Briefing an approach plate, especially while flying

Many charts say ADF required or DME required. This is sometimes
overlooked until the last minute.

This may sound obvious, but make sure that you are briefing the
correct chart. Around here we have many ILS Rwy 24, and I have had
students confuse one with another.




Ray Andraka wrote in message ...
Doesn't hurt to look real quick at the MSA rings just to get a real rough idea
of the underlying terrain. KIPT, for instance has a mountain just to the left
of the localizer, and I think you'd want to know that is there if you can't see
it. No need to memorize the heights, jsut a rough mental sketch of the minimum
safe altitudes is enough. Why? well if something goes wrong at least you know
which way not to turn...

Bob Gardner wrote:

You are cluttering your mind with unnecessary data. If you fly at an
assigned altitude or the altitude shown on the plate for a black line, you
can forget about the MSA (which is not an operational altitude), the highest
obstacle, and maximum safe distance...whatever that is. Frequencies,
courses, altitudes, and the miss procedure are enough.

Bob Gardner

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
My approach plate briefing, especially while flying, could use some
improvement. I received my instrument rating last March and have about 75
hours of actual IMC time since then, but I honestly feel my briefing of
the
chart is not as thorough as it must be for optimum situational awareness.

I am not just referring to frequencies and approach minimums, but rather
the plethora of other information, such as highest nearby obstacle,
minimum
safe altitude, maximum safe distance ring, etc. Although I try to brief
an
approach during the lower workload of cruise flight, I discovered that I
am
still missing some pertinent information.

Perhaps I should consider designing a checklist of sorts, but in the mean
time I am curious what tips the more seasoned instrument pilots have to
offer.

Oh, worth mentioning is that I use Jeppesen's approach plates and I do fly
in an aircraft equipped with a dual axis AP.

--
Peter












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--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759

(Andrew Sarangan) wrote:
Many charts say ADF required or DME required. This is sometimes
overlooked until the last minute.

You should have noticed that in your pre-flight planning. Mistakes like
that are common in training, where you're doing approach after approach,
but on a real flight, you really should look at the aproaches into your
destination (and alternate) before you even get in the airplane. It's
really embarrassing to get where you're going only to discover you can't
land because you can't fly any of the approaches.

This may sound obvious, but make sure that you are briefing the
correct chart. Around here we have many ILS Rwy 24, and I have had
students confuse one with another.

Yup. I watched a student do that last week (Hi, Evan!). POU has a
VOR-DME 6 and a VOR-DME 24. We were near the IAF for the 24 approach
when he called up NY Approach and asked for the "vectors to the VOR-DME
approach". He had the 6 plate out, and didn't realize there was also a
24 approach.

The controller gave us vectors to final (for 24), and while my student
did pick up on the fact that the vector we got didn't seem to make
sense, he didn't figure out what was going on. I think the controller
added to the confusion by saying something like "cleared VOR-DME
approach" without mentioning *which* VOR-DME approach it was.

I think the take-home lesson is that if something doesn't make sense
while flying an approach, don't just keep going hoping it'll fall into
place later. If you get a vector that seems wrong, ask the controller
what's going on.