Spinner to Spinner

A change of runways raises everyone’s workload

It’s easy to feel like you have a guardian angel when you’re flying into an airport with a functioning control tower, especially one that’s equipped with DBRITE and well-trained controllers. But there still is no substitute for peeled eyeballs and an awareness of what other airplanes are actually doing (as opposed to what they’re supposed to be doing).

Recently I was nearing a busy controlled airport just as controllers were switching from one runway to the opposite one. There were multiple airplanes on instrument approaches, several waiting to take off, a couple in the pattern and a few more approaching pattern entry. I was cleared to enter a right base for the new runway, but by the tim...