[andre199017]

Hi all,

The Rules of the Air 2015 seem to clearly state position and height information should be transmitted to relevant ATC/AFIS/A/G when transiting the ATZ boundary:

The commander of an aircraft flying within the aerodrome traffic zone of an aerodrome
must—.
[....]
(c) if the aircraft is fitted with means of communication by radio with the ground,
communicate the aircraft’s position and height to the air traffic control unit, the flight
information centre or the air/ground communications service unit at the aerodrome (as the
case may be) on entering the aerodrome traffic zone and immediately prior to leaving it.

However as a student pilot, we have been told that we must establish contact with the radio station prior to entering or leaving the ATZ, but not necessarily again at the boundary.

CAP413 doesn't seem to consistently detail ATZ boundary transmissions in its examples, nor does the Safety Sense leaflet on radiotelephony.

Outbound: It seems clear enough that we would communicate something along the lines of "departing the circuit to the ______". I don't normally hear height information from other pilots when flying for this R/T in the real world. Do we need to include height information, or is the assumption that we are at circuit height?

Inbound Assuming we would normally make contact ~10nm out "requesting join", what's the correct approach here? We normally next make contact when overhead, but is the correct procedure to:

1) request join
2) call when entering ATZ with position and height, and
3) report overhead?

Trying not to fail my FRTOL over something simple as omitting an ATZ boundary transmission...