USA procedure guide

[Ka Iao Leong 982332]

Hi, I am a regular Europe flyer and I really want to have a taste of the American sky. However, I do not know how the procedure it is on the ground in USA.

I dont know if it has been asked or not but i really wanna sort this out before I start my first US flight.

The question is, I request clearance at gate and do I need to request push and start clearance from Ground as if in Europe? and also same problem for taxi because I have heard that in US there is ramp controller?! (not sure) and basically one just taxi from gate to a specific point before contacting ground for further taxi instructions?

And the same questions for arrival.

I have seen videos on youtube tower would just told the pilot "taxi to gate" after runway vacated but how on earth did the pilot know which gate, taxiway to take?

Again, sorry if this has been asked before but if possible, where can I find a "guide" to all these procedure rules in US?

Many thanks!

[Anthony Atkielski 985811]

For IFR:

 

1. Contact Ground (GND)—or the next higher level if GND is not online (TWR, APP or DEP, CTR)—at the gate for your clearance. Include the SID you wish to fly (if any) in your flight plan.

2. Clearance will be: Departure procedure and transition (if any), initial altitude, final altitude with time ("expect FL330 in ten minutes"), departure frequency, transponder code. Read this back to ATC.

3. Push and start is at your discretion in most cases. You'll be told to recontact GND when you are ready to taxi, and usually you'll be told which runway to expect.

4. Contact ground again to taxi. You'll be told to taxi to your runway, and in some cases you'll be given directions on which taxiways to use. Have an airport diagram handy.

5. Announce that you are holding short of the runway to ground. You'll be switched to tower (TWR) at some point, if it's online, either as you hold or before ("monitor tower on 111.11").

6. When you receive take-off clearance from the tower, position and roll on the runway. In some cases you'll be told to "position and hold" before you receive take-off (="line up and wait").

7. After leaving the runway, the tower will hand you off to Departure ("contact Departure now on 124.50").

8. Contact departure, giving your current altitude and the altitude to which you are climbing.

9. Further instructions will come from Departure, eventually you'll be handed off to Center, and so on.

 

On arrival:

 

1. Center will hand you off to Approach. Normally you've already filed a STAR in your flight plan, so at some point you'll be cleared to descend via the STAR, or you'll be given vectors, altitudes, and possibly speed restrictions.

2. Approach will clear you at some point for your runway approach, either ILS or visual. This removes all restrictions previously given unless ATC says otherwise. Follow the published approach.

3. At some point, you'll be handed off to Tower. Contact the tower and say that you're inbound for runway xx.

4. Tower will clear you for landing.

5. After touchdown, tower will ask you to leave the runway and contact Ground.

6. Ground will direct you to taxi to your gate.

3.

[Ka Iao Leong 982332]

Anthony, thank you for your first reply.

I think I now understand how it works in US. Only the push and start is on own discretion and ever other stuff are same as the Europe way, correct?

[Anthony Atkielski 985811]

Well, I'm not an expert on European procedures, but IFR procedures seem to be pretty consistent. Push and start is at your discretion in the U.S., in most cases. After you have your clearance, push and start whenever you want, and once the tug is away and you're reading to taxi, contact ATC again and tell them you're ready to taxi.

 

Another important difference is that you should file SIDs and STARs in your flight plan for the U.S., whereas they are likely to be [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned to you on the fly in Europe. U.S. ATC will simply clear you for the SID you've chosen, and on arrival you'll be expected to follow the STAR you've filed unless ATC directs otherwise.

[Alex Bailey 969331]

For IFR:

 

1. Contact Ground (GND)—or the next higher level if GND is not online (TWR, APP or DEP, CTR)—at the gate for your clearance. Include the SID you wish to fly (if any) in your flight plan.

2. Clearance will be: Departure procedure and transition (if any), initial altitude, final altitude with time ("expect FL330 in ten minutes"), departure frequency, transponder code. Read this back to ATC.

