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Tower

Scan

Scan the runway, short final, and immediate climbout at all times. Nothing should ever come as a surprise here. Go arounds, rejected takeoffs, poorly flown circuits, runway incursions, arrival gaps deteriorating, wrong SID, departure separation deteriorating, are all to be expected and there must be no hesitation in taking safe positive action.

Departure gaps in the arrival flow

Is the gap working? What can be done to make sure it works? How do you resolve the situation if it doesn't work?

The most important thing to learn here is how to to make a tight gap work:

  • Appropriate use of conditional line ups,
  • Instructions to "be ready for immediate departure"
  • Issuing immediate takeoff
  • Reducing arrivals to minimum approach speed (only if it doesn't impact any following aircraft, and coordination must be done if anyone is on the approach behind!)
  • Informing the arrival to expect late clearance
  • It is much much better to cancel the takeoff and have a single aircraft go around than to cause a piggy-back go around (but don't stop aircraft who have accelerated more than 200-300m down the runway).
  • Always have a plan for if the arrival goes around.

What form of separation is being used

Before solo, the student should always have an answer for this. LOA spacing, radar minsep + coordination, visual, vertical.

Separation is deteriorating or lost

Take action! Issue (terrain safe) instructions to resolve the matter. Use correct phraseology (avoiding action). Discuss hypothetical scenarios and practice doing the radio calls.

Wake scenarios and responsibilities

Sometimes the pilot is responsible, sometimes ATC is responsible. Drill the student until they know the wake rules well. It's smart for the student to have a printout of times and distances at hand.

What if scenarios

When it's quiet, make up hypothetical scenarios for students to enhance learning. Make them say out loud the radio calls involved.

  • What is the plan if the aircraft goes around? (They should ALWAYS have a plan)
  • Rejected takeoff plan
  • Various VFR scenarios
  • SVFR
  • VFR requests in SVFR conditions or complete IMC
  • Weather conditions and implications (Ceiling, visibility, LVP and approach aids, VFR, Deice, runway config, etc)
  • Forms of separation (wake, radar, reduced, LOP spacing)
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