When do I report my position?

[LegendaryRoro88]

When do I report my position (both when ATC is active and inactive)?

[Josh_Tomaz]

For ATC you don’t report your position, on Unicom, you should report it once for each leg (Crosswind, Downwind, Base, Final)

[infiniteflight_schoo]

If you are flying a pattern with ATC it is recommended that you don’t announce your position after you got your landing clearence. ATC will probably send you a ‘you are already cleared to land, avoid unnecessary reports’ message. If i am flying patterns in Unicom i am announcing my position when entering the position. If i am flying a simple inbound i am only announcing final

[Josh_Tomaz]

You can also use this guide!

How to fly a (visual) pattern

A pattern can be flown in different ways. First of all, you will be cleared to fly a left or right hand pattern. This is straightforward: if you are cleared to make a left hand pattern all your turns will be to the left and if you are cleared to fly a right hand pattern all your turns will be to the right. To inform the tower that you want to remain in the pattern you will communicate when you request take off: “callsign XXX ready for take off runway XX, remaining in the pattern” What does a …

[sebi-ue]

You can report your position with full stop when you‘ll land and won‘t do a touch and go anymore. ATC will respond with roger and gives you a runway exit instruction.

[LegendaryRoro88]

So if I want to I can report my position for each leg (crosswind, downwind, base, and final) when ATC is online when doing patterns?

[infiniteflight_schoo]

No, you shouldn’t. ATC knows where you are so reports are unnecessary. If the ATC sent you ‘you are already cleared to land, avoid unnecessary reports’ and you continue you might get ghosted

[anon70772274]

Really? When I do flight training in real life I’ve been taught to only do it on downwind, ATC says the traffic later downwind and then usually clears you to land on base. This is from AirServices Australia so they are fully qualified professionals.

[Will_A]

Yes. This is normal real world procedure. When contacting controllers for a VFR inbound, they will often tell you to report that when on a certain leg of the pattern. You’ll notice that if you did receive your clearance, you no longer report your position.

In IF though, this is not required nor recommended. If we haven’t cleared you when you report though, we will. The best time to report position is if you haven’t been cleared when you aren’t on final.

[TimShan05]

You can however report your position with ATC if you feel that they might have forgotten about you, like during a busy FNF if they send a “I’ll call your base” and they still haven’t told you to turn base for ages, but only if you’re certain they have forgotten about you

[MannyG]

Reporting position

This maybe be a rehash but I see many pilots, including experienced ones using the “report position” unnecessarily or in replacement of inbound requests. So here is a little help: When to report position? In general you do not need to report position, it just clogs the frequency up. We see you! If you have been cleared to land you do not need to let us know you are on final or base… again, we see you. There may be another reasons to report position but here are the two most common ones: a) Yo…

[kylejtam]

It is highly recommended not to report your position after your clearance in a controlled airport. ATC is aware of your position and has already accounted for you if you have been given a clearance. If no clearance is given, then report 10NM final so that the controller is reminded of your presence.

In an uncontrolled environment, it is highly advised to report every leg of the pattern so that traffic around knows of your existance, whether they be pilots in the circuit, or other pilots entering the circuit.