 

1. You will contact Clearance Delivery (DEL), or the next level starting at GND as Anthony said.

 

2. You will never hear "Expect FL330 in ten minutes", it is incorrect. You will hear "Expect FL330 ten minutes after departure".

[Nate Johns]

1. You will contact Clearance Delivery (DEL), or the next level starting at GND as Anthony said.

 

2. You will never hear "Expect FL330 in ten minutes", it is incorrect. You will hear "Expect FL330 ten minutes after departure".

 

And to one up that... if you are [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned a SID, chances are you aren't going to hear an "expect (altitude)" statement anyway since most SIDs include that information already. Waste of frequency time, and more encouragement for pilots to actually read their chart rather than plug 'n chug in their Slant-Fancy equipped aircraft.

 

~Nate

[Ka Iao Leong 982332]

Ok guys, thank you for your reply again. You guys are very helpful. I think I have sort out the departure bit, the flying bit I am sure I can handle. Now down to the arrival bit, after touchdown, if the ATC just say "taxi to gate" does it mean gate and taxiway all on own discretion?! And very lastly, if I am told to monitor Ramp XXX.XXXMHz or monitor Tower XXX.XXX MHz, do I suppose to just tune the freq and do nth or I have to announce my intention (eg. XXX is taxiing to RWY xx on taxiway XXX, with you)?

 

Thank you for your time, I am sure your answers will help!

[Nate Johns]

If ATC says "Taxi to the gate" or something of the sort without specific taxi instructions, then by all means, taxi at your discretion. "Taxi to" is a specific piece of phraseology that allows you to use all taxiways and cross any runways on the way to your stop point on the airfield. ATC will specify whether you need to hold short of a particular runway or taxiway.

 

If ATC says "Monitor Tower/Ground/etc." then you tune the new frequency and stay silent. ATC will contact you as the controllers have coordinated themselves that you are on their frequency. If you make an initial call up, you defeat the purpose of ATC instructing you to monitor.

 

In deference to the "monitor" instruction, if/when you are told to "Contact tower," then you indeed literally contact the next controller yourself with a typical call up.

 

~Nate

[Ka Iao Leong 982332]

Nate Thank you! I think I have got all my doubts sorted . See u in the US skies. Cheers

[Garry Morris 920567]

The only last, unmentioned thing, is that in the US the transition altitude (at which you set your QNH to standard) is almost always FL180. It does not vary by area as in Europe.

 

Have fun!

[Ingo Harders]

I found Anthony’s answer extensive, informative and certainly complete enough to get anybody flying in US airspace. Especially since the original poster really asked about ground movements only.

Oddly enough it took 24 hours to formulate the first answer but only 2 hours to start with the criticism thereafter.

And there-in lies the problem as far as I see it. Why would anybody in his right mind even try to help anybody here while risking the chance of being ridiculed by those who find the time to be critical but not the time to answer the questions in the first place?

Somebody being proud of having mastered the the video-capture of his flight makes the mistake of posting it in the screen-shot forum. The result? His take-off delay is being criticized. The correct response should have been “Nice Videoâ€

[Wade Williams 877539]

Ingo,

 

There are a lot of people on VATSIM with over-inflated egos. But it's not just restricted to flight sims. Some games that I play have some of the same over-inflated ego characters. The Internet brings out the worst in some people.

 

By the same token, we also have a lot of people on VATSIM who like to blow smoke about how much experience they have, how old they are, what they do for a living, etc. It's natural that when someone doesn't fit the persona they're projecting that people call them out.

 

You have to be *very* careful about what advice you heed. Ask a question about real-world piloting or ATC and you'll get tons of answers from people who are not real-world pilots or ATC (maybe even myself). In a lot of cases, they're correct answers. But in a lot of cases, they're not. Figure out who the knowledgeable and qualified posters are and look for confirmation from them before you go off believing what some random person said.

 

In any case, best advice is to grow a thick skin, then post whatever you want (within the rules). If someone starts to rip you apart, ignore them.

