It depends on the airport! Some smaller airports (like Corona Municipal Airport where the story is based) - are untowered, meaning that there's no central ATC to chat with when taking off/landing - everyone announces what they're doing as they're doing it and there's a traffic pattern/flow that everyone follows to ensure there's no conflicts - it works surprisingly well.
In the US, you can get shockingly very far without having to chat with ATC.
That's true of most small airports. There are over 5,000 public airports in the US (and another ~14k private airports), but only about 500 with ATC.
> everyone announces what they're doing
Well, most people. :)
There's no "requirement" that pilots announce their intentions on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports, some aircraft may not even have radios.
> no "requirement" that pilots announce their intentions on the common frequency at uncontrolled airports, some aircraft may not even have radios
Got to love it when a Citation whose pilot is to arrogant to radio and a crop duster that doesn’t have any instruments to speak of are both in the pattern.
There have been many times I just decided to come back to the airport a bit later. Or circle well above the airport and watch the chaos below.
> circle well above the airport and watch the chaos below
Having been cut off by that particular pilot once in the pattern and once when I was holding short, I’m absolutely there for everyone on CTAF absolutely tearing them apart for a straight two minutes until someone from UNICOM tells the Vietnam vets in their hangars to shut the fuck up. (Eastern Idaho. Uncontrolled.)