Air Law and ATC Procedures
Air Law and ATC Procedures
This domain checks your working knowledge of the Canadian Aviation Regulations (CARs), airspace classes, required documents, right-of-way rules and ATC clearance discipline - the rules you must apply before and during every VFR flight.
Core rules
- VFR weather minima: in controlled airspace, 3 SM flight visibility with 1 SM horizontal and 500 ft vertical cloud clearance. Know the CAR 602.114 Class G table, where daytime visibility can be as low as 1 SM but night minima are higher.
- Documents: pilot licence and medical; aircraft Certificate of Registration, Certificate of Airworthiness, journey log and weight-and-balance data.
- Right of way: converging aircraft of the same category - the one on the right has right of way; head-on - both alter course to the right; overtaking - the overtaking aircraft keeps clear; landing - the lower aircraft has right of way, but no one may cut in front of a landing aircraft.
- Clearances: read back runway, hold-short, line-up, crossing, altitude, heading and altimeter instructions. “Line up and wait” is not a take-off clearance.
Worked example
You are eastbound in cruise and see another same-category aircraft at your 2 o’clock, converging. It is on your right, so you give way - typically by altering heading to the right and passing behind it. If the other aircraft were head-on, both of you would turn right.
Traps that cost marks
Treating Class E as clearance-required airspace: Class E is controlled, but VFR aircraft normally do not need an ATC clearance; Class C and D do. Confusing “cleared for take-off” with “line up and wait,” and forgetting that a hold-short instruction must be read back in full, are common errors.