What is a demerit?

[Frank White]

I earned a demerit from a controller after entering Charlie airspace without permission. I'd been spending most of my flying in Class D airspace and have earned some CAT ratings.What is a demerit? Am I at risk of being kicked off PE if I earn another? Can''t say why, but I'm terrified of ATC but nevertheless been pressing through. My incursion demerit didn't help. BTW: Although this is no excuse, I started making my calls 11 miles out, but didn't reach tower until I was where I thought was 8 miles out. Turns our I was actually closer. Saving grace is that this is a lesson I shall take to the real world.

Frank
Aspiring Pilot

[Kyle.Sanders]

This attached picture is straight from the Aeronautical Information Manual.

I think you may have encountered a situation where you did not have two-way-communication with the controlling facility prior to entering that C airspace.

#3 note would then apply to you in a sense.

[Kevin_atc]

This attached picture is straight from the Aeronautical Information Manual.

I think you may have encountered a situation where you did not have two-way-communication with the controlling facility prior to entering that C airspace.

#3 note would then apply to you in a sense.

He knows what he did wrong. The purpose of his post is asking how serious a pilot deviation on PE is and what it could potentially result in.

[Matthias Geiss]

PE is (among other things) a training environment, so it's only natural that mistakes happen.

The goal is that you a) realize your mistake and b) learn how to avoid it in the future. You won't get kicked out or even banned because of making mistakes.

Deliberately doing wrong things (a.k.a trolling) is of course a different kettle of fish.

[Keith Smith]

Frank,

Apologies for not catching this sooner. A pilot deviation is not going to get you kicked off the network. This is a training environment and it's expected that airspace violations are going to occur. That doesn't mean that we ignore them, and it doesn't mean that pilots should do not do their best to be prepared for every flight, but it does mean that you won't be thrown out for making the type of mistake that you'd expect to see from a real world student pilot. You're in good shape. Learn, and continue to fly.