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5 Answers

Unattended, Attended airport & airspace restriction

Asked by: 4403 views Commercial Pilot, FAA Regulations, Flight Instructor, General Aviation, Instrument Rating, Student Pilot

Hello everyone,

I have been to KSSI long time ago, and in the AF/D I noticed something weird sentence that was "unattended, svc class E from 0700 ~ 2300, other times class G"

I do not know what this means but it says class E is effective within that time frame but class G after hours. Even in the sectional chart, the airport was surrounded by dotted magenta line and magenta circle outside.

Does anyone know what this means and why do they do this?

Steve

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5 Answers



  1. Mark Kolber on Jul 23, 2016

    I\’m not sure what you are asking, Steve. They mean exactly what they say. Have you read the AFD/Char Supplement legend?

    \”svc class E from 0700 ~ 2300, other times class G\” means exactly what it says. The airport has a Class E surface area but only part time between 7 am and 11 pm. In the middle of the night, the airport is Class G from the surface to 700 AGL.

    \”attended,\” as the Chart Supplement legend says, means there is someone at the airport who is able to provide at least minimal services, like fuel. \”Unattended\” means no one guaranteed to be there.

    Why do they put that information there? So pilots can look it up and know what is available at the airport and when. You are on an overnight flight and need to make a fuel stop. Wouldn\’t it be nice to know that services are not available in the middle of the night before you land?

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  2. Steve on Jul 23, 2016

    Thank you Mark,

    Then, my another question is that reason being the Class E for that period is because it is uncontrolled and give more restriction to pilots such as cloud clearance flying into that airport?

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  3. Mark Kolber on Jul 23, 2016

    When a part-time Class D “lower” class of airspace, it’s obvious – there’s no Tower or TRACON. But even there, if I recall correctly, there are some Class Ds that revert to Class E surface areas and others that revert to Class G.

    I have no idea the policies or rules that lead to one or the other result. Your guess that it has something to do with allowing the least amount of restriction needed for pilots – and not enough traffic to justify continuing the Class E surface area – is as good as any I could make.

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  4. Kris Kortokrax on Jul 30, 2016

    The really important thing to keep in mind with the airspace issue is, when the surface airspace is Class E, you would need to contact someone to get a Special VFR ATC clearance to land if the weather is below VFR minimums.

    If the airspace has reverted to Class G, you would not need the Special VFR clearance.

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  5. Skyfox on Jul 30, 2016

    The change from class E to class G has to do with whether or not official weather reporting is available (observer, ASOS, AWOS). At a class C or D airport when the tower closes, if weather reporting continues the airspace becomes class E; if there is no weather reporting, it becomes class G with class E starting at 700 AGL. The same thing happens at surfaced-based class E airports: when weather reporting stops at some specific time, the class E airspace becomes class G with class E at 700 AGL. Refer to the AOPA publication “Airspace For Everyone”, particularly figure 3 on page 3:
    http://www.aopa.org/-/media/files/aopa/home/pilot-resources/asi/safety-advisors/sa02.pdf

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