Question for the pilots

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by Undertoad
When you say that a plane can land without a radio, but has to call ahead of time... does that apply to big airports as well? Can I call PHL up and tell them I'm going to be putting my ultralight down on their busiest landing runway at 6 PM ?

The rule applies to airports with control towers, in Class C airspace....like say Reading. Philly International has it's own Class B airspace, which is more tightly regulated. If you wanna be in the Class B without a radio, much less operate out of KPHL itself, you'll need a Very Good Reason to get permission. And ultralight is a whole other story; they are not certificated aircraft, and I'm not familiar with the rules. I doubt you would get permission to operate an ultralight there, radio or no...and with wake turbulance aloft and prop and jet wash on the ground, personally I think it would be very unsafe to do so.

But I can tell you with certainty that if you wanna take anything smaller than a 727 into KPHL, chances are good they will want you to use the shortest 17/35 runway...which is still *plenty* busy.

Remeber, at a tower-controlled field, you must recieve clearance in order to land legally. The clearance will be for a particular runway, at their option; you can refuse the clearance if as pilot-in-command you beleive it would be unsafe. But you'd better have a Very Very Very good reason for wanting 27R, which is the typical arrivals runway for the big guys (assuming a typical wind out of the west)

And the tower is not *required* to clear you at all.