Two Class D radio questions

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Lindberg

Final Approach
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Lindberg
I flew the NORDO Cub down to a nearby Class D airport with its own approach control. [I brought a handheld radio.] About 20 miles out I called up approach and reported position and intention to land at the airport. He gave me a squawk. I reported, "Unable, no transponder." So he tells me, "Do you want RADAR service? If not, you can just call the tower." I told him that'd be fine with me, he gave me the tower frequency, and that was that. But he sounded kind of irritated.

I know that I don't have to contact approach for a D, but I figured it was the right thing to do. This airport has some commuter jet traffic, and is in a busy transition area, so I figured I'd talk to him. But is that a waste of time if I don't have a transponder? I don't know if there's even enough metal in a Cub to get a primary return.

Second question, when I landed, tower told me to "remain this frequency," for ground. So when I started up to leave, I called up on the tower frequency. I called with "tower" and he responded with "ground," but was the same guy when I called for takeoff clearance. Even though I knew there was only one guy in the tower, should I have made my initial call on the ground freq?

I don't think it was a big deal in either case this day, I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing in the furture.
 
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Lindberg said:
I flew the NORDO Cub down to a nearby Class D airport with its own approach control. About 20 miles out I called up approach and reported position and intention to land at the airport. He gave me a squawk. I reported, "Unable, no transponder." So he tells me, "Do you want RADAR service? If not, you can just call the tower." I told him that'd be fine with me, he gave me the tower frequency, and that was that. But he sounded kind of irritated.

I know that I don't have to contact approach for a D, but I figured it was the right thing to do. This airport has some commuter jet traffic, and is in a busy transition area, so I figured I'd talk to him. But is that a waste of time if I don't have a transponder? I don't know if there's even enough metal in a Cub to get a primary return.

Second question, when I landed, tower told me to "remain this frequency," for ground. So when I started up to leave, I called up on the tower frequency. I called with "tower" and he responded with "ground," but was the same guy when I called for takeoff clearance. Even though I knew there was only one guy in the tower, should I have made my initial call on the ground freq?

I don't think it was a big deal in either case this day, I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing in the furture.
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You are not required to have the transponder, thats the rule. But not having one in a controlled airspace with busy controllers is an invitation to get ignored.

Remember, if you are not presenting an immediate hazard to anyone, you can get ignored by them. They have no obligation to call you either.
 
How do you fly a NORDO plane yet contact the tower via radio?

You need 2-way communication before entering the Delta.

As for ground/tower- sometimes they will be the same person, but you should always callup on the correct frequency.
 
CTLSi said:
You are not required to have the transponder, thats the rule. But not having one in a controlled airspace with busy controllers is an invitation to get ignored.

Remember, if you are not presenting an immediate hazard to anyone, you can get ignored by them. They have no obligation to call you either.
Click to expand...

I've found flying a no transponder into a D airport I actually do MORE talking, and sure don't get ignored. If we ain't talking he has no idea where I am in his delta.
 
CTLSi said:
You are not required to have the transponder, thats the rule. But not having one in a controlled airspace with busy controllers is an invitation to get ignored.

Remember, if you are not presenting an immediate hazard to anyone, you can get ignored by them. They have no obligation to call you either.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Not really my question. No one ignored me. And the controller did not seem to be too busy; I listened for a few minutes before I called him. He was certainly not as busy as the B controllers around here.

What I'm wondering is if I should have just not called approach at all since I didn't have to and if he doesn't want to hear from me if I'm transponderless. Or maybe he just didn't want to hear from me because I was low and slow and heading straight for the airport?
 
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Lindberg said:
Thanks. Not really my question. No one ignored me. And the controller did not seem to be too busy; I listened for a few minutes before I called him. He was certainly not as busy as the B controllers around here.

What I'm wondering is if I should have just not called approach at all since I didn't have to.
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If you weren't requesting FF and don't have a transponder, talking to approach is a waste of time.
 
warthog1984 said:
If you weren't requesting FF and don't have a transponder, talking to approach is a waste of time.
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Yeah. Just call the tower.

Regarding the ground freq: A lot of times a single controller works ground and tower. On initial contact, I would use the appropriate freq then let him tell you to switch if he wants. So even though he wanted you to stay on tower to parking, call up on ground when you get ready to leave. For all I know, he might have suspected you had a handheld and was doing you a favor by not asking you to change freqs while exiting the rwy.
 
Lindberg said:
Thanks. Not really my question. No one ignored me. And the controller did not seem to be too busy; I listened for a few minutes before I called him. He was certainly not as busy as the B controllers around here.

What I'm wondering is if I should have just not called approach at all since I didn't have to and if he doesn't want to hear from me if I'm transponderless. Or maybe he just didn't want to hear from me because I was low and slow and heading straight for the airport?
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TRACON = Terminal Radar Approach Control.

Bob Gardner
 
Lindberg said:
I flew the NORDO Cub down to a nearby Class D airport with its own approach control. [I brought a handheld radio.] About 20 miles out I called up approach and reported position and intention to land at the airport. He gave me a squawk. I reported, "Unable, no transponder." So he tells me, "Do you want RADAR service? If not, you can just call the tower." I told him that'd be fine with me, he gave me the tower frequency, and that was that. But he sounded kind of irritated.

I know that I don't have to contact approach for a D, but I figured it was the right thing to do. This airport has some commuter jet traffic, and is in a busy transition area, so I figured I'd talk to him. But is that a waste of time if I don't have a transponder? I don't know if there's even enough metal in a Cub to get a primary return.

Second question, when I landed, tower told me to "remain this frequency," for ground. So when I started up to leave, I called up on the tower frequency. I called with "tower" and he responded with "ground," but was the same guy when I called for takeoff clearance. Even though I knew there was only one guy in the tower, should I have made my initial call on the ground freq?

