Less Than Truthful With ATC

Daleandee

Daleandee

Final Approach
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Dale Andee
From the the "not worthy of it's own thread" thread comes this that I believe may be worthy of its own thread.

I wondered if anyone else has been instructed to report the airport in sight by ATC and did so without actually having a visual reference on the field.

Have there been other times when you had to cast a bit of shade on the truth when replying to ATC?

Asking for a friend ...
 
JOhnH said:
NO. Never! I"d never thing of such a thing.
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I would never think that YOU did but maybe you had a friend mention something that happened to him ... :biggrin:
 
SkyDog58 said:
What would be the benefit?
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You're getting close enough that you should be making calls on CTAF? I dont think Ive ever told a controller I had a field in sight without seeing it, but Ive asked to cancel flight following knowing that the airport is just around a hill or something like that.
 
Does having it on ForeFlight count? Seems to work for traffic.
 
aka "the end of the magenta line is in sight on my ipad and I can hold a heading for a few miles more without parental supervision" ?? Perish the thought and clutches of pearls!

+1 on brevity. "field in sight" is three syllables. "cancel flight following" is six. "cancel IFR" is five. The white lie wins every battle, except for "Eff Off" which, while compact and tidy, may cause the relaying of phone numbers, and those take a LOT of syllables, robbing you of the efficiency trophy in spirit, if not in letter. :D
 
If you ain't cheatin' you ain't trying. Oh s-- this isn't the medical forum. Whooops.

ETA: ...or the mx forum. tee hee. :D
 
If you report the field in sight, you are going to get "cleared for the visual'; and if its at an non-towered field, they have to go through all that 'report downtime to FSS (or whatever is available), any freq change, and squawk 1200' to which you say "Cancel ifr" in most cases.
Save atc from doing all that by just canceling as soon as you are legally able to.

And no, there is no point in fudging a visual report. Imagine your follow-up call when it doesn't work out, "er approach/center, I lost sight of the field, can you give me back my ifr clearance" lol.

I think the system in place covers most situations pretty well.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
If you report the field in sight, you are going to get "cleared for the visual'; and if its at an non-towered field, they have to go through all that 'report downtime to FSS (or whatever is available), any freq change, and squawk 1200' to which you say "Cancel ifr" in most cases.
Save atc from doing all that by just canceling as soon as you are legally able to.

And no, there is no point in fudging a visual report. Imagine your follow-up call when it doesn't work out, "er approach/center, I lost sight of the field, can you give me back my ifr clearance" lol.

I think the system in place covers most situations pretty well.
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I personally never said anything about being IFR. almost none of what you just said applies to me when I do it.
 
eman1200 said:
I personally never said anything about being IFR. almost none of what you just said applies to me when I do it.
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Indeed, we could easily separate the answers for VFR vs IFR.
So, take out the comm problem and my answer applies to VFR too. No upside to lying on this. Downside possible.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Indeed, we could easily separate the answers for VFR vs IFR.
So, take out the comm problem and my answer applies to VFR too. No upside to lying on this. Downside possible.
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disagree.
 
There's this guy that busted the Bravo and then used the old, "my radio is broken" line with the controller:

 
Let'sgoflying! said:
That's cool.
Tell me how there are upsides, and any downsides are negligible and I'll start lying to ATC too maybe. :D
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nah. I'm not promoting it, I'm just saying I've done it, and it's far less impactful than you're making it out to be.
 
Good question actually. When you are 100 percent sure that you are on the correct, and landable track via your non WAAS Garmin 430 on a localizer approach, do you go missed at published minimums? Or do you just f*****ing do it?

I'm not taking a position here. I'm just saying. I mean asking.
 
ATC: “N12345, say altitude” in a way that reminds you you’re about to eff up my at-or-below vfr instructions (or already did but I’m in a good mood, no harm, no foul, no number to call just yet).

PILOT: “uh......_,000” (slight delay first pulling power, pushing yoke down, and THEN keying mic stating altitude rounded down to the nearest hundred...)

That wasn’t me by the way, in case someone was wondering.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
ATC: “N12345, say altitude” in a way that reminds you you’re about to eff up my at-or-below vfr instructions (or already did but I’m in a good mood, no harm, no foul, no number to call just yet).

PILOT: “uh......_,000” (slight delay first pulling power, pushing yoke down, and THEN keying mic stating altitude rounded down to the nearest hundred...)

That wasn’t me by the way, in case someone was wondering.
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“Let me try my other transponder.”
 
