I'd say your boss needs to go back for an airspace refresher.

 

Bah. Everyone gets one wrong, or maybe just looks at something from a different point of view. But he's been flying for over 50yrs and if I ever learn as much as he's probably forgotten I'll be gold.

 

Ok so I went in this morning, bad weather. I walked into Bossman's office and sait down and told him he was full of sh!t. He grinned and asked me what the definition of Class D airspace was. I told him it had to have a control tower and was 2500AGL and 4nm of the airport. He then asked me about Class C. I told him that.

Next he asked me who controls me inside of class C. I told him approach control. Correct. He said, "So if Approach handles you in class C then where does the tower handle you?" He said if it has a control tower the airport itself is class D. Approach control and higher restrictions make the airspace around it Class C but the airport itself is class D. That is the area inwhich the tower controls you. So you could do pattern work there and never have to talk to approach. Before leaving that area you are then handed off to approach. He said it isn't depicted on the map because a pilot only cares about the more restrictive airspace. Should approach go down the airport would only have the tower left which would mean the class D is still up and running. I told him no several times but after reading through the regs I have yet to find something to contradict him. Also there doesn't appear to be a reg reguarding the physical dimensions of Class D itself. It's in a few FAA books but no reg that i've found yet.

 

If you ever go to a class C airport late at night you'll often have the same controller working approach, tower, and ground freqs. They can provide radar separation from the cab. The difference has nothing to do with who you're talking to, it has to do with how you're separated. Class C still has radar separation per AIM 4-1-17. Class D does not.

 

That's still a load of horse hockey. He's trying to backdoor his own personal definition of the airspace. That doesn't cut it in my book.


Ask him this: If he takes off from SAT and stays with tower, what kind of traffic advisories should he expect? Or, to phrase it better, should he expect traffic advisories? The answer is yes, and that is a characteristic of Class C. The answer under Class D would be "workload permitting". His claim that it's Class D within the Class C would be tantamount to saying that an aircraft transitting the airpsace would get traffic advisories from the outside ring of the Class C until he gets close to the airport, and then the advisories will only be "workload permitting" until he gets farther away from the airport, back into the Class C. That's preposterous.

A similar question could be posed with regard to VFR Aircraft Separation, and the answer would be equally ridiculous.




.

 

Just because I say that by definition all airplanes have to be green and you can't disprove it with the FARs doesn't mean that it is true.

If you want to get him good, pull out a Jacksonville sectional and ask him about Lake City, FL airspace, as long as he isn't from the area.

***Oh yeah, also ask him what airports you have to contact clearance at. Then ask him if you have to, under normal conditions, contact CLC DEL at SAT to do traffic patterns. Beat him at his own game

 

I checked out the Air Traffic Controllers Procedures Handbook 7110.65, you can find it at faa.gov, and didn't find anything about your airspace question.

I did however find the requirements for entering class C without a transponder or radios. You would have to have a LOA with the facility, a facility directive, or a special agreement with the class C controlling facility. All of this is found under Chapter 7 Section 8 of that book.

There might be more in there about the airspace question, I just didn't have time to research that far into it.

 

Thanks for the replies. You guys are supporting everything I said however he can make a good arguement lol.