airtraffic

Author Topic: Totally amazed KMDW  (Read 4679 times)

Offline Ariffraff

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Totally amazed KMDW
« on: March 18, 2020, 05:49:31 PM »
I've been listening to the pilots guide themselves around at Midway since the tower was evacuated over the Corona virus. I'm in awe, they appear to have things well in hand. I looked at the flight board and while there were disruptions it certainly wasn't a nothing in or out situation.

Way to go aviators. I thought there'd be complete chaos, pilots were helping each other, calling out all kinds of information etc. It was amazing.
Now how do we get the rest of the country to work together this way? (snarky thought.)



Offline martyj19

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Re: Totally amazed KMDW
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2020, 09:41:58 PM »
The rest of the country already does work together this way.  Only a small fraction of the airports in the country have control towers.  Everywhere else is known officially as a "non-towered airport" and informally as an "uncontrolled field".  There is an expected protocol for letting other pilots know where you are and what you intend to do and working out any traffic conflicts among themselves.  Think of what is happening at KMDW as a busy Saturday at an uncontrolled field with heavier airplanes.  This protocol is also used where the control tower is part time and closes overnight, at which point the tower frequency becomes a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency.  If you were interested a quick Google of CTAF will lead you to further reading material, training videos, and such.