Even if irrational, I can see feeling pressure to report the field in sight. Like they wouldn’t be asking unless every other competent Pilot in the world would see the field at this point, so maybe I should just say yes.

I haven’t done that, that I recall, but I can see feeling that.
 
MauleSkinner said:
“Let me try my other transponder.”
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Funny ... flying with a friend I was doing the radio work when shortly after a departure ATC called and said that they had lost our transponder. A quick reply of "recycling transponder" gave me moment to learn that it was off due to being loose in the tray from being reinstalled after a panel upgrade. Jiggling the unit brought it back online and soon ATC acknowledged they had our transponder back. When this occurred the second time (different controller after a hand-off) I figured out that jamming a small piece of carboard in the slot below the transponder kept it from moving and the power dropouts didn't happen anymore.

It was fixed with a new connector in the mounting tray.
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
Even if irrational, I can see feeling pressure to report the field in sight. Like they wouldn’t be asking unless every other competent Pilot in the world would see the field at this point, so maybe I should just say yes.

I haven’t done that, that I recall, but I can see feeling that.
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Nah, for me that’s not it.

One time when asked for my direction of flight I said 130 instead of 129. Just easier to say onethirty than onetwoniner.
 
MauleSkinner said:
First one to call it in with gets cleared for the visual. Other guy has to wait.
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I guess I have never flown in such a cutthroat world of flying where a few minutes is going to kill my day.
The advantages of flying largely in the boonies.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I guess I have never flown in such a cutthroat world of flying where a few minutes is going to kill my day.
The advantages of flying largely in the boonies.
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It doesn’t kill my day, but I know some people who are really fun to **** off. :D
 
There are some airports that you truly don’t see until you are in the pattern. My home base is one of them. It’s about a 1/2 from a water tower I can see from 30 miles away. If the controller asks if I have the airport in sight 10 miles away, am I lying, assuming they haven’t moved the airport in the last 24 hours? That said, I don’t fudge on airports I’m unfamiliar with. That said, with GPS, navigational assistance from ATC is probably less of a concern than getting on ctaf getting a mental picture of what’s going on. So even if i don’t have the airport in sight but I want to cancel flight following, I’ll simply reply with “N182V cancelling radar services requesting frequency change” and everyone is happy.

If I’m IFR, if I said “airport in sight” than I *probably* had the airport in sight…
 
SkyDog58 said:
What would be the benefit?
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Was once flying to a new-to-us fly-in community to check it out, and told ATC we had it in sight when we thought we did (this was decades before Foreflight). He said great, frequency change approved. About 30 seconds later he comes back asking if we're still on frequency, and says do we still have the airport in sight? Yes, we've got it straight ahead. Well, its behind you now.... :cool:
 
I have it in sight...on my iPad.

More that knowing what they are asking is knowing why they are asking and answering accordingly.

Admittedly I have also used the "airport in sight" call as a friendly "HEY...did you forget about me?...I need a handoff to tower" call even when I may not have actual had eyes on the runway.
 
I am shocked at the very notion of this!

Of course, one typically can at least see the town and reporting that you have (town name) in sight is honest. Not your fault if they interpret that as the field being in sight.
 
So I get the brevity idea, but why not just say, "Not in sight, but we can cancel [IFR or VFRFF]." Granted, that might be less applicable on a MVFR day or when there is a scattered layer between you and the field, but still, it's totally honest that you don't have the field in sight, but also gives ATC the opportunity to get rid of you. Of course, if you don't have the field in sight because you're not entirely sure where it is...

I remember flying into KELM at night, and I knew that the turn of the highway would basically line me up for final, but with no beacon, I couldn't find the REIL for anything with all the other surrounding lights. It was pretty late before I finally got visual on the field even though I knew more or less where it was. I can't remember, but I THINK I opted to stay on with ELM approach until visual, which resulted in a pretty late handoff to the tower. Rather be safe than sorry!
 
MauleSkinner said:
First one to call it in with gets cleared for the visual. Other guy has to wait.
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^ This

Shawn said:
Admittedly I have also used the "airport in sight" call as a friendly "HEY...did you forget about me?...I need a handoff to tower" call even when I may not have actual had eyes on the runway.
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I've done that when I've had it in sight and they are still leaving me up a bit high. Watching WingX tell me 700+ fpm to the airport and the number is going up. I'd rather do closer to 500 fpm. When I'm doing Angel Flight missions I tell them before 600 fpm, especially if I'm carrying young kids.
 
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