PilotEdge Forums

Hey all, I'm having a blast on PE, and I'm learning to relax a bit more. I think I need to spend more time just monitoring tower frequencies to get used to the pace of speech. In the meantime, I have more newbish questions; I hope this is the right place for them.

1. I was checking the ATIS at San Luis Obispo (KSBP) on 160.2, and I came to realize that the frequency overlaps with KSNA's tower; I heard ATIS and ATC communications at the same time. Not a big deal, but a bit disconcerting! But that led me to double-check my charts, and I couldn't find 160.2 on the LA sectional or the airport diagram for KSNA. Is it printed somewhere?

2. Possibly related to my first question: tonight I experimented with swapping between COM1 and COM2. I'm using X-Plane. I wanted to put ground frequencies and ATIS on COM2, and reserve COM1 for airborne communications. I think I succeeded; I did a radio check on COM2, and San Luis tower said "identified." (That means "loud and clear", I trust?) As it happens, I was also checking the ATIS with COM2 when I had the overlap with John Wayne Tower, which made me wonder if my swapping between COM1 and COM2 was messing something up. Was that the case, or is it okay to swap between the two?

3. For the second night in a row, I had some tech trouble during takeoff, and I had to restart X-Plane. By the time I got back online, the California sun had set, and (being a new student pilot) I "cheated" and switched my X-Plane time to high noon. Is this okay? Normally I'll want to fly with actual lighting and weather conditions, but for just my 2nd flight in my Piper Archer 2, I was leery of taking off over dark water, and I wanted to get in a little practice just flying VFR. (I'm using the Carenado Archer, which has no GPS or autopilot!) Should I have kept the sim on "night"?

4. Finally, an airspace question. I'd like to fly southeast from Oceano (L52) to Santa Inez (KIZA). It's easy enough to circumvent the class-delta at Santa Maria. I guess I also need to stay underneath the MTRs near KIZA, which can be active at 3000 AGL and above. (I recall from one of Keith's VFR videos that PE simulates those scary military jets!) With my slow-flying Archer, I guess 2500 or so is okay. My main question is really about KSBA. Landing at KIZA brings me within 16 miles of KSBA, and the chart says to contact KSBA when within 20nm. Do I need to contact KSBA tower if I have no intention of entering its Charlie, and intend only to land at KIZA? The magenta boxes with "CTC KSBA" are situated west, south and east of Santa Barbara, but not north of it. Link to relevant chart at Skyvector:

http://skyvector.com/?ll=34.85956660356 ... :A.K2.KIZA

Incidentally, I've started reading the AIM cover to cover, and I hope soon I'll be able to answer my own airspace questions. Lots of good stuff in the AIM.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Geoff wrote:Hey all, I'm having a blast on PE, and I'm learning to relax a bit more. I think I need to spend more time just monitoring tower frequencies to get used to the pace of speech. In the meantime, I have more newbish questions; I hope this is the right place for them.

1. I was checking the ATIS at San Luis Obispo (KSBP) on 160.2, and I came to realize that the frequency overlaps with KSNA's tower; I heard ATIS and ATC communications at the same time. Not a big deal, but a bit disconcerting! But that led me to double-check my charts, and I couldn't find 160.2 on the LA sectional or the airport diagram for KSNA. Is it printed somewhere?

2. Possibly related to my first question: tonight I experimented with swapping between COM1 and COM2. I'm using X-Plane. I wanted to put ground frequencies and ATIS on COM2, and reserve COM1 for airborne communications. I think I succeeded; I did a radio check on COM2, and San Luis tower said "identified." (That means "loud and clear", I trust?) As it happens, I was also checking the ATIS with COM2 when I had the overlap with John Wayne Tower, which made me wonder if my swapping between COM1 and COM2 was messing something up. Was that the case, or is it okay to swap between the two?

3. For the second night in a row, I had some tech trouble during takeoff, and I had to restart X-Plane. By the time I got back online, the California sun had set, and (being a new student pilot) I "cheated" and switched my X-Plane time to high noon. Is this okay? Normally I'll want to fly with actual lighting and weather conditions, but for just my 2nd flight in my Piper Archer 2, I was leery of taking off over dark water, and I wanted to get in a little practice just flying VFR. (I'm using the Carenado Archer, which has no GPS or autopilot!) Should I have kept the sim on "night"?

