Narrative:

I had a private pilot/student who had not flown since late 2008 for a flight review. He did his flight training at tus so we were both familiar with normal procedures at the airport. While hovering in non-movement area of west ramp called tower to ask if taxiway charlie was still closed and ask for clearance to make patterns. Tower's reply was to hold. He waited for an aircraft to land on 11L then came back to us and I repeated our request. You could tell he was annoyed with us and told us taxiway charlie was closed and gave fast instructions to taxiway A5. Neither of us understood the instructions and after thinking about it for a minute I requested tower to repeat instructions. Now he sounded almost mad and gave instructions to A5. I thought I understood the instructions and read back crossing instructions. I have been flying fixed wing also and thought he meant A5 at the intersection of taxiway alpha and A5. Since tower waited for traffic to clear on runways 11L/right before clearing us it wasn't clear he wanted us to go directly to A5 south of runways 11L/right. We flew directly to taxiway alpha and A5 north of runway 11L/right after checking for traffic from all runways and waited for further instructions. Tower gave clear instructions after that moving us to A5 south of runways 11L/right. Instead of the normal procedures of using runway 11R for patterns he had us landing across taxiway A5 and A8. Tower didn't ask us to contact them or mentioned any problem. I was thinking about the flight this morning while transferring it to my paper logbook and came to the conclusion that I did commit a runway incursion even though I didn't interfere with any other traffic. In the future if I still have any doubts about the clearance I will get progressive instructions.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Helicopter instructor pilot operating at TUS reported a possible runway incursion during hover taxi out maneuver.

Narrative: I had a private pilot/student who had not flown since late 2008 for a flight review. He did his flight training at TUS so we were both familiar with normal procedures at the airport. While hovering in non-movement area of west ramp called Tower to ask if Taxiway Charlie was still closed and ask for clearance to make patterns. Tower's reply was to hold. He waited for an aircraft to land on 11L then came back to us and I repeated our request. You could tell he was annoyed with us and told us Taxiway Charlie was closed and gave fast instructions to Taxiway A5. Neither of us understood the instructions and after thinking about it for a minute I requested Tower to repeat instructions. Now he sounded almost mad and gave instructions to A5. I thought I understood the instructions and read back crossing instructions. I have been flying fixed wing also and thought he meant A5 at the intersection of Taxiway Alpha and A5. Since Tower waited for traffic to clear on Runways 11L/R before clearing us it wasn't clear he wanted us to go directly to A5 south of Runways 11L/R. We flew directly to Taxiway Alpha and A5 north of Runway 11L/R after checking for traffic from all runways and waited for further instructions. Tower gave clear instructions after that moving us to A5 south of Runways 11L/R. Instead of the normal procedures of using Runway 11R for patterns he had us landing across Taxiway A5 and A8. Tower didn't ask us to contact them or mentioned any problem. I was thinking about the flight this morning while transferring it to my paper logbook and came to the conclusion that I did commit a runway incursion even though I didn't interfere with any other traffic. In the future if I still have any doubts about the clearance I will get progressive instructions.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.