I recently flew into class D airports and noticed two things which made me uncertain.
After contacting the tower for SMX I was cleared for rwy 30, entering a via a right base. According to the airport information, rwy 30 has a left pattern and as such I would have expected a left base entry. Can the tower assign me a pattern direction that deviates from the published direction? If not should I have made him aware?
Also in SMX (but happened at SBP and others too) and after landing the tower did not hand me over to ground. Consequently I reported to the tower clear of runway, expecting that he will hand me over to ground. Instead the tower gave me directly taxi instructions. As this is a small deviation from the descriptions in the CAT ratings, I was wondering whether this is a common practice or just a matter of workload for ATC providing tower service.
thanks a lot
Nik