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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Mildly Interesting
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"honey, Joe's wife is sick, can you take care of control tower duty today?"
These little strips don't use a tower. Pilots communicate with each other on unicom.
First thing I thought of reading on this tiny screen: 🦄
We need a community for keming.
No, you read it right, UNICOM
Or UNIversal COMmunications
Also known as CTAF, or
Common Traffic Advisory Frequency.
Basically the frequency you use when you're in uncontrolled airspace.
They read it as unicor n hence the emoji.
A private (meaning, non-public) field like this one probably uses the multicom frequency, but yes. Self-announce on the CTAF. Irks me a bit there aren't runway numbers.
Why do they need numbers? There's only one runway.
Gives you a rough magnetic heading so you can line up easier and keep your pattern straight. Also to tell others which way you're going to keep from crashing head-on (a north/south strip might be 36/18, for example, so ppl know which way you're going).
A runway with two ends. And you'd probably be surprised how easy it is to choose one end when you mean another.
Also to identify it from the air as a runway. It's paved and they painted a centerline; I would have also painted numbers and thresholds.
Tower duty? Where we are going, we don't need towers.