What is an aeronautical advisory station?
A CTAF is a frequency designated for the purpose of carrying out airport advisory practices while operating to or from an airport without an operating control tower. The CTAF may be a UNICOM, MULTICOM, FSS, or tower frequency and is identified in appropriate aeronautical publications. NOTE-
How is air traffic control funded?
Most of the FAA’s budget is financed from the Airport & Airway Trust Fund, which receives its revenue from aviation excise taxes on airline tickets, cargo, and general aviation fuel. There is a growing surplus in the Trust Fund, yet critical aviation spending infrastructure needs go unfunded.
How does air traffic control work?
Air traffic controllers monitor the location of aircraft in their assigned airspace by radar and communicate with the pilots by radio. To prevent collisions, ATC enforces traffic separation rules, which ensure each aircraft maintains a minimum amount of empty space around it at all times.
Can I listen air traffic control?
If you’ve got nothing better to do on one night, visit LiveATC.net, where anyone with a computer or smartphone and a passing interest in aviation can listen to control towers live, worldwide, and in full action. Student pilots use it to listen to their local airport to get accustomed to the myriad radio calls required.
Is Unicom and Ctaf the same?
UNICOM is a licensed non-government base station that provides air-to-ground and ground-to-air communication, and may also serve as a CTAF when in operation. MULTICOM is a frequency allocation without a physical base station that is reserved as a CTAF for airports without other facilities.
What numbers are ATIS?
This is from the FAA’s Pilot/Controller Glossary: HAVE NUMBERS − Used by pilots to inform ATC that they have received runway, wind, and altimeter information only. In most cases, pilots will just tell ATC that they have the ATIS anyway, as Ron described in his answer.