Originally Posted by
Styx75
The spotter aircraft asked Tower for the 172's position, the tower responded that they were unsure. That's not what I find odd though, tower isnt required to watch every aircraft every second.
What I find odd was that the solo flight wasn't being directly supervised by the authorising instructor from the ground. Supervising solos allows an instructor to jump in with a timely bit of help when the situation calls for it. Or more negatively to give a first person response for any incident reports. Or just some general feedback to the student (a pat of the back or a shake of the hand builds a student's confidence).
he was monitoring from the runup bay (as evidenced by the towers approval to do so). he did have a radio (as evidenced by his transmission). also the tower gave the 172s position as "follow the 172 turning base", it was in answer to a second transmission when the position could not be established.