"Cleared Straight-In Runway X; Report Y Miles Final"

"Jim Cummiskey" wrote in message
...
Why put yourself in a position that A) leaves you hard
to find by other aircraft looking for someone "on final"

John, IMHO, I was "on final."

The definition of "final" clearly indicates that you were not.

The whole point I'm trying to make is that I
don't believe you have to be precisely on the extended center line to be
on
final.

Then you'd better start lobbying the FAA to change the pilot/controller
glossary. It does not current agree with your belief.

Rather, to me "Cleared Straight-In" implies that you should not make
a downwind or base turn, but simply fly direct to the airport, align
yourself with the runway, and land.

Align yourself with the runway, yes. Do it 100 feet from the numbers, no.
If you've been told to report a "5 mile final", you need to be aligned with
the runway by the time you're 5 miles from the runway.

I also don't agree you are necessarily
any "harder to find" on final if you are offset within 30 deg.

You are free to disagree, of course. But that doesn't make it true. If you
tell someone you are at a position aligned with the runway, and you are
actually 2.5 miles away from that position, that makes it VERY hard to find
you.

[...]
Un huh. I suppose the absolutely correct thing for me to have done was to
setup a waypoint in my GPS exactly five miles out from the numbers on the
extended center line and fly direct to that. Please. I prefer to do
more
meaningful things when I'm close to an airport (like look for traffic).

If you can't look at your chart and identify a position 5 miles away from
the airport on the extended runway centerline, you have no business flying
an airplane. You should not need a GPS to comply with the controller's
instructions.

Actually, it costs you about one minute more flying. May not seem like a
lot to you, but after 26 hours of flying to KOSH and back, every minute
seems valuable.

That's got to be the most ridiculous part of your defense I've heard so far.
Both because 60 seconds is a trivial amount of extra time, no matter how far
you've flown, and because from 20 miles out, adjusting your flight path to
aim for a true 5 mile final adding 60 seconds to your flight time means you
are cruising at about 60 knots. If you are flying something that cruises at
60 knots and you can't stand an extra 60 seconds of flight, you have the
wrong airplane.

In any case, you would have been well within your rights to decline the
controller's instruction and request a true point-to-point straight flight
from your position to the runway. The question here isn't whether it was
reasonable to ask you to deviate, but whether you even understand that you
were asked to do so.

The more I read your responses in this thread, the more I wonder if you are
really genuinely interested in learning the actual answer to your question.
It sure doesn't seem like you are.

Pete