Who do you usually talk to in Class, B, C and D airspace VFR?

Question

In Canada, an aircraft would talk terminal airspace before entering, they would pass you off to tower, and then ground. In the USA, I know that you would be passed to tower and then ground, but would you usually talk to Arrival before tower and Departure after talking to tower when leaving? Is this the same for Class B, C, and D airports?

Answer 1

Depends on your altitude.... If you are not in their coverage range, then you dont have to talk them at all... However, you may still request flight following if you so desire. I would leave them alone if at all possible, especially during peak times. I find it quite rude to make benign requests when there are already too many planes, not enough controllers, and more importantly, NOT ENOUGH CONCRETE to put the planes.

The FAA thinks they are fixing this problem with ADS-B. But, they have missed the problem completely.. Airlines schedule too many flights to arrive at the same time for congestion to be relieved. If you improve the network, great... But only so many airplanes can sequence onto a runway per hour... The only way to increase it is to build more rwys.

Answer 2

To enter Class D airspace, you must just talk to the control tower, and you are good to enter it when the tower repeats your tail number back to you.

To enter class C, you will first talk to approach control (or departure, if you're leaving the airport), but like class D, you are cleared into it when they respond with your tail number.

Class B is similar to class C in that you will talk to approach controll, however you MUST be granted a cleaance before entering Class B airspace.  (Cessna N97564 you are cleared into Class Bravo airspace, fly heading 090, maintain 3000, that sort of thing.)