Being based out of a non-towered airport has its charms.
In general, the traffic is less dense than at a towered airport. After all, there are roughly 19,000 airports in the U.S., but only about 500 have towers. There’s a reason for that. Actually, multiple reasons. For one thing, towers are expensive. It takes dollars to build, maintain, and staff a tower.
If the traffic flow doesn’t suggest the need, why do it?
There’s an implied lesson in that scenario that apparently isn’t well understood by a disquietingly large minority of pilots. The FAA and the local hosts of those airports assume, perhaps wrongly, that pilots will go out of their way to act in a safe and predictable manner as they approach or depart the area.
I wish that were universally true. But it’s not. You know it. I know it. The pilots who insist on embracing the Anti-Authority hazardous attitude the FAA warns us about know it too. They just don’t care.
That’s not just bad manners. It injects a level of risk into flight operations that just aren’t necessary. If your ego is big enough, however, no risk is too great to prevent some of us from doing whatever the heck we want.
Let’s take Cameron Park, California, as an example, just northeast of Sacramento. I’m not saying anything specifically untoward has taken place there. I’m merely using it as an illustration.
O61 is a suburban, non-towered airport that has taken positive steps to ensure safe flight operations by putting specific, long-standing local safety procedures in place. The single runway, 13/31, is 4,051 feet long and 50 feet wide.
The FAA Chart Supplement listing for O61 includes a single line that catches my eye. “Noise abatement procedures call arpt manager,” followed by a phone number.
I suspect that call would get me directions to the Cameron Park Airport District web page where I would find a full page devoted to “Noise Abatement Considerations.” They are logical and thoroughly understandable.
Runway 31 is the preferred runway (no wind). There is a recommendation to fly the Rwy 31 approach at 1,700 MSL to avoid higher terrain, then land at or beyond the displaced threshold.
There is also a note that tells us flying through the pass, or “notch” to the south of the airport, is strongly discouraged due to noise sensitivity in that area.
On climb-out from either runway I’m asked to fly straight out, climbing to 2,000 MSL before making any turns. Pilots are also asked to refrain from flying over the trailer park to the northeast or the schools located to the northwest.
Fair enough. If I were to saddle up and head west with a plan of including Cameron Park in my list of destinations, I know exactly what is expected of me on arrival and departure.
But what if I decide I want to land on Runway 13 in a no-wind situation. Or I decide I’m going to fly right over that trailer park because it’s most convenient. And what if I fly low through that notch to get on course more quickly. Am I violating a regulation or just annoying the locals?
Am I showing a complete disregard for airport management in their attempts to operate the airport safely while doing their best to avoid angering the neighbors?
Yes, I think all those things are true to some degree. And that’s unacceptable.
Whether I’m a tenant of the airport or a transient pilot stopping in for a bite at the Thai House across the street, I think I owe it to the management to familiarize myself with their local operational standards and follow them to the best of my ability. In fact, I’m pretty sure the FAA requires that of me.
Unfortunately, that cooperative mindset has been falling by the wayside in recent years. I increasingly see pilots ignoring local standards to do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, regardless of the situation unfolding in front of them. That’s inexcusable behavior. It’s not far removed from the spoiled kid pitching a fit in the aisle at Target because his mom won’t buy him the toy or treat he wants right now. So, he screams and pouts and makes a scene.
When my kids were young there was a simple resolution to that situation that did not favor the kid’s behavior. In my youth it would involve some physical pain and an uncomfortable ride home on a sore butt.
The FAA is not known for stepping in to settle squabbles at non-towered airports. Perhaps that’s for the best. It is non-towered after all.
Best practices suggest we should self-announce on the CTAF not in an attempt to say “Here I come, get out of the way,” but rather to find a way to smoothly flow into the traffic pattern without causing undue stress or confusion in others.
Listening is at least as important as talking. Arguably, more so.
Not long ago I sat in on a safety meeting at an airport where this exact sort of aeronautically anti-social behavior has become the norm. Aircraft from a nearby flight school were routinely utilizing a runway other than the one designated as preferred. A representative of the flight school explained, “I can’t tell a pilot what to do.”
This stunned me. Not just because it’s untrue, but also because the whole point of a flight school is to tell pilots what to do. To help them develop good judgment, to recognize the need for cooperation with others, to intentionally establish a culture of safety. Even to mentor the CFIs at the school to feel confident explaining to their students why falling in line is generally a better idea than fighting the tide.
The erosion of safety in flight is not the fault of the FAA or your state’s Department of Transportation. The risks we’re seeing at non-towered airports are of our own making. A minority of us seem to be insistent that they are free to act without regard for others.
They are wrong. While they may get away with their hubris, they are increasing risk, which increases the odds of accidents and incidents, which raises insurance rates for all of us. It also gives those noise sensitive neighbors the ammunition they need when lobbying for the closure of our much beloved non-towered airports.
It’s time to shape up. Schedule a flight review to get up to speed on how to fly safely, not just for yourself, but for the rest of us, too.
And if you operate a flight school, take that responsibility seriously.
Our role is to promote safety of flight while producing competent pilots. If we’re teaching them to ignore the notes in the Chart Supplement, or the local, posted safety procedures, we’re doing it wrong.
I’m sorry, but I have to strongly disagree with most of this.