I don't think it was a big deal in either case this day, I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing in the furture.
Click to expand...

In your case I would have just called tower. I fly into Class Ds with approach control all the time and sometimes on ATIS they will say, "Contact approach control at least 20 miles from the airport." That mainly only happened when the Guard unit wanted to take the F-16s out to play so they wanted to start sequencing the F-16s and C-152s a little early than 5 miles from the airport. In that case I would call approach since it said to in the ATIS, but approach would probably just tell you to switch to tower, because he is limited on the services he can provide you without the transponder.

Usually when there is one guy in the tower, he will transmit on both frequencies at the same time(which is why you will sometimes hear take-off clearances while taxiing.) I try to stay on the ground frequency to eliminate radio chatter for guys in the pattern and who knows, may have been a shift change or something while I was eating my lunch and now there are two controllers up there working separate frequencies.

Plus the controller doesn't have to switch between frequencies. He is receiving and transmitting on both so unless he looks up at his fancy radio box, he doesn't know what frequency you are transmitting on, and you aren't doing him a solid by staying on as few frequencies as possible. Even though I can tell it is the same guy working clearance, ground and tower, I still call them by their respective duty positions(clearance, ground, tower), and on the respective frequency.
 
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Approach not wanting to deal with you was probably altitude related. If you are at proper cub altitude you are not in the way of his usual customers.
 
ClimbnSink said:
Approach not wanting to deal with you was probably altitude related. If you are at proper cub altitude you are not in the way of his usual customers.
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I suspect that approach didn't want to handle you because you lacked a transponder. While most approach facilities can get a primary return from a Cub sans transponder (there are some "RADARs" that can only see transponders) the controller can't do much until you are radar identified. With a transponder that's easy but without you'd probably have to do some maneuvering (e.g. fly a triangle) for that. And even then ATC isn't likely to be happy working you unless it was an emergency.
 
Yes, your Cub will show up on radar. All he has to do to get "radar contact" is position correlation from you or at least a 30 degree turn. I agree, unless you wanted FF to a class D, there's no point in calling approach. I would've answered his question with "yes, I want radar service."

Yes, call ground in the appropriate ground control frequency when ready for taxi.
 
Lindberg said:
I flew the NORDO Cub down to a nearby Class D airport with its own approach control. [I brought a handheld radio.] About 20 miles out I called up approach and reported position and intention to land at the airport. He gave me a squawk. I reported, "Unable, no transponder." So he tells me, "Do you want RADAR service? If not, you can just call the tower." I told him that'd be fine with me, he gave me the tower frequency, and that was that. But he sounded kind of irritated.
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For a Class D airport outside a TRSA, it is not appropriate to contact the TRACON covering the area around the Class D space unless you want flight following. As for the irritation, maybe the controller was just having a bad day -- it happens even to the best of them.

Second question, when I landed, tower told me to "remain this frequency," for ground. So when I started up to leave, I called up on the tower frequency. I called with "tower" and he responded with "ground," but was the same guy when I called for takeoff clearance. Even though I knew there was only one guy in the tower, should I have made my initial call on the ground freq?
Click to expand...
Yes, you should have been on Ground when you called to taxi for departure unless you were just taxiing back from clearing the runway to depart immediately.
 
I get the "remain this frequency" a lot at KCRQ when it's not busy and one guy is working ground and tower. It's more of a convenience thing for you than them. That's also a temporary situation though. If you land, go park, get lunch and come back it's entirely possible that there are now 2 people in the tower working both stations. If you come back after lunch to leave you shouldn't call on tower just because they didn't switch you after landing. You should call ground, because this is now your initial contact again.
 
Ron Levy said:
For a Class D airport outside a TRSA, it is not appropriate to contact the TRACON covering the area around the Class D space unless you want flight following.
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Landing at KADS (class D), I called tower and got my butt chewed for not calling approach first -- ??? :dunno:
 
N5922S said:
Landing at KADS (class D), I called tower and got my butt chewed for not calling approach first -- ??? :dunno:
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Was there something on the ATIS about that? Sometimes at busy terminals it says something like "arriving VFR aircraft contact Approach on xxx.xx for sequencing". If not, they had no cause to chew on you as long as you were arriving from the north or east (west and south being Bravo surface areas where you'd have to be talking to Approach). With that on the ATIS, I can definitely see them getting cranky if you cold-call them, but not otherwise.
 
Well I appreciate all the responses, it seems fairly unanimous. I guess this is not one of those scenarios where ATC would rather be talking to you than not. Maybe next time I will try FF.
 
N5922S said:
Landing at KADS (class D), I called tower and got my butt chewed for not calling approach first -- ??? :dunno:
Click to expand...

Ron Levy said:
Was there something on the ATIS about that? Sometimes at busy terminals it says something like "arriving VFR aircraft contact Approach on xxx.xx for sequencing". If not, they had no cause to chew on you as long as you were arriving from the north or east (west and south being Bravo surface areas where you'd have to be talking to Approach). With that on the ATIS, I can definitely see them getting cranky if you cold-call them, but not otherwise.
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The ATIS at KADS always includes "...VFR traffinc inbound to Addison contact Regional Approach on 124.25 (or 124.3, sometimes) at least one zero miles out..."

In most instances, calling Addison Tower first will get you a referral to Approach.

Exception: if you just lifted off from F69 (Airpark Dallas), which is inside Addison's Delta space.
 
SCCutler said:
The ATIS at KADS always includes "...VFR traffinc inbound to Addison contact Regional Approach on 124.25 (or 124.3, sometimes) at least one zero miles out..."
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That would certainly explain their crankiness at being cold-called.
 
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