Training Tip: Was that for us?

You’re inbound to the airport from the northeast, heading 220 degrees. Runway 33 is active, and approach control has just confirmed radar contact and instructed you to enter a left base leg.

You can:

• Acknowledge the instructions and continue inbound, or
• Ask for confirmation that the instructions were for you, because they don’t seem appropriate.

How you respond depends on what you can visualize. A left base leg entry probably isn’t what you’d expect to fly, given your position relative to the airport, and the runway in use. But you’d be surprised how many people simply acknowledge and continue inbound rather than ask for confirmation of instructions that don’t seem right.

What’s fishy about the enter-a-left-base-leg scenario?

As you will see if you sacrifice a napkin and sketch it out, arriving from the northeast sets you up for right traffic, not left traffic, to Runway 33, and probably a right downwind, not a base leg. Remember, it is a towered airport where assigning right traffic is commonplace.

Some pilots might brush off doubts by telling themselves that air traffic control probably plans to swing them over to the west side of the airport for arrival. I’d be skeptical of that idea, especially if there’s traffic flying arrival or departure paths you’d have to cross.

If your instructor is sitting alongside as this kind of scenario plays out, the CFI will be keenly interested in how you proceed. The CFI will wait as long as possible to see if you clarify things before a traffic conflict arises.

Take charge, because the CFI—if convinced ATC has erred—can only observe you for so long before intervening.

True, the above scenario has nuances and variations, but occasionally you’ll hear something on the radio that is downright mystifying. Calling approach control from a similar position relative to the airport some time ago, I was pleased to hear the controller respond with “Radar contact,” but I wondered if he was looking at the right blip when he said, “Confirm you are a flight of two.”

I wasn’t, and a moment later, as I anxiously scanned, a larger airplane overtook our Cessna 120, far too close for comfort.

Bottom line: Whenever ATC calls with a message that seems odd, don’t shrug it off. It likely demands corrective action—and possibly, extremely prompt corrective action.