Ground & Tower

[G-F0RC3]

I have a few questions that I hope some of you with more experience will be able to answer. I know I could probably find out the answers to such if I looked hard enough through the CAA website, but if I ask here then I might get some advice at the same time. :)

I've just passed my PPL and I've never flown from an airport which has an ATC ground service. I'm roughly aware of what the ground service of ATC is supposed to do (direct traffic on the ground), but at what point do they switch you to the tower for departure? I'm used to getting departure clearance from the tower for leaving the controlled zone, so does this still happen at an airfield with a ground station?

Thanks for any advice.

[localflighteast]

I fly from an airport here that has ground and tower
Your initial call is to ground
They give you taxi instructions
Then they tell you to contact tower when ready ( words to that effect , I'm not writing all the stuff out here)

Similarly when you land , tower tells you where to exit runway and then to contact ground

Short answer is , don't worry , Atc will tell you who to contact and when

If you contact the wrong person , the worst that'll happen us they will tell you to contact xxxxx on yyy.z

[Spitoon]

In the UK, in broad terms TWR looks after the runways and ground looks after everything else. If you've learned to fly from an airport that just has a TWR controller then he/she has been doing both jobs. The frequencies are split when it's too busy for one person to look after everything safely - when there is a separate TWR controller they usually are only doing the take-off and landing clearance and looking after aircraft and vehicles that want to go on the runway or cross it.

Where there is a separate GND frequency you'll normally get your start clearance and taxi/departure instructions from the ground controller and be transferred to TWR as you approach the holding point. You might get transferred earlier if there is nothing happening that will affect you as you make your way to the holding point - there is no absolute point at which an aircraft will be transferred from GND to TWR.

If you go to some large airports in other countries you may find that there are different frequencies for start-up and taxy permission on the apron (this is sometimes called 'Apron' or 'Ramp' control) and the aircraft are transferred to ATC when they need to leave the apron.

As localflighteast says, do what the controllers tell you, i.e. don't go beyond your clearance limit, and change frequency when they tell you and you won't go far wrong. If you don't understand why you have to do something or don't understand what the controller wants, just ask.

[G-F0RC3]

Understood, thanks guys! :ok: