Outside Your Comfort Zone?
By James Williams, FAA Safety Briefing Magazine
I’ve always said that if you started flying out of either a towered or non-towered airport, it has an impact that stretches beyond your first tentative flights. Although my first flight at the controls was out of a non-towered airport, the vast bulk of my initial training was out of a small, towered, class D airport. And henceforth, I have always felt just a little bit more comfortable at towered airports. On my first solo cross country I still remember arriving at a non-towered airport for the first time without an instructor alongside. I initially thought, “What are these people doing? They’re everywhere! It’s chaos!” It wasn’t. It was a mildly busy morning at a fairly normal GA airport. In retrospect, I know that now. But at the time, it was a culture shock. I’ve witnessed an equal but opposite effect on those who ‘grew up’ at a non-towered field. These tendencies can be overcome by experience. Personally, I spent a summer operating out of a non-towered GA reliever airport on a regular basis, and that made me a lot more comfortable in the non-towered environment going forward. But not everyone has that opportunity, so what should we do?
There’s an AC for That!
There may not be an app for that, but there is an Advisory Circular (AC). ACs are one of the FAA’s ways of sharing information and helping people comply with regulations. ACs certainly aren’t the only way to comply with a given rule or regulation, but they are a good way to ensure compliance if in doubt. They can also be a good starting point for deeper research on a topic. In this case, AC 90–66C, Non-Towered Airport Flight Operations, last revised in 2023, calls attention to recommended procedures and processes for use at airports without a control tower or where the control tower is not operating. The AC combines guidance from a collection of FAA sources into one relatively brief document. These include the Airman Information Manual (AIM), Chart Supplements, the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK), and more. The AC includes references to those other documents so that you can dig deeper if you need more info from the original source.
Increasing Comfort
The AC offers a lot of guidance in less than 30 pages, and it reads faster than that when you account for the formatting. While the whole thing is worth reading, we will mention a few areas of emphasis here. First is knowing about your airport before you arrive: whether it’s your departure, destination, or anything in between, like radio frequencies, traffic patterns, airport conditions, and procedures. The FAA doesn’t regulate traffic pattern entry, only pattern flow. This means that when entering the traffic pattern at an airport without an operating control tower, inbound pilots are expected to observe other aircraft already in the pattern and conform to the traffic pattern in use. (Reference AC 90–66C, AIM, PHAK, and 14 CFR 91.126 (b)). While most airports utilize a standard left pattern, some don’t. These will be documented on the VFR chart or in the Chart Supplement and checking ahead of time will inform your approach to the airport.
Next, we want to focus on communication. Non-towered airports are more like a jam band than an orchestra. Without a conductor (ATC), they rely on good communication between the players. The AC emphasizes the need for clear and concise transmissions. One example is when preparing for takeoff, make sure to provide relevant information, i.e., “XYZ traffic, Cessna 123, taking off Runway 32, XYZ traffic.” By sandwiching the info with the airport name, you give anyone who missed the beginning of the message a chance to catch up. Avoid using phrases like “taking the active.” That doesn’t tell anyone anything. You know what the “active” is, but you’re assuming everyone else is on the same sheet of music. So you want to make sure your messages are the right mix of information and brevity. Also, you want to start monitoring communications at least 10 miles out so you can start developing a mental picture of the activity before you arrive and for 10 miles on departure to avoid conflict on your way out.
Lastly, one of the often-repeated pieces of advice is to avoid straight-in approaches. With advice from this AC and a little practice, you can expand your comfort zone to include non-towered airports that once were “off limits.”
Learn More
- AC 90–66C, Non-Towered Airport Flight Operations
- 14 CFR section 91.126 (b), Operating on or in the Vicinity of an Airport in Class G Airspace
James Williams is FAA Safety Briefing’s associate editor and photo editor. He is also a pilot and ground instructor.
