This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
While on a local instructional flight with a training call sign, ZZZ tower told us to turn base inside of airline traffic on a nine-mile final and we were cleared for touch and go.
Tower controller never let us know spacing became an issue with the 737 on final until we were on the runway and the student was executing the touch-and-go procedure.
Tower told us to immediately execute a wave off or go-around procedure and immediately side step to the right of the runway centerline.
As the instructor I took the controls of the Cessna 172 and immediately got the plane airborne and side stepped to the right of centerline well below the 400 AGL usually required for the pattern at ZZZ and remained visually clear of all obstacles. The 737 landed in close proximity behind us.
In my experience, this has become a concerning trend at ZZZ with local tower controllers trying to fit too many planes in too tight spots between all the corporate, general aviation, high volume of training flights, and airline traffic.
Primary Problem: Procedure
ACN: 2141015
I learned to fly at a very busy airport KFXE where line up & wait and expedite landing & departing runway was the norm. WE, the instructor and I always went to smaller nearby airports to practice touch & goes.
There are a couple of details missing from this narrative. Where in the pattern was the Cessna when the controller issued the traffic on final and instruction to turn base inside of that traffic? How wide of a pattern was the Cessna flying?
While not specified here, there is a tendency for some students and their instructors to fly large patterns with stretched out downwinds before turning base. This might have been an excellent opportunity for the instructor to demonstrate a short approach. It might also have been a learning opportunity for the instructor to gain some situational awareness and do the math about how long it takes for a 737 on a nine-mile final doing at least 140 knots, to arrive at the runway threshold.
The value of this article could have increased from zero by identifying which actual facility is represented by ZZZ. Or by citing the possible improvement that could be gained by having the tower controller play my favorite Mr Rogers’ game, “What Happens Next.”
My experience with controllers has been almost universally positive, with hardly a bad apple in the bunch. The apocryphal stories we encounter with airline pilots trolling overworked controllers serve only to expose bad behavior on one or both parties’ parts.
In almost twenty years as a military and then civilian pilot, I found that remembering that everybody can have a bad day provides the mental lubricant to achieve an equal number of safe takeoffs and landings.
Perhaps extending training and practice flights downwinds, or orbiting, as neccessary for better sequencing