Page 3 of 3

Re: fixin' stuff at home

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 8:26 am
by Keith Smith
You're welcome. If I called Nashua Approach, it was a mistake, it should be Boston Approach. Let me know if you can find the timestamp where you're hearing "nashua approach".

Boston Approach provides Class C service within the Outer Area (a 20nm radius) of the Manchester airport (b.eyond the published Class C airspace) That's why the rectangles reference that distance. As to why they don't show any on the west side, I'm not sure, I don't know/care about the layout of that airspace :) When you're IFR, those details cease to matter. In fact, it wouldn't have mattered if I was VFR either because I was handed from Boston Center to Boston Approach during the descent in any case, so I would've also ended up on the appropriate frequency. Interestingly, though, the NY Sectional chart does show 3 freqs for the Manchester Class C (bottom left of the chart, the airfields are listed alphabetically), even though the map only depicts two freqs.

Re: fixin' stuff at home

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 9:35 am
by Cyrus
I had another listen to the last third and I guess I was imagining it (?!). At about 1:02, you're handed off from Boston Center to Boston Approach, and then you make the call correctly to "Boston Approach". Not sure how I misheard "Nashua" for "Boston" ... I blame it on lack of sleep (due to late night simming when I should be in bed! :lol: )

I do find it interesting that Manchester (39 miles from KBOS) shares Approach controllers (and facilities?) with Boston class B, whereas the Providence (43 miles from KBOS) Class C has its own Approach name/frequencies. Then again, I suppose it's no more unusual than the fact that all of the Class C fields on the LA chart show "Socal Approach" - rather than "John Wayne Approach", "March Approach", etc. Are they actually all sitting in the same location (some mysterious "Socal Approach" facility), or are they each located in their respective airport towers?

Re: fixin' stuff at home

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:30 am
by Keith Smith
Boston TRACON handles Manchester and a number of other fields, just like Socal is a combined TRACON that handles many airports. Providence TRACON was never merged with Boston TRACON (I have no idea about the history behind that).

Historically, the TRACONS were pretty small and were co-located with towers at the airport. Long ago, there was a Burbank approach, Ontario approach, John Wayne approach, etc. The trend is for consolidation to combined TRACONs that aren't co-located with airports, covering a much wider area.