It's a pass on the CAT-05 & some questions

Questions and comments about the PE Pilot Training Program
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Althar93
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:31 pm
Location: United Kingdom

It's a pass on the CAT-05 & some questions

Post by Althar93 »

Hello all,

I am slowly working my way through the CAT ratings & got to give the CAT-05 a go this evening with a pass first time to my surprise :D. This one actually got my blood pumping, given the constant changes in frequencies, the generally busy radio/traffic at the time, as well as the struggle to maintain VFR inside the slither of airspace sandwiched between the mountains & an overcast ceiling for the first half of the flight.

While I think I managed to grasp the exercise & phraseology, upon listening to the audio recordings I realise that (I'll attribute it to stress on my part at the time) I was a bit sloppy with some of my calls :

1 - When requesting flight following (or any potentially long call), is it preferable to cold-call first stipulating a "request", or it better practice to just be patient, wait for a long silence & just go ahead hoping one does not step on anyone else?
2 - How quickly are you expected to check-in following a hand-over when under flight-following : when being handed off to LA Center, I could not get a word in until a few minutes later when the controller personally called me to check in (probably would have never happened if she had not been the one to hand me over a few minutes ago from Santa Barbara approach)?
3- On requesting flight following, the CAT-05 brief transcript includes the current level/altitude - is it also mandatory to give out altitude/level when being handed over to a different frequency, or is it ok to just give horizontal positioning information : when being handed over to Bakersfield approach I reported that I was 10 miles from Bakersfield but omitted my altitude?

Anyhow, after over a month of being on the network, my thanks to PilotEdge & "the crew" for their brilliant service & never-ending patience. If it wasn't for the busy frequency & not wanting to step on other people, I would gladly "steal" more radio-time to thank the controllers more for their work!
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