Narrative:

I was given clearance to take off runway 35R; I was told to make right traffic and follow the traffic in the upwind. When traffic in upwind was stated; the call for the upwind sounded muffled. I assumed he meant the traffic in the downwind which was in sight and my response to the controller was 'we will follow the traffic.' upon passing 1300 feet; I turned crosswind and continued my climb up to 1600 feet. Controller gave a traffic alert and told me to turn south and the other aircraft to turn east. The flight was completed with no further incident.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Student Pilot misunderstood Air Traffic Control instructions after takeoff.

Narrative: I was given clearance to take off RWY 35R; I was told to make right traffic and follow the traffic in the upwind. When traffic in upwind was stated; the call for the upwind sounded muffled. I assumed he meant the traffic in the downwind which was in sight and my response to the controller was 'We will follow the traffic.' Upon passing 1300 feet; I turned crosswind and continued my climb up to 1600 feet. Controller gave a traffic alert and told me to turn south and the other aircraft to turn east. The flight was completed with no further incident.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.