For US student pilots
Requesting touch-and-goes, closed traffic and the option
Pattern work has its own vocabulary. You do not ask for “some circuits” or “a few landings”: you ask for closed traffic, you are cleared for a touch-and-go or for the option, and each phrase has a definition in the Pilot/Controller Glossary that the tower is holding you to.
The words
Closed traffic is successive takeoffs and landings or low approaches where the aircraft does not leave the pattern (P/CG). Touch-and-go is a landing and departure without stopping or exiting the runway (P/CG). Cleared for the option lets you make a touch-and-go, low approach, missed approach, stop-and-go or full stop, your choice, and is normally used so an instructor can watch how a student handles a changing situation (P/CG; AIM 4-3-23).
Asking for pattern work
Say “closed traffic” when you call for taxi, and again when you call the tower ready. The tower approves or refuses it subject to traffic: “left closed traffic approved”, sometimes with a report point, or “unable closed traffic” (JO 7110.65 3-10-11).
Palo Alto Ground, Cessna Three One Six Zero Foxtrot, at the ramp with Information Bravo, request taxi, closed traffic.
Palo Alto Tower, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot, holding short three one, ready for departure, closed traffic.
Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot, Palo Alto Tower, runway three one, cleared for takeoff, left closed traffic approved.
Runway three one, cleared for takeoff, left closed traffic, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot.
Asking for the option
The AIM says to request the option when entering downwind (AIM 4-3-23). Say what you want on the downwind report: “touch and go” if that is all you need, “request the option” if you want the choice. The clearance comes back with the runway; read it back with the runway.
Palo Alto Tower, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot, midfield downwind, three one, request the option.
Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot, runway three one, cleared for the option.
Runway three one, cleared for the option, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot.
What the tower assumes
An aircraft cleared for a touch-and-go, stop-and-go or low approach is an arriving aircraft until it touches down, stops, or crosses the threshold, and a departing aircraft after that (JO 7110.65 3-8-2). That is why the tower can clear the next aircraft to land behind you: your clearance covers the departure too. You do not need a takeoff clearance to continue a touch-and-go.
Tell the tower about delays
If you decide to stay on the runway, will be slow on a stop-and-go, or will be delayed clearing the runway, tell the tower as soon as possible (P/CG CLEARED FOR THE OPTION; AIM 4-3-23). The aircraft behind you was cleared on the assumption you would not.
Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot, stop and go, three one.
Ending it
Say “full stop” on the downwind before your last landing so the tower can plan the sequence, then exit, clear the hold-short markings and change to Ground when told (AIM 4-3-21).
Palo Alto Tower, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot, midfield downwind, three one, full stop.
At a towered airport — Ground, Tower and the clearances
- Before you move
- Call Ground (or Clearance Delivery) for taxi before starting to move on the movement area; state your position on the airport. [AIM 4-3-14 a, 4-3-18 a 1]
- The taxi instruction
- “Runway (number), taxi via (route)”, with hold-short instructions where you must stop. ATC never says “cleared” for a taxi. Read back the runway and any hold short. [JO 7110.65 3-7-2; AIM 4-3-18 a 9]
- Crossing a runway
- Needs an explicit “cross runway (number)”. Absence of holding instructions authorises crossing taxiways only. [AIM 4-3-18 a 5; JO 7110.65 3-7-2]
- Ready
- Switch to Tower when ready for takeoff (stay on Ground until then). Turbine aircraft are assumed ready at the runway. [AIM 4-3-14 a, b]
- Line up and wait
- “Runway (number), line up and wait” — onto the runway, not a takeoff clearance. Read it back. [P/CG; JO 7110.65 3-9-4]
- Takeoff
- “Runway (number), cleared for takeoff.” Runway first, then the clearance; read back both. [JO 7110.65 3-9-10]
- Landing
- “Runway (number), cleared to land”; “cleared for the option” lets you choose touch-and-go, stop-and-go, low approach or full stop. [JO 7110.65 3-10-5; P/CG]
- After landing
- Exit at the first available taxiway or as told; taxi clear past the hold-position markings and hold; change to Ground only when the tower says. [AIM 4-3-21, 4-3-14 c]
- Leaving the tower frequency
- Once outside the Class D you do not need permission to leave the frequency, but staying on it for traffic is good practice. [AIM 4-3-2 a]
Runway two seven, taxi via Alpha, hold short of runway one eight, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot.
Runway two seven, cleared for takeoff, Cessna Six Zero Foxtrot.
The traffic pattern
The legs have standard names — departure, upwind, crosswind, downwind, base, final — and the tower uses them in instructions. [AIM 4-3-2 c]
- Pattern altitude
- Propeller aircraft: 1,000 feet AGL unless the Chart Supplement says otherwise; large and turbine aircraft 1,500 feet. [AIM 4-3-3 a]
- Turns
- Left unless the chart or the tower says right (“RP” on the chart for a right pattern). [AIM 4-3-3 c, d]
- Entry
- Level, abeam the midpoint at pattern altitude; the tower may say “enter left downwind”, “enter left base”, “straight-in approved”, “make right traffic”. [AIM 4-3-3, FIG 4-3-2; JO 7110.65 3-10-1]
- Reports
- Give the report the tower asked for — “midfield downwind, runway two seven” — and nothing more; the tower adds “report two mile final” when it wants that.
- Extend / I’ll call your base
- Acknowledge with your identification and fly it. Do not turn base until told.
- Go around
- Answer “going around” with your identification, then fly: overfly the runway, climb to pattern altitude, enter on the crosswind unless told otherwise. [P/CG]
Ask for the option and read it back
TowerTalk's Exercise F works closed traffic and the option with an AI tower at a real US airport, graded with the AIM paragraph.
Related
Study aid, written in our own words from the FAA Aeronautical Information Manual (Change 3, 7/9/26) and the Pilot/Controller Glossary, with paragraph references so you can check each point. Last reviewed 10 September 2026; awaiting review by a US flight instructor. It does not reproduce those documents and is not a substitute for them — always defer to the AIM, the current FAA publications, your instructor and your examiner. TowerTalk is not approved or endorsed by the FAA.