PilotEdge Forums

Hi all ... when switching from one dep/app controller to another the typical check-in phrasing is "NXXX, level 5 thousand" or some such.

What does a tower controller want to know when approach hands you over to them when doing an IFR (e.g., ILS) approach? The same (altitude)? Or should you state your distance (DME)?

"Tower, Callsign, [ILS/visual/whatever] [runway]" is about as abbreviated as it gets.

Shinjo B wrote:Hi all ... when switching from one dep/app controller to another the typical check-in phrasing is "NXXX, level 5 thousand" or some such.

What does a tower controller want to know when approach hands you over to them when doing an IFR (e.g., ILS) approach? The same (altitude)? Or should you state your distance (DME)?

There are nuances, but generally, you check in with your last instructions:

"John Wayne Tower, N533ET on the visual approach 20R"

So:

It's tower name, callsign, current approach and assigned runway. You're telling the controller who you are and "your intentions" which is to follow your IFR flight plan to that destination using the assigned approach.

What Justin (edit: and Steve!) posted is really all you need to say on initial call. In the rare cases where the tower needs additional information, they'll ask for it on a subsequent call. An example of a request for additional information is "Say position." State your distance from a published waypoint on the approach, or if inside the FAF, your distance from the runway, if known. This is used usually when the tower lacks radar due to an outage or lack of a radar display.

It is very rare even at non-radar towers for the tower to ask about your altitude. Given that the tower position is not considered a radar position, it has no obligation to verify your Mode C is working correctly, and usually has no functional use for your altitude information anyway.

Thanks all.

Don't forget to state your intentions if doing multiple approaches....

all the above plus "touch and go then ILS xyz full procedure" or whatever.