the terminal building at Reid. It was almost like a lesson since my sense of direction is poor I wanted to understand everything we did.


7114468293_14bc1df32b_b.jpg
 
Oh and I hate parallel runways (30L and 30R) and the readback ("Left traffic for three zero right") since I am in danger of saying "right traffic for three zero left" or whatever.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Oh and I hate parallel runways (30L and 30R) and the readback ("Left traffic for three zero right") since I am in danger of saying "right traffic for three zero left" or whatever.
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You're going to make left traffic for the left and right traffic for the right 95% of the time. If they are going to take you from L to R or Vice versa, they'll usually cross you over on base or final. Until you get there they will typically call you in on the runway closest to you. If you're in a big/fast plane and they call you in on the short side, often they'll give something like "Call 3 miles out & make right traffic 25R, expect runway 25L for landing"
 
Henning said:
You're going to make left traffic for the left and right traffic for the right 95% of the time. If they are going to take you from L to R or Vice versa, they'll usually cross you over on base or final. Until you get there they will typically call you in on the runway closest to you. If you're in a big/fast plane and they call you in on the short side, often they'll give something like "Call 3 miles out & make right traffic 25R, expect runway 25L for landing"
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Nope this was the 5% then. But when we landed it was less than 10 minutes before they went to CTAF so they only had 30R (or was it 31?)

I saw that on final and thought "oh." But from far away with all the city lights you wonder why they are asking us to do left traffic for a right runway. The PIC even asked / clarified since he said that was unusual.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Nope this was the 5% then. But when we landed it was less than 10 minutes before they went to CTAF so they only had 30R (or was it 31?)

I saw that on final and thought "oh." But from far away with all the city lights you wonder why they are asking us to do left traffic for a right runway. The PIC even asked / clarified since he said that was unusual.
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Probably because they knew they weren't getting any more traffic before they closed. Typically they do it the way I described to keep traffic situations clear until you are in a position where the have a better knowledge of what they'll need.
 
Henning said:
:dunno: People flying all over around there not talking to anybody, it's not that tough in Nor or So Cal to not talk to anyone except for take off and landing. Normally I take FF and they grant it, but mostly it's as a courtesy not a necessity. There are times when they're too busy and I just duck and weave through the airspace which granted is much easier these days with moving maps than it was 20 years ago when small GA traffic was more than twice what it is now.
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I was referencing that she went to and between those airports, not just sliding underneath some associated airspace. I'd still want flight following if I could get it.
 
Rex Kramer said:
I was referencing that she went to and between those airports, not just sliding underneath some associated airspace. I'd still want flight following if I could get it.
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Me too. We almost got it but then went around / under the C at the end. It was quiet, calm, and very few planes around. Personally, with the exception of Saturday's flight last week, I always get flight following. I didn't last week since I knew I'd lose them due to the mountains but I probably should have. I flew to the middle of nowhere however, not that crazy mess above.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Yes on the way back last night (see below) we stayed on 1200 - everyone was CTAF anyways and no towers were open except SJC. Different colors represent flight / taxi / next flight / etc. I drew this from memory, didn't have Cloud Ahoy or an iPad and we talked about our path in the terminal building at Reid. It was almost like a lesson since my sense of direction is poor I wanted to understand everything we did.


7114468293_14bc1df32b_b.jpg
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Darn good memory, I don't know how you do it :) One minor correction though, the green (return) line should have been farther north, actually just outside the map shown. I wanted to avoid the Charlie altogether. And yeah, I checked to make sure that RHV wanted me on 31R with left traffic. They did because 31L was not being used.
 
I just love that the blimp hangar at Moffatt is charted. Never noticed that before. ;)
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Oh and I hate parallel runways (30L and 30R) and the readback ("Left traffic for three zero right") since I am in danger of saying "right traffic for three zero left" or whatever.
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So maybe you need to fly to Hayward some time, that one has nested patterns.
 
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