4. Finally, an airspace question. I'd like to fly southeast from Oceano (L52) to Santa Inez (KIZA). It's easy enough to circumvent the class-delta at Santa Maria. I guess I also need to stay underneath the MTRs near KIZA, which can be active at 3000 AGL and above. (I recall from one of Keith's VFR videos that PE simulates those scary military jets!) With my slow-flying Archer, I guess 2500 or so is okay. My main question is really about KSBA. Landing at KIZA brings me within 16 miles of KSBA, and the chart says to contact KSBA when within 20nm. Do I need to contact KSBA tower if I have no intention of entering its Charlie, and intend only to land at KIZA? The magenta boxes with "CTC KSBA" are situated west, south and east of Santa Barbara, but not north of it. Link to relevant chart at Skyvector:

http://skyvector.com/?ll=34.85956660356 ... :A.K2.KIZA

Incidentally, I've started reading the AIM cover to cover, and I hope soon I'll be able to answer my own airspace questions. Lots of good stuff in the AIM.

Thanks in advance for any help!

2) Assuming the airplane you're using properly mimics a real airplane's audio panel, yes you can monitor two comms simultaneously. If you are receiving radar service you can't legally just turn the controller 'off' until he releases you to another controller or releases you with "advisory frequency change approved". You have to keep him on while you pick up ATIS, just turn the volume down a bit on the one while you listen to the other.

3) In the real world no instructor is going to sign off on a PPL student to solo at night. It should be considered marginal VFR.

4) Yes, if you're within the contact range, call the controlling frequency. "Approach N1234". (he responds go ahead), "N1234 is 20 miles south of KIZA inbound KIZA 2500 feet". He'll give you a squawk and tell you radar contact, then will advise you of traffic. Even if you're technically above/below the ceiling or floor of the C airspace, it doesn't hurt anything to call and you get the benefit of traffic notification, so it's always good practice to do it. Rather than going around like your route has plotted, I would just call them before you get close. You don't know what IFR departures look like coming out of there, going around like that might not be doing the controller any favors if you go to the wrong side. Just plan to fly direct, and call the controlling frequency when you get in range and tell them you need to "transition to KIZA", they will tell you what to do and vector you away from any danger.

It's the controller's job to help you, not scare you. So rather than spending a lot of time while flying VFR trying to figure out what to do and not to do on your own, just call the controller and tell him where you are, where you want to get to, and he'll help you do it.

My experience with X-plane has been nothing short of "rock solid". Hours and hours of online flying without any crash to desktops (plenty of pilot induced ground crashes ). My gut tells me there's something about your set up that may be affecting it's stability. Some add on or some setting that's too high for the capability of the hardware.

Also note that it's normal to hear the ATC controller working multiple frequencies. This has been covered multiple times in the forums. Here's just one example of many:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3681

Regarding changing the sim time. I do it all the time (pun intended). It's perfectly OK. It's no different that using your own weather. That the beauty of the simulator. Don't let a desire for realism get in the way of using the simulator on YOUR schedule for what YOU want to do.

Thanks very much for your replies. Yes, X-Plane generally is very stable for me; it's one reason I switched to it (from FSX) several years ago. So it did surprise me when I crashed on my takeoff roll two days ago. Yesterday's problem wasn't X-Plane; it was user computer error. Anyway, I agree that X-Plane is stable and a really good simulator. Also, I'm glad to hear it's okay to set weather to "day"; I can't always log on before sunset, and at this stage, I need daylight to practice flying VFR. I do have a couple follow-up inquiries:

1. I know it's normal to hear a controller working multiple frequencies. My question is about 120.6 being shared between John Wayne Tower and the ATIS at San Luis Obispo. (I said 160.2 in my original post; typo!) I see 120.6 marked as the ATIS on the VFR chart for San Luis. But I don't see any published indication that 120.6 is the frequency for the tower at John Wayne Tower. Obviously I'll dial whatever frequency the controller requests, but being new, I'm trying to learn what to expect by reading the charts. Looking at the airport diagram and LA sectional for KSNA, I would have expected the tower on 119.9. I do see other tower frequencies published for KSNA at Skyvector (126.8, 128.35), but none of them is 120.6.

