Pilot's tip of the week

Contacting Departure

Featuring

Subscriber question:

"When departing from a towered field (Class C or D) on an IFR flight plan, do you wait for the tower to tell you to contact departure frequency or do it after you are airborne without instruction from the tower?" - Andrew

John:

Contacting Departure“Always wait for the tower to issue instructions to contact departure. The controller may be keeping you on the tower frequency to resolve a conflict in the local traffic area.

If you have flown a reasonable distance – a mile or two – and still not have been transferred to departure, ask the tower. The controller’s first transmission may have been blocked or just simply forgotten.”

(NEW) VFR Mastery scenario #93 “Orphan of the Magenta Line” is now available. Skirting the DC SFRA and Philadelphia Bravo with your iPad seemed simple, until that iPad displayed a low battery warning. You realize your charger has been dead the entire flight. You stop the music on your phone and check its battery … 2%. So much for redundancy. You’re just southeast of the SFRA, threading between restricted areas. You’ve flown this route before, so maybe you can make a plan to navigate with the limited juice you have left along with ATC assistance. Or is it smarter to land and recharge? Watch the Intro video.

Get the Pilot’s Tip of the Week

Sign up here to receive tips like this every week along with videos, quizzes and more.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.