Y’all are grossly under estimating the number of daily GA flights in the USA and even further under estimating the level of aviation ignorance in the non-flying public. We are seriously talking about a tiny percentage of the several hundred thousand pilots who are “cowboys” or who ignore published local procedures on occasion. And we are talking about 100 Million non-educated people you are opening the door to file formal complaints against those pilots across 15,000 landing sites in these United States.
Just stop!
I’m nearing the end of fifty years of aviation and am glad to be getting out now that it seems a bunch of crying weanies are supporting telling the FAA rather than chatting with a pilot.
Pretty sure well intentioned cures to sanitize GA will also be it’s ultimate demise. Already getting there as it is.
Like most venues, it’s usually the most inept who scream the loudest.
The majority of laws started at your right end at the property line of my yard; your right to do what you want end where it adversely affects me…..
In this case at no tower airports- FAA should mandate cameras recording plane registration
Numbers or close the airport. And then after that if there are a # of complaints about planes, impound the plane ….. [ various departments and agencies can impound cars]
File a Hazardous Air Traffic Report (HATR) with as many details as possible on those pilots not complying with local procedures and, by their actions, negatively impacting safety of flight. Once you start a paper trail, it’s hard for the FAA to ignore.
The HATR appears to be a USAF document.
Civilians would report with NASA ARC , using form 277, known as ASRS.
“Local safety procedures are not to be ignored.”
I absolutely agree …but it is not just “local safety procedures”; it’s the FARs.
Pick one: 91.113, 91.117, 91.126, 91.127…
Read the AIM …or maybe just skim AC 90-66C? Not going to happen.
There are a few public-use airports in my region that I refuse to fly into because they are not safe. It is anarchy out there, and they just do not care.
Nothing bad has happened, yet, to make them change their behavior, so they won’t. We’re talking based and transient aircraft…and that includes “flight instruction”.
Appeals to the FAA, of course, go unheeded. At one location, we tried to get the then-AOPA regional manager involved…to no avail: “Not my job.” OK, granted.
Unfortunately, just like with attendance at safety seminars, the “pilots” that should read articles like this, don’t.
To the flight school rep …we’re assuming a CFI(?)…that said “I can’t tell a pilot what to do”: You’re fired.
Good comments, agree with all. I might add 14 CFR Part 1 “Traffic Pattern” definition to your reading list.
I most likely live on one of the airports on your no fly list. The majority traffic is local flight schools that use the airport for training, since their home base towered airport is too busy to accommodate them. The attitude seems to be that as long as you announce your intentions on the radio you are free to do whatever you please….
Excellent article. Many nails hit squarely on their heads. This situation is a microcosm of the larger tension between ‘free market behavior’ and government regulations. Examples are legion. The guiding assumption is that people behave in their own best interest. No, often we do not. In many cases we act in selfish instant gratification interest irrespective of the downsides of that behavior, for example driving home from a bar after too many beers.
The rise of the automobile offers prime examples. One might imagine that drivers would voluntarily restrict their vehicle speed so as to avoid wrecks. Many did and do, but some do not, which gave rise to posted speed limits and punishment for violations. Even the European Autobahn after a series of horrendous carnage finally posted a speed limit. Why? Some of us have a cowboy mentality prevalent in the cross-country cattle drives over private property involving cutting fences and trampling crops. The cowboy song “Don’t Fence me In” celebrated this activity. The hell with the ranchers. For a long while this mentality was present in long-haul big truck drivers sometimes described as the last of the American cowboys. Institution of the commercial driver’s license (CDL) removed the old drunk dregs from this vital occupation and gave rise to the professional truck driver class which is overwhelmingly respective of laws and good behavior. History shows that a reasonable degree of government regulations is needed to keep things safe and civil. Regrettably.
What to do about cowboy GA pilots? Certainly not erecting and staffing control towers at every little grass strip around the country. But what? How about a simple reporting mechanism involving recorded radio traffic and on-board cameras showing tail numbers documenting bad pilot behavior? There could be a dedicated regional court system similar to ‘drug court’ and ‘rent court’ to bring dangerous disrespectful pilots to task. Penalties could be suspension or cancellation of their pilot’s license, ‘driver school’ classes and serious fines varying with the severity of their offenses. It might take a while for this system to sink-in to the GA cowboy’s mind, but eventually it might weed-out the hoodlum class from GA and have an effect similar to the CDL. Any better ideas? Let’s hear them.
Thanks/Regards/J
Follow the guidelines. It’s pretty simple, really. But the noise abatement thing is a tough one as complaints from the non-flying public are highly subjective. At my nearby government GA airport, which existed decades before nearby housing grew up, much of the complaints comes from people who want all private flying to stop as they deem us to be all rich people with their toys. I’d bet that their leaf blowers, used daily, are far louder than any aircraft, but there it is.
I agree, Jaimie. Any flight school that does not teach students about reading, understanding and following any supplemental limitations for any airport is doing a “disservice” to all pilots, and I for one would like to know what “else” are they “not teaching” that the students “need to know”? And, any pilot that wants to be a know it all, or doesn’t care for his/ her or our safety should not be flying, and i don’t want to fly with them, or take lessons from them! To ignore “safety” is surely one way to get into “Harm’s Way”
Well said, Jaimie.
Thank-you