[Keith Smith]

Ingo,

 

I'd like to address your comment, since I'm one of the people who responded to one of the video posts. There is a difference between making a personal attack, and a suggestion for improving their flying, particularly when it addresses a common issue encountered on VATSIM. Delays in responding to takeoff clearances do cause issues for ATC, and the problem is NOT well understood by pilots. They're not sitting there maliciously delaying traffic, they're simply unaware of the affect of their actions. My comment was made to shed some light in a productive fashion. Is there a better and more relevant time to make such comments? Is it really that bad say to "nice video, thanks for taking the time to post it, but here's something you can work on...."

 

This network is supposed to be about education. If there's a better forum for making such comments, I would like to know, but for now, I stand by my actions.

 

For example, if I post a screenshot of a scope from one of my sessions saying "look how many planes there were that night!" and people make comments about the spacing of the planes, I will absolutely welcome the feedback, or give more background for why things were done a certain way. We're here to talk about flying and controlling, and to help each other out, no?

[Garry Morris 920567]

errr....I fail to see anything in this post that is "ridiculing" him, just helpful attempts to explain the differences between Europe and the US???

[Steve Ogrodowski 876322]

Oddly enough it took 24 hours to formulate the first answer but only 2 hours to start with the criticism thereafter.

 

Ingo, no one is "ridiculing" they are simply clarifying a couple of points and adding to what Anthony said. What Anthony said (like with the Departure Clearance) wasn't 100% accurate, so they were correcting him. Not ridicule. Trust me, the banter would be very different if it was a ridicule. In fact, in his immediate response, Anthony said outright: "I'm not an expert [...]" Which is an invitation to correct anything he mis-spoke.

errr....I fail to see anything in this post that is "ridiculing" him, just helpful attempts to explain the differences between Europe and the US???

 

lol, I agree...nobody was ridiculing Anthony. And I'm going to add one more ridicule (erm...), "clarification." Regarding this point:

 

Include the SID you wish to fly (if any) in your flight plan.

 

Be careful about how you actually file the SID in the flight plan. Some SIDs have specific instructions on how to file them which are written in the chart description. An example is at KDTW airport in Detroit. Here's one of our SIDs: PALACE3, PALACE3 Description

 

Now, when you read the "description," (or "continued"), then you see that there are special instructions. It says: "When using this departure, file the appropriate departure fix and route. [...]" This means that you don't actually enter "PALACE3" into the ROUTE portion of your flight plan. If you want, you can add it into the remarks, but ATC there are trained to recognize the fixes and recognize when someone has filed the SID. So here's an example route for KDTW-KLAX, which I got off of SimRoutes.com:

 

PALACE2 DUNKS J70 PMM OBK IOW J60 HEC CIVET5

 

That's what SimRoutes.com says (and it's actually out of date with PALACE2). But you are NOT supposed to copy that exact route into your VATSIM flight plan, you are supposed to file it like this:

 

DUNKS J70 PMM OBK IOW J60 HEC CIVET5

 

And if you go to (flightaware.com) and look up any KDTW departure route, they are almost all exactly the same way. I hope that makes sense...basically this is a heads up: If you can and will use SIDs, make sure that you actually and thoroughly read the chart and understand what it means. And if you have a question about the SID, and your controller isn't too busy, send him a PM before getting clearance so that you can clarify something you don't understand.

[Ingo Harders]

Wade,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it and will try and heed your advice and grow some thicker skin.

 

 

Keith,

While I agree in principal with you that this network is for learning, education and fun I disagree that the Sceenshot forum is the place to do it. It is a forum to display screenshots. Just my opinion. Yours may differ, which is ok. However, after your critique, the original poster explained what happened. This was then followed by someone’s seconding your opinion. Not sure what that was all about. Did he question your ability to get your point across? Or was there a vote called that I missed? This really has nothing to do with education…

Anyhow, this is my opinion and let’s leave it at that. This is cutting into my flying time which is not a good thing.

 

Regards

N405HT