Hopefully I'm in the right spot for this. I am an air traffic controller in the navy, been in for 5.5 years but only had about a year and a half of shore experience.

When I got to my current facility, our opening procedures went like this: at 0700 the day crew would man the tower and sign onto position. We would make a call over our FM that the tower was manned and all vehicles on the airfield needed to check in with call sign position and intentions. Ground would then direct the terminal on their FOD gear and light check and the electricians to the PAPIs and so forth. Our published hours in the IFR sup show us open at 0730 but our facman specifically stated that while aircraft may taxi up to 15 minutes prior, clearances shall be held until 0730 unless early open has been coordinated.

So that's what we had been doing until about 4 months ago when we got a new civilian in the division. As soon as he found out we did things like that he said it was illegal and immediately wrote up a PDL saying we would now not sign on nor talk to anyone on the field until 0730 but aircraft could still taxi at their own risk.

So does anyone know where I can find this rule. I'm asking because this guy will never say. Hes one of those do what I say because I say it and he already seems to have management in his pocket. Everyone who works in the tower agrees that moving people around in the morning, while also making opening calls and equipment checks is really good practice for when things get busy. We dont get a lot of ops here so we need all the practice we can get. But I'm also not going to challenge my training chief and Divo without all the knowledge I can get. And I want to be doing things the right way, i just dont trust this civilian to actually have the book to back him and not just "this is how we did it at my last facility."