Re: When to contact tower?
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 9:46 pm
To add yet another data point, I fly out of PHNL. While taxiing to the runway, 80% of the time they'll tell me to "monitor tower" as I get close to the hold short point. On the occasions when they "forget", I was taught by my instructor to just switch over on my own.
I believe that's what "monitor tower" is for (as opposed to "contact tower"). We just switch over and hold short silently until called upon.kevin meyers wrote:Generally, yes. It's much easier for the tower controller to choose which plane he/she wants to talk to rather than having every single plane call up and the controller just having to reply with "[callsign], xxx Tower, hold short runway [runway]." Especially if there is a big departure lineup where the aircraft have no where to go except to follow the plane in front of them heading for the same runway. If all of the planes were to call up when holding short/approaching the runway at a busy airport, it would just provide unnecessary congestion on the frequency.MarkHargrove wrote:Perhaps it's only used at very high-traffic airports.