The PilotEdge CAT-04 Rating

Yesterday I did the fourth PilotEdge Communication and Airspace Training rating flight, which is a Class D towered field (KSBP) to a Class D towered field (KSMX) with no ATC services in between:

CAT4Route

Here’s the description from the PE briefing page, but the short story is that you:

  • Get the weather at San Luis via the ATIS
  • Contact ground to tell them our position and let them know we want to depart to the South
  • Taxi to the runway as directed by ground
  • Contact tower at the end of the runway to let them know we are ready to go
  • Depart via their directions
  • Contact Santa Maria tower about 10 miles out and let them know our position and that we’re inbound for landing
  • Follow their directions for entering the pattern and contacting them when there
  • Land
  • Contact tower when clear of the runway to tell them our position and request taxi
  • Follow their directions, including whether or not to contact ground

Note that each time we talk to a new controller we tell them our position and our intentions. This is a solid rule for any initial ATC contact: “Here is who I am, where I am, and what I wish to do.”

Also, this “inside / out, outside /in” pattern of communication was a good way for me to think about the handoffs in ATC service when I was learning the airspace system (originally I found the rules of who to contact when and where a bit confusing). When departing you start with the controller closest to where you are – ground – and then progressively work your way out as your position changes (tower, then departure, then center). Coming in to a region or to land, you then work your way IN as your position changes (approach, then tower, then ground). One exception is clearance delivery, whom you contact before you start with ground if you’re filing an IFR clearance, or if you’re at a field that has a local clearance delivery (that will be on the chart). The CAT-04 flight is a good, simple example of these outside / in, inside / out handoffs: ground, tower, tower, ground. We don’t talk to a departure, center, or approach because we don’t have “radar services” (also called “flight following”), which is asking ATC to track you between towered fields as a safety measure, which is something they only do for VFR aircraft on request and if workload allows. “Picking up” flight following en route is the subject of the next CAT rating.

So here’s the flight. It goes right according to plan until the very last second – and then the technology fates intervene! We do this flight in the Carenado C177 Cardinal over ORBX SoCal/Vector scenery and AS16 weather with REX textures. Thanks for watching.

5 thoughts on “The PilotEdge CAT-04 Rating

  1. Thanks for another great video! Really enjoy watching them and I actually learn a lot o things that I didn’t know f rom just watching your videos so please keep them coming.

    I was just wondering how you set up your Lilliput screen to work with your sim. I have scoured the internet high and low but can not seem to find a working GPS that will work with a flight sim. I use Xplane 10 but would really appreciate if you could explain how you went about doing it for your one.

    Cheers!
    Ian

    1. Thanks for the comment. I run the Flight1 GTN 750 add on for P3D. I don’t think they make one for XP, but believe someone else does. Check out Google and let me know what you find.

      1. So its just a software program that for the GPS? How do you get it to appear on the Lilliput touch screen though? Do you have to drag it to the Lilliput every time you start up the sim? Sorry or all the questions. It’s just frustrating me not being able to do this somehow on mine.

        1. Correct. Here is one that seems to be built for X-Plane: http://www.reality-xp.com/. If it works like the Flight1, it opens as its own instrument window and you drag it to the touchscreen (and it Prepar3D it remembers that’s where you put it the next time you open that scenario). If X-P doesn’t allow you to do that with windows you may need a different solution.

          1. Thanks for the link! I have just bookmarked that page and will be something I will definitely be investing in once I get a touch screen and figure out how to configure it all for Xplane. Looking forward to doing my own videos soon. I do owe you a flight after all. lol.

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