2. RNCTX, thanks for the guidance on my flight plan. To follow up: if I want to fly south from Oceano to the untowered field at KIZA, who should I call? Should I dial Socal approach while on the ground at Oceano, to ask both for the delta transition through Santa Maria and to let them know I'll be close to the Charlie at KSBA? Or should I call Santa Maria tower instead and ask them to transition their delta, and assume they'll alert Socal that I'll be nearing the KSBA Charlie? Or do I call both Santa Maria and Socal? As I don't intend to land at KSBA or even to enter its Charlie, I assume I shouldn't contact KSBA tower -- either Socal Approach or Santa Maria or both, I would think. Again, my goals will be (1) to transition the delta at Santa Maria, and (2) to alert someone that by landing at KIZA, I'll be near the Charlie at Santa Barbara. Thanks.

if you're going to swap between com1 and com2, I would use the online map to verify what freq we think you are on.

the fact that you were hearing a controller serving sna doesn't mean it was an sna freq. the map will tell you which role you are tuned to.

the controller was probably working sna and many other positions. it could also be that you were hearing the atc from com1 and the atis on com2. the online map will explain what is going on as it shows your current freq.

I had a quick look, the only frequency in our syste with 120.60 is ONT tower. So, I can only assume you were high enough to receive ONT tower from where you were, or, you were actually listening to 120.60 on one radio, but PE thought you were on a different frequency on the other radio. Try to replicate it again and check the online map so you can see which freq we think you're on, that should clear things up.

"Approach N1234". (he responds go ahead), "N1234 is 20 miles south of KIZA inbound KIZA 2500 feet".

If your request is short, go ahead and just make it on the first call, it saves time for everyone.

Oh cool, I didn't even know about the online map. That'll clear things up. Thanks!

So Keith, if I'm inbound to KIZA from the north, should I call Socal approach (because KIZA is close to the KSBA Charlie) or Santa Maria tower (to transition its delta)? I'm guessing Socal approach, but I'm not sure. (Apologies for all the questions. Reading the AIM is helping me answer my own questions, but it's a long document!)

Geoff wrote:Oh cool, I didn't even know about the online map. That'll clear things up. Thanks!

So Keith, if I'm inbound to KIZA from the north, should I call Socal approach (because KIZA is close to the KSBA Charlie) or Santa Maria tower (to transition its delta)? I'm guessing Socal approach, but I'm not sure. (Apologies for all the questions. Reading the AIM is helping me answer my own questions, but it's a long document!)

The paper source of information for such things is the AFD. Pull up the nearest airport's AFD entry, look for the ARTCC in control of that field, that's who you call. If you're close to a bigger city it'll be an approach, if you're out in the sticks it'll probably be a center en-route frequency and you'll have to get fairly high to get within their range.

If you're in the airplane and have a 430W/530W, you can spin the big right knob over to nearest (all the way to the right) then spin the little right knob and it will swap between nearest airport, nearest navaid, nearest ARTCC. The "nearest" functionality on the GPS is a thing that should be hard wired into your brain. If the engine dies and you have a sudden need-to-land-right-now emergency, it should only take you 2 seconds to find your nearest....

1) Level the airplane and trim for best glide
2) Call the controller and report your emergency
3) Spin the big right knob all the way right
4) Press the little right knob to get the cursor
5) Spin the big right knob again to highlight the nearest airport
6) With your nearest highlighted, hit the direct button, bam...you have a route plotted to your nearest.


When you get into flight planning all of the above will start to click and make more sense. If you're flying over terrain that isn't going to give you a good emergency spot to land, what's your airplane's best glide and range from certain altitudes? Well, if you're losing 700 fpm in best glide with no power and making 85 knots, and you're coming down from 8000 feet, that works out to 10 minutes before you're within 1000 feet of the ground. In 10 minutes you will have traveled a little over 14 miles at a ground speed of 85 knots. If airports are generally 20 miles apart along your route, that cruising altitude is a good one. Divide 20 by 2 and you shouldn't ever be more than 10 miles away from an airport. On the other hand if you were cruising at 4000 feet, with the same numbers, you're gonna be within 1000 feet of the ground in 5 minutes. 5 minutes at 85 knots gets you 7 miles, have fun in that cow pasture 3 miles short of the end of the runway .

Now recompute all of the above for a headwind, or a tailwind.

This compounds at night, since you brought up night flying. Maybe that dark spot is the cow pasture? But then again maybe it's a pond, or maybe it's a lake, or maybe it's a national forest that just doesn't have any roads or lights. The more you know about this stuff at any given time the more the odds are in your favor. And odds in your favor is how you handle emergencies instead of die from emergencies.

If you're low enough for the SMX Delta airspace to be a factor, you could call them. If you're going to be above the Delta, you could call Santa Barbara approach (the overlying approach facility). Socal Approach isn't a factor here, they're two TRACONS away.

You're going to love the new VFR ratings, they step you through all of this one flight at a time. But, for now, I'd recommend looking at the V-1, V-2 and V-3 along with all of the VFR workshops.