When ATC tells me to “Continue for south departure”
Does that mean I can now go about my flight path if it is in the general direction of south???
Or do I continue on runway heading until I leave the airspace and get a freq change?
Or something else?
How many nms from a controlled airport should I be when requesting landing?
How many nms from an uncontrolled field should I announce position?
Thanks!!!
Jeff
Departure: you must be at least 0.5 NM away from end of runway and within 300’ of pattern altitude before you can maneuver for your intended flight path.
Usually VFR is not that strict, departure to the south would mean something in that general direction until clear of the control zone around the airport. In Europe VFR departure and arrival routes are commonly used, so instead of “south departure” you would be cleared for “uniform departure” for example.
First you would climb to 500 ft AGL, before turning to join the departure route. For arrival ATC will give pattern instructions (e.g. join left downwind runway 23) at the end of the arrival route.
In the example below the uniform departure is following a highway to the south. Romeo arrival is following a train track to the north.
You could of course request anything you want in real life, departure direct destination, request to fly to north for sightseeing, then over the field to the south for leaving, etc. If its not busy you would likely get it.
Differences between FAA and EU regs. That’s strictly proscribed in the AIM.
In the real world in the US flying VFR, the tower is not going to micromanage you at a smaller class D airport (those are the smaller airports that business jets and occasional regional airline flights tend to fly into) unless they have to. In MSFS, the tower does it every. darn. time. And it’s silly. I’m looking forward to the day when they revamp ATC.
In a class C and almost certainly in a class B (those are the airports where the airlines usually fly out of), if you’re flying a small VFR plane, they’re probably going to have some instructions for you to turn. They want to be able to get that jet waiting behind you to takeoff and they’ll need you out of the way. But they could issue that instruction when they clear you for takeoff so they don’t have to talk to you twice in rapid succession.
I haven’t checked the AIM recently (that’s the FAA’s manual on this kind of stuff), but I’m more inclined to turn at 500 ft AGL (above ground level) as said above. There’s this thing called the “impossible turn”, which is the theoretical 180° turn you would have to take to return to the runway in the event of an engine failure at takeoff. It’s not actually impossible, but it is hard and risky and requires skill to pull off and cool under (a lot) of pressure. I’ve often heard you should turn at 500 feet AGL so that if your engine does quit, you are already halfway through the impossible turn.
