When to make a full instrument approach?

[minitour]

Mini...
You keep on trying to make this overly complicated.

'Sled

I tend to do that

Thanks again for clearing up the confusion on the RVR thing...

-mini

 

[OleGuy]

I understand what the reg says but, just remember that if you land on the runway below reported minimums , the tower is required to report it. In 38 years of flying I made it a point to avoid getting to know the FAA.

 

[Lead Sled]

In 38 years of flying I made it a point to avoid getting to know the FAA.

Wise advice. So far, in 39 years of flying, I've been able to limit my contact with the FAA to purely routine matters - except for the occassional social outing. In fact, my wife and I are going out to eat this evening with a Fed.

'Sled

 

[Sctt@NJA]

The question of when you will do a full approach is a good one.

The only times I have done them in real life has been in no radar areas. Question is how do you know if there is approach radar at an unfamiliar airport?

A couple airports where I KNOW people get surprised when they think they are getting vectors for the approach and then are suddenly (and close in) given a clearance for the full approach: Lebanon NH and Keene NH.

Looking at the approach plates for those airports are there any hints that radar is not available? Not that I know of. There is the little symbol that shows there is radar. There is radar in those areas but the coverage doesn't go low enough to allow for vectors to final.

This can lead to some real scrambling for unfamiliar pilots!

 

[minitour]

Question is how do you know if there is approach radar at an unfamiliar airport?

That's a great point. There's an airport we fly in to a lot just for the purpose of doing full approaches non-radar and there's nothing special on the plates for there.

Maybe that's something NACO and Jepp could work on in the future...great idea.

-mini

 

[Vector4fun]

I understand what the reg says but, just remember that if you land on the runway below reported minimums , the tower is required to report it. In 38 years of flying I made it a point to avoid getting to know the FAA.

Ole Guy,

Don't want to seem a smart-azz, but in 25 yrs in various towers, I've never heard of such a requirement. Not that certain folks in certain towers wouldn't do it. I suppose we could report the ugliest paint job ever seen on a Lear 35 if so inclined, but I'm not aware of any requirement to report a crew for landing when WX was reported at or below mins. Well, OK, about the third time some nut landed a C210 with 800 RVR, I might stop believing in lucky breaks in the viz...

There may be any number of people on the ramp or monitoring the frequency who would take a dim, official, view of such, and I have heard of those situations, so the best advice would be to CYA and follow the regs of course.

 

[Vector4fun]

The only times I have done them in real life has been in no radar areas. Question is how do you know if there is approach radar at an unfamiliar airport?


This can lead to some real scrambling for unfamiliar pilots!

Just some Gee-Whiz info,

Even at airports with radar, if it were to go down for any reason, and depending on the coverage available from CENRAP, they may or may not be able to vector to the final approach course. Also, where radar IS available, we're not supposed to vector to an approach course that's not displayed on the video map. (Though we could "wing it" in an emergency or some such). Most of our GPS approach courses are NOT displayed, for example, but where they overlay a VOR or localizer course, we do vector. Where they don't, we don't. Most NDB finals are not on the vido maps as well.

We normally won't allow the techs to do scheduled maint on the radar unless WX is good enough for easy visuals. But practice app vectors could be iffy.

 

[minitour]

Just some Gee-Whiz info,

I love that stuff! Keep it comin!

-mini

 

[Username_here]

Holding Pattern at FAF for PT??

I heard of SHARP before, but where in the regs does one find that? Looking in the AIM 5-4-9 it says that "some procedure turns are specified by procedural track. These turns must be flown exactly as depicted." Unless, obviously, radar vectored.

So flying a ILS outbound, there is a racetrack depicted at the FAF, one would have to fly that, (after entering either with teardrop or parallel{which in all actuality all entries are direct, it just depends on you get there}) right?

 

[minitour]

So flying a ILS outbound, there is a racetrack depicted at the FAF, one would have to fly that, (after entering either with teardrop or parallel{which in all actuality all entries are direct, it just depends on you get there}) right?

You don't need to fly the entire race track and shouldn't unless you get authorization from ATC.

The easiest way to think about it (for me) is "cross the fix twice". For example, if I'm outbound on the inbound course, I'll cross it, do my tear drop "entry" and cross it again, but instead of turning outbound to continue with the "pattern", I'd continue inbound. Same thing for the other entries. For a direct entry, I'd actually do one circuit in the "pattern"...

The idea is to be able to reverse your course, not spend five hours doing race-track patterns.

If you need to go around the "track" once or twice, just tell ATC and (in my limited experience) they usually are cool with it. Something like, "XYZ approach, cessna 123 request a turn in the hold at DEFIX for the descent"..."Cessna 123 one turn approved, report leaving DEFIX".

-mini