Seneca down at Avalon

There isn't 2000' obstacle clearance on an approach. Terrain actually
slopes down from both ends of the runway. You have to screw this one up
pretty bad to hit anything.

Mike
MU-2


"Snowbird" wrote in message
m...
"R. Hubbell" wrote in message
news:pMLKb.102181$pY.83466@fed1read04...

I wonder about having pax when shooting approaches. Seems like a pretty
big
distraction while learning. Do the FARs prohibit pax while IFR
training?

No, not at all, and in fact some viewpoints think it's a good
idea to take flight students of various flavors along, esp.
instrument students, both for learning by observation and as
an extra set of safety-pilot eyes.

Something strange about this, though -- are the TERPS really
right on this approach? Climb from 2,100 ft to 3,200 ft to
clear a 2,090 ft mountain -- shouldn't there be 2000 ft of
obstacle clearance over a mountain? Also is there an obstacle
DP for departure from that runway? Seems like going missed
after the MAP would require a non-standard climb gradient,
as would a departure?

Very sad accident

Cheers,
Sydney

On 7 Jan 2004 12:33:57 -0800 (Snowbird) wrote:

"R. Hubbell" wrote in message news:pMLKb.102181$pY.83466@fed1read04...

I wonder about having pax when shooting approaches. Seems like a pretty big
distraction while learning. Do the FARs prohibit pax while IFR training?

No, not at all, and in fact some viewpoints think it's a good
idea to take flight students of various flavors along, esp.
instrument students, both for learning by observation and as
an extra set of safety-pilot eyes.

That makes sense.


Something strange about this, though -- are the TERPS really
right on this approach? Climb from 2,100 ft to 3,200 ft to
clear a 2,090 ft mountain -- shouldn't there be 2000 ft of
obstacle clearance over a mountain? Also is there an obstacle
DP for departure from that runway? Seems like going missed
after the MAP would require a non-standard climb gradient,
as would a departure?

Very sad accident

Yes, for sure.


R. Hubbell


Cheers,
Sydney

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 21:43:31 -0800 "BTIZ" wrote:

I wonder about having pax when shooting approaches. Seems like a pretty
big
distraction while learning. Do the FARs prohibit pax while IFR training?

No. It is entirely at the discretion of the instructor.

And as someone else pointed out there might be some value
in having them along as that may be the case once you're
on your own after you get the ticket.


I will guess that the final report will mention the intent of the flight.

R. Hubbell

BT

"Maule Driver" wrote in message
r.com...

"Larry Dighera"
That is a tricky approach. VOR behind and above the airport.

What is it about those circumstances that causes you to characterize
the Avalon VOR/DME-B approach as tricky?

Thanks for taking the bait. On one hand, nothing is tricky about it if
flown as published (obvious and self-evident). But a bunch of folks died
here by not doing so. So what's tricky?

One way of describing what's tricky is that you can fly the approach as
published laterally, never descend below MDA, and crash.

I would not describe it that way - rather, more acurately, you fly the
approach and fail to execute the missed as published. That will get you
dead in many places and this is aout as "trickless" as they come. The
approach is named VOR/DME - so what is the trickiness?

All the information is on the approach chart. There is not much to do on
the final segment - just remain at 2100, keep a heading and then make sure
you know when to go missed. There is no timing on the approach chart and it
seems fairly clear that the approach uses DME fixes.




The fact that the MAP is a DME reading is perhaps trickier than having a
flag flip, needle spin,beacon sound, timer zero-out, or an intersection
passed. GPS helps. But such is the nature of many VOR/DME approaches.
I've *never* flown a VOR/DME approach using a DME so this is a bit of
conjecture on my part.

For those of you familiar with it, would I be right in guessing that
familiarity with VFR flight there might not make the need to climb as
obvious as it is when IMC?

I would guess the opposite. The mountain is clearly visible in VMC,
and apparently was not immediately visible when this accident
occurred.

Have you flown there? I was thinking of a place like Roanoke where it is
obvious after flying there VFR that there is a MOUNTAIN behind one of the
runways. The mountain remains in this pilot's mindseye even when in IMC.
Looking at the approach plate for AVX, it seems like the airport and the
location of the VOR are about 500' different. I'm guessing that the VOR
may
be on a highpoint. Flying there VFR I was trying to imagine whether one
would tend not to be aware that there is a critical rise in terrain in
some
directions. Especially sinced the rise is not obviously aligned with a
runway. But I've never flown there nor do I have a sectional.

