"Greg Esres" wrote in message
...

Agreed, but the *pilot* must know when he's established on a segment
of the approach.


The pilot should practice the fine art of navigation.



I'm not questioning the clearance, but I'm questioning whether the
pilot should rely on ATC's interpretation of what it means to be
established.


If the pilot doesn't know what it means to be established he shouldn't be
flying IFR.



No, they descended to published altitudes BEFORE they reached the
point where those altitudes applied. They were not on a "black line".


How does that differ from what I wrote?

You can review the incident he

http://www.aopa.org/asf/asfarticles/sp9806.html


I don't have a copy of the VOR/DME RWY 12 approach from 1974, but the
transcript has the pilot referring to a step-down fix on it.

Capt: "You know, according to this dumb sheet [referring to the instrument
approach chart] it says thirty-four hundred to Round Hill--is our minimum
altitude." The FE asked where the captain saw that, and the captain replied,
"Well, here. Round Hill is eleven-and-a-half DME."

Note that that conservation took place about three and a half minutes after
they were cleared for the approach and the pilot started a descent to 1800
feet. The pilot saw a minimum altitude applicable to the route in front of
them and he elected to descend through it.