From the KMYF Tower Chief 

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have had a several occasions during the last couple of days where people landed on runway 23, stopped on the runway and changed to the ground control frequency. As you may imagine, this lead to a couple of go-arounds and some consternation among the controllers.

This has always been a problem here; in fact it is specifically covered in our controller training program. People are used to landing on 28L/R, turning left onto 23, and stopping to call GC. We suspect that it's just a habit and that's why it happens even when 23 is the active runway. But it's happening more and more.

I have been wondering about some of the things that I say at pilot meetings. I've been very adamant about never crossing the hold lines from the "solid line" side or passing one of those red runway signs without a clearance. Now, obviously when you think about it, a landing clearance that doesn't include a hold short instruction is such a clearance, but we're having some understanding problems. One of the individuals I spoke with said that he was afraid of crossing the hold line for runway 28R, and that's why he stopped.

I'm going to mention this in future pilot meetings. In the meantime, I would appreciate if you CFIs and other veteran airpersons would pass this word around. Feel free to forward this among your contacts, and anyone who wants to get on my CFI mailing list should e-mail me with a request. They don't even have to be a CFI, just interested. And let me reiterate that I and several of the controllers here are available to speak to pilot meetings.

As they used to say in the Bartles and James commercials, "thank you for your support."

Tom Dray, Air Traffic Manager
Montgomery Tower
858-277-5601 Tom.Dray@faa.gov

July 2009