So here's the trick. We're on an instructional flight, the student has
done
everything right but and is flying at MDA. We're looking for the airport
but the student has missed the DME indication for the MAP. The instructor
sees the error or not, but may decide to wait to see the student catch it
(very wrong in IMC). They proceed at MDA into the only navigational aid
on
the entire approach. The (possible) fact that in the pilots' minds eye,
they are flying to a hilltop airport surrounded by water may suggest that
flying 2100 feet above the water and 500 feet above the airport is not
going
to result in hitting terrain.

Flying it as published without error of variation would of course
eliminate
this speculation.

"Richard Hertz"
Thanks for taking the bait. On one hand, nothing is tricky about it if
flown as published (obvious and self-evident). But a bunch of folks
died
here by not doing so. So what's tricky?

One way of describing what's tricky is that you can fly the approach as
published laterally, never descend below MDA, and crash.

I would not describe it that way - rather, more acurately, you fly the
approach and fail to execute the missed as published. That will get you
dead in many places and this is aout as "trickless" as they come. The
approach is named VOR/DME - so what is the trickiness?

All the information is on the approach chart. There is not much to do on
the final segment - just remain at 2100, keep a heading and then make sure
you know when to go missed. There is no timing on the approach chart and
it
seems fairly clear that the approach uses DME fixes.

Well, I have to agree that it's all there and if you fly it as published, no
problem. But this approach seems a little different than the 'typical'
non-precision approach.

I took a quick look at the first 111 approaches inf SE 2 of 4 NC & SC. I
looked at at all non-precision, non-GPS-only approaches. There were 38 such
approaches.32 of them had a missed approach point that was over the runway.
Of the six that had MAPs short of the runway threshold, 4 of those were
TACAN (military?) only approaches. Only 2 were similiar in this way to AVX.

Nothing wrong with different. Not necessarily tricky but I can see how a
careless pilot might continue on at MDA past a MAP short of the runway while
'searching' for a view of the runway. Thinking perhaps that I can see
straight down at the MAP so I'll just proceed along another mile (45 secs)
until I see the runway below then I'll rack it around and circle to land.

I'm not saying these folks were careless, just trying to learn something
from the accident.

On second thought, I'll stick with tricky.

I'm an IFR student working on my Rating.
(Check ride scheduled in 12 days)

Early on I used microsoft flight simulator to fly an approach to
almost every airport in So Cal.

AXV is the only one where I crashed.
I caught a glimpse of the runway out of the "virtual" window,
while trying to circle ito land I hit the same mountain in about the
same place.

It got my attention.








On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 14:25:04 -0800, "R. Hubbell"
wrote:

On 7 Jan 2004 12:33:57 -0800 (Snowbird) wrote:

"R. Hubbell" wrote in message news:pMLKb.102181$pY.83466@fed1read04...

I wonder about having pax when shooting approaches. Seems like a pretty big
distraction while learning. Do the FARs prohibit pax while IFR training?

No, not at all, and in fact some viewpoints think it's a good
idea to take flight students of various flavors along, esp.
instrument students, both for learning by observation and as
an extra set of safety-pilot eyes.

That makes sense.


Something strange about this, though -- are the TERPS really
right on this approach? Climb from 2,100 ft to 3,200 ft to
clear a 2,090 ft mountain -- shouldn't there be 2000 ft of
obstacle clearance over a mountain? Also is there an obstacle
DP for departure from that runway? Seems like going missed
after the MAP would require a non-standard climb gradient,
as would a departure?

Very sad accident

Yes, for sure.


R. Hubbell


Cheers,
Sydney

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 20:31:00 -0800 wrote:

I'm an IFR student working on my Rating.
(Check ride scheduled in 12 days)

Early on I used microsoft flight simulator to fly an approach to
almost every airport in So Cal.

AXV is the only one where I crashed.
I caught a glimpse of the runway out of the "virtual" window,
while trying to circle ito land I hit the same mountain in about the
same place.

It got my attention.


What caused you to crash? What were the factors that led to your
"virtual crash"?

I wonder if the NTSB ever fires up a simulator to try to answer
questions in an investgation?

R. Hubbell









On Wed, 7 Jan 2004 14:25:04 -0800, "R. Hubbell"
wrote:

On 7 Jan 2004 12:33:57 -0800 (Snowbird) wrote:

"R. Hubbell" wrote in message news:pMLKb.102181$pY.83466@fed1read04...

