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Comment by elSidCampeador | Hacker News Reader

Very bizarre. To fly a plane out, won't the pilot of the plane have to speak with ATC? I wonder if letting the ATC (of the municipal airport) be informed that this plane tends to be flown by someone who might not be authorized might help?

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Unless you're inside a place with special flight rules (like the Washington DC area), you can just fly your plane whenever you want and don't have to file a flight plan or tell anyone. Small airports often don't have ATC so all communications are on a single frequency that all pilots trying to take off or land are tuned into. It's like being at a four way stop sign, there's "right of way" protocol to follow so you don't need to do much other than just announce your intentions to anyone that cares to hear them.

Really the only way to handle this is to put your plane in a locked hanger or chain it to the ground with a lock and then pay for whatever flight tracker that will alert you whenever a specific tail number is in the air. Follow it and then call whatever local police when it lands.

Can a small tower tell that an airplane doesn’t match the id sent by the pilot?

The question doesn't quite make sense. Tail numbers and ICAO hex IDs identify the aircraft, not the crew.

It depends on the airport! Some smaller airports (like Corona Municipal Airport where the story is based) - are untowered, meaning that there's no central ATC to chat with when taking off/landing - everyone announces what they're doing as they're doing it and there's a traffic pattern/flow that everyone follows to ensure there's no conflicts - it works surprisingly well.

In the US, you can get shockingly very far without having to chat with ATC.

That's true of most small airports. There are over 5,000 public airports in the US (and another ~14k private airports), but only about 500 with ATC.

> everyone announces what they're doing

Well, most people. :)

There's no "requirement" that pilots announce their intentions on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports, some aircraft may not even have radios.

> no "requirement" that pilots announce their intentions on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports, some aircraft may not even have radios

Got to love it when a Citation whose pilot is to arrogant to radio and a crop duster that doesn’t have any instruments to speak of are both in the pattern.

There have been many times I just decided to come back to the airport a bit later. Or circle well above the airport and watch the chaos below.

> circle well above the airport and watch the chaos below

Having been cut off by that particular pilot once in the pattern and once when I was holding short, I’m absolutely there for everyone on CTAF absolutely tearing them apart for a straight two minutes until someone from UNICOM tells the Vietnam vets in their hangars to shut the fuck up. (Eastern Idaho. Uncontrolled.)

The article said the airplane is based at KAJO, which is barely within the lateral boundary of Ontario International’s Class C shelf. To legally avoid a requirement to talk to ATC going north, he would have to stay below 2,700 MSL and remain outside the KONT Class C core. There’s a lot of area to the south and east that a pilot could buzz around without having to talk to anyone. Avoiding terrain to the south would be important.

Plenty of airports do not have controlled airspace. I've been to at least one where the local frequency was played on a loudspeaker on the ground so that people on the runway knew when a plane was coming in for a landing. The pilot still should communicate what they are doing, but they don't need approval to land.

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