Is Your Tower Asleep at the Mike?

By Ed Downs

The answer to the question posed in the title of this month’s column might be, Sport Pilots don’t care.  To be sure, recent weeks have set the media ablaze with stories of fear and trepidation, as brave, but apparently helpless, pilots are forced to land their airplanes without the critical and essential words from the FAA of “cleared to land.”  Media experts (really?) would have the general passenger public believe that landing without a tower in operation to utter those empowering words, “cleared to land,” leaves all aboard in deadly peril.  Okay, perhaps this writer is being a bit dramatic, but having a general belief that landings can not be made safely without a tower clearance does not do recreational flying any good from a PR standpoint, when citizens discover that their local community airport is “uncontrolled.”