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Class G airspace with tower

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ToiletDuck

Ninja
Joined
Apr 23, 2005
Posts
598
I'm reading through part 91 on page 167 of the 2005 far/aim and am reading about Class G airspace. It says that

"no person may operate an aircraft to, from, through, or on an airport having an operational control tower unless two-way radio communications are maintained between that aircraft and the crontol tower. Communications must be established prior to 4 nautical miles from the airport, up to and including 2,500 feet AGL."

So I asked a couple instructors and we pulled out the DFW area chart and took a look at Spinks airport. It is a class G airport with tower. One guy said it's because of the weather services yet in the AFD Spinks has Awos-3. So my question is, try and look at the map too if you can, why is Spinks class G airport when it has the same reporting points required for class D and it even has the Awos-3 available? I know that on the map there isn't an airspace drawn out but since you can't come within 4nm and 2,500 ft. agl what's the difference?
Duck
 
Last edited:
Well I understand the differences there. What I'm questioning is why an airport surrounded by class D airports would be given a class G designation when it has everything else the other airports have. The FAA doesn't label airports just on which ones they "feel" should have different vis requirements than the others do they?
 
I live in Sacramento. For a short period of time Mather airport had a tower, but was still class E. I don't know why they would choose to have a towered airport not be class D.
 
Well I called AOPA and they pulled out their charts and looked at it too. They said that maybe it was Class D in the past and traffic volume was low but that airport was never class D. There is also another airport a few miles away that is the same. So they put me on hold and came back about 10 min later and said they didn't know lol. So they took my number and said they'd call back in 2-3 days with an answer. I dunno what it's going to take for them to find out but 2-3 days is some serious work.
 
Its probably Class G because they want to lower the VFR weather minimums due to high volume VFR traffic such as crop dusting. I know nothing about this airport or even the area, but this is my best guess.
 

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