I wonder about having pax when shooting approaches. Seems like a pretty big
distraction while learning. Do the FARs prohibit pax while IFR training?

No, not at all, and in fact some viewpoints think it's a good
idea to take flight students of various flavors along, esp.
instrument students, both for learning by observation and as
an extra set of safety-pilot eyes.

That makes sense.


Something strange about this, though -- are the TERPS really
right on this approach? Climb from 2,100 ft to 3,200 ft to
clear a 2,090 ft mountain -- shouldn't there be 2000 ft of
obstacle clearance over a mountain? Also is there an obstacle
DP for departure from that runway? Seems like going missed
after the MAP would require a non-standard climb gradient,
as would a departure?

Very sad accident

Yes, for sure.


R. Hubbell


Cheers,
Sydney

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 15:18:23 GMT Larry Dighera wrote:

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 22:48:11 -0800, "R. Hubbell"
wrote in Message-Id:
:

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 05:13:14 GMT Larry Dighera wrote:

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 20:18:54 -0800, "R. Hubbell"
wrote in Message-Id:
pMLKb.102181$pY.83466@fed1read04:

http://ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20031231X02110

That link only produced an error message, but this one seems to be
functional: http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20031231X02110

This midair collision of two Long Beach Flying Club & Flight Academy
aircraft appears to be the same operation (but obviously different
flight instructor) as the AVX failure to climb on the missed approach
accident you mention above:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...28X00524&key=1
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...28X00524&key=2


Well the planes are all from the Flying Club. I remember the midair,
very sad as well.

It was not only sad, but it points out the flaw in the FAA's airspace
strategy. When the majority of aircraft are forced to remain outside
the majority of available airspace (for lack of a Class B clearance,
etc), they are crowded into the resulting congested bits of airspace
remaining where it is significantly more likely that a MAC may occur.
As the size of the Class B keeps increasing over time, I would expect
MACs to increase also.


Hopefully the problem can be solved with technology. Maybe more accurate
xponders or the like. The class bravo is pretty messy and getting dangerous.
I wonder if someday all traffic will be under ATC control in that airspace.




Strange that the occupants of the 172 were not recovered until 73 days later.

Yes. It would be interesting to hear the explanation for that.

Maybe weather and money?? If they were famous of course no problem.



With regard to the AVX mishap, given the radar information disclosed
in the NTSB preliminary report, it's pretty evident that the
instructor failed to assure that the student complied with climb
associated with the Missed Approach Procedure if indeed the student
was controlling the aircraft at the time. While most instrument
approaches in the Los Angeles area are flown with ATC monitoring the
flight on radar, as I recall, radar coverage isn't available for the
VOR/NDB-B approach to AVX, so the instructor may not have realized it
was _solely_ his responsibility and duty to assure the safety of the
flight.


But it always is the instructor that's in charge and responsible.
I suppose it's still possible that he didn't realize it at the time.


R. Hubbell


With AVX UNICOM reporting "ceiling 100 feet overcast; and visibility
1.25 statute miles" and the charted MDA of about 1,000' above the
runway elevation, the instructor should have known immediately that he
would be executing the Missed Approach Procedure, and had time to
review it while the student flew the descent. But after the fact
analysis fails to include the unknowable actual circumstances of the
flight (who was at the controls, the mechanical state of the
equipment, ...), so it is necessarily flawed.

However, there is no mistake that 9 fatalities and loss of three
aircraft within 3 years by the same flying club is truly tragic. It
would be interesting to read firsthand reports of pilots familiar with
the decorum and professionalism within the Long Beach Flying Club &
Flight Academy: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/lbflyingclub/

As a Part 141 flying school, their prices are about the lowest I've
seen:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...ub/source4.htm

The only other interesting information I could find on their web site
was contained in their monthly bulletin:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...b/bulletin.htm

[newsgroup rec.aviation.ifr added]

What caused you to crash? What were the factors that led to your
"virtual crash"?

Circled the wrong way.
Started down as soon as I saw the airport.
Lost sight of the Airporrt in the descent and did not immediatly start
the missed.

Started the missed late and too low.

Reported ceiling at 100' AGL. My limited understanding of VOR type
approaches is that the MDA is in the order of 400-500' AGL.

Why even attempt the approach or at least be ready to execute the
missed approach.

Ron Lee