TWR assumed to be A/G
Hello all,
I'm a ATCO at a small airfield handling, amongst other things, scheduled short-sector passenger flights (hence the need for ATC). On sunny days in particular, we also get reasonable numbers of light GA aircraft inbound to us and also to another airport nearby with which we coordinate closely, and to these and others we offer a FIS outside the ATZ. On all Sundays (when no commercial flights take place) the tower is manned by an A/G operator who announces himself clearly as 'XYS Radio' to avoid any confusion.
Unfortunately, despite subtle hints such as announcing ourselves as 'XYZ Tower' and giving unambigious instructions (joining and runway clearances etc.) a lot of these GA pilots seem to assume that we are only an A/G service, leading to frequent situations where the duty ATCO has to firmly assert their authority to maintain a safe situation, and a number of pilots when questioned say that they have seen 'XYS Radio' in the AIP/Pooleys entry and have managed to ignore the 'XYS Tower' entry just above it.
It's an annoying situation for the ATCO's here, but short of using the callsign 'XYS Tower - Air Traffic Control' on each initial contact, there doesn't seem to be a way to pre-empt any misunderstanding on the pilot's part. Does anyone have a similar experience?
DinD.