"Report Inbound", then no reply from tower

JPilot9

Well-Known Member
Flying a practice GPS approach into a Class D field. The controller tells us to report passing the IAF inbound. We report inbound twice but get no response. Another aircraft reports inbound after us, and the tower responds to them. When we are about 1 mile final he clears an aircraft turning base-to-final to land.

At this point we have one plane behind us flying the GPS approach, one turning base in front of us, so we turn 90 degrees away from the traffic pattern and radio the controller and tell him we are turning to avoid the traffic off our wing. For the third time, we get no response.

We fly directly west (active RWY 17, left traffic) for 2 minutes, whereupon the controller says, "Seminole 45 Tango, what is your position?"

Us: "We are 3 miles west, came out here to avoid traffic."

Tower: "You have to tell me what you're doing at all times."

Us: "We called three times to report position and heard no response three times. We almost flew into a Piper Arrow turning base to final."

Tower: " Well you have to tell me before you do these things. That's how accidents happen."

We left his airspace ASAP and went home. Did we do anything wrong? He told us to report the fix inbound, but heard no response, then got in trouble for not talking to the tower. What's going on?
 
nope, it happens....

happened to me like 2 weeks ago. sorta similar...

guy asked me 3 times what app I wanted to shoot, and I told him ILS 9R.... at the 4th he was pretty pissed, but I told him that we told him 4 times we wanted ILS

sometimes they just don't hear I guess

fill out NASA jsut to be safe?
 
Was the first plane he cleared to land behind you? I guess once he cleared that plane to land I would have circled off like you did. I would not have gotten that close to the field without him responding to you.

Sounds to me like you did everything right only probably should have done it sooner.

Doesn't sound like a radio problem as he eventually heard you, but did you try switching com's?
 
Flying a practice GPS approach into a Class D field. The controller tells us to report passing the IAF inbound. We report inbound twice but get no response. Another aircraft reports inbound after us, and the tower responds to them. When we are about 1 mile final he clears an aircraft turning base-to-final to land.

At this point we have one plane behind us flying the GPS approach, one turning base in front of us, so we turn 90 degrees away from the traffic pattern and radio the controller and tell him we are turning to avoid the traffic off our wing. For the third time, we get no response.

We fly directly west (active RWY 17, left traffic) for 2 minutes, whereupon the controller says, "Seminole 45 Tango, what is your position?"

Us: "We are 3 miles west, came out here to avoid traffic."

Tower: "You have to tell me what you're doing at all times."

Us: "We called three times to report position and heard no response three times. We almost flew into a Piper Arrow turning base to final."

Tower: " Well you have to tell me before you do these things. That's how accidents happen."

We left his airspace ASAP and went home. Did we do anything wrong? He told us to report the fix inbound, but heard no response, then got in trouble for not talking to the tower. What's going on?

Based on what you have said, I believe you did everything correctly. This sounds like a case of the controller being distracted or inattentive. If he had not heard from you in a reasonable amount of time, or if he had other traffic that could potentially be a factor for you, he should have been calling you to ascertain your position.

Chris
 
If you have time you may want to try and call back to approach control (if not too low) and have them advise the tower what's going on. If it were an actual approach with IFR services I'm assuming you would fly the published miss if no landing clnc given or go 7600 and do what you did anyway. What airports are you people flying into with controllers like this!? lol :)
 
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