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#11
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Dan,
Evidently, I didn't. Got it. Oh, and as others have said: Thanks for sharing the story! -- Thomas Borchert (EDDH) |
#12
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Thomas Borchert wrote
Then let me ask what Scott implied: How did you manage a CAT I approach with minimums of 200 and a half mile (3000 feet!) in that? Seems impossible to me - 400 and 3000 are quite a difference. Not to pick nits (OK, to pick nits) but CAT I mins can have an RVR as low as 1800 ft. Not 400 though. Michael |
#13
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Dan Luke wrote:
Yesterday, for the first time since I got the instrument rating 5 years ago, I had to hold for real. It was a reposition flight from Mobile Downtown to Pensacola to pick up an Angel Flight. When I checked the weather at home at 6am, fog was reported everywhere on the central Gulf Coast - the nearest legal alternate I found was Birmingham. Mobile was below minimums, but PNS was just at minimums and forecast to improve slightly. When I took off, BFM was still below minimums for the ILS, and when I checked the PNS ATIS it was 1/4, indefinite ceiling 100. Did you consider postponing the flight until PNS was reporting weather that you would need to complete the approach? According to my calculations, this was only a 46 mile flight, so it wouldn't have delayed your arrival at PNS by much, and would have saved you a bunch of fuel used in holding, not to mention the risk exposure of being airborne with nowhere to land. snip That problem dealt with, I headed down the glide slope with more than usual concentration on keeping the needles centered; I wanted to make this one. This time I saw enough lights at DH to give me 100 more feet, and that was it: made it. .... and you also had the required flight visibility? snip -- Dave Butler, software engineer 919-392-4367 |
#14
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"Roy Smith" wrote in message ... "Dan Luke" wrote: I suppose so. I always have this feeling my old CFII is sitting in the right seat, shaking his head when I don't do something "by the book." Single-pilot IFR is all about task prioritization. Take care of the important stuff, and don't waste time on the **** that doesn't matter. As long as you stay in the protected airspace, nobody cares what your holds look like, or how perfectly timed the legs are. From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general direction assigned. We controllers get really conservative around holding patterns, and a tightly-flown pattern really doesn't matter. Likely, no one in ATC-land will even notice if you nail the turns and the times, because they are looking at a lot of other stuff on the scope. The prudent controller will be using vertical separation below and above your protected airspace, and he/she will be adding a lot of extra lateral protection around your bubble too, just in case. Chip, ZTL |
#15
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"Chip Jones" wrote:
From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general direction assigned. One thing I have noticed is that while ATC doesn't seem to care much about where you go on the holding side of the fix, if you meander just a little bit PAST the holding fix, you're likely to get a call politely enquiring if you have any idea where the hell you are. |
#16
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"Dave Butler" wrote: Did you consider postponing the flight until PNS was reporting weather that you would need to complete the approach? According to my calculations, this was only a 46 mile flight, so it wouldn't have delayed your arrival at PNS by much, and would have saved you a bunch of fuel used in holding, ... Good question. Yes, I did consider it, but at the time I took off, my information was that PNS was at minimums with improvement forecast. I wanted to get the first leg of the Angel Flight started on time if possible, because there were other people - next leg pilot, patient's relatives, etc. - waiting on the flight. ...not to mention the risk exposure of being airborne with nowhere to land Well, the airplane has 6+ hours endurance at max range power, so I wasn't _too_ worried. This time I saw enough lights at DH to give me 100 more feet, and that was it: made it. ... and you also had the required flight visibility? To be honest, I must say I did not count how many markings I could see down the runway. I was spring-loaded for another miss if it didn't look good to me. At DH I had the threshold lights; 100' lower, it looked to me like I had plenty of vis. This was not the first ILS I ever flew to minimums but it was the first one where I _really_ needed the extra 100' to get in. It was a very rapid transition from total whiteout to not-so-bad. -- Dan C172RG at BFM |
#17
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Dan,
You have me beat by about 30 minutes. I had to hold once for 30 minutes to start and approach into Potomac Airfield near Washington, DC. Michelle Dan Luke wrote: Yesterday, for the first time since I got the instrument rating 5 years ago, I had to hold for real. It was a reposition flight from Mobile Downtown to Pensacola to pick up an Angel Flight. When I checked the weather at home at 6am, fog was reported everywhere on the central Gulf Coast - the nearest legal alternate I found was Birmingham. Mobile was below minimums, but PNS was just at minimums and forecast to improve slightly. When I took off, BFM was still below minimums for the ILS, and when I checked the PNS ATIS it was 1/4, indefinite ceiling 100. The PNS approach controller reported the RVR as 100 with that "are you sure you want to do this?" tone (don't you just hate to hear that tone from a controller?), so I told him I'd try one ILS, then go hold a while if I missed. Sure enough, at DH there was no sign of any lights, so off to the Saufley VOR I went to wait. Holding is boring. After a couple of turns to get it nailed, ones attention tends to wander. It becomes a real effort to remember to restart the clock outbound each time. I must admit I missed the outbound flag drop a couple of times in the first 30 minutes and had to check the GPS to know when to turn back inbound. It was about this time that a series of technical problems started. First, the HI bug started sticking, then the portable GPS started losing satellite link every time I keyed the radio (fixed that by moving the antenna to a different spot on the glareshield). There were more problems later. 30 minutes' wait only got the RVR up to 200, so I told Approach I wanted 30 more. I could see the fog becoming patchy south and west of the airport, but I still had to start considering my fuel state: I might actually have to fly 250 miles to find somewhere to land with reserves. Unlikely, but ya gotta go with it. The thought of being above a thousand square miles of 100' ceilings with low fuel is enough to make me very conservative. In the event, after about 20 minutes a C-208 came in and completed the approach and the rvr was up to 400, so I asked for vectors for another try. The next technical glitch appeared at the outer marker when the flaps refused to work until I toggled the handle a few times (at least it wasn't the landing gear!). That problem dealt with, I headed down the glide slope with more than usual concentration on keeping the needles centered; I wanted to make this one. This time I saw enough lights at DH to give me 100 more feet, and that was it: made it. By the time the Angel Flight pax were loaded (something of an ordeal) the field had gone from socked-in to VFR. Very typical Gulf Coast autumn morning. Post script: more tech problems. The pax Lightspeed 25XL headset wouldn't power up - no big deal, I'm used to things like that with that headset. The next thing was more serious. My WxWorx setup, which has been solid for a year, crapped out on me. Actually, it was the Sony notebook it's hosted on. The USB com port the WxWorx receiver is plugged into went away. I like to do a lot of things in airplanes, but troubleshooting pc com port problems while IFR with a couple of nervous pax aboard isn't one of them. I wrapped the cables up and stowed the pc. This might have been a flight killer if there had been a lot of convective stuff around. Still, it made me realize how much I like having other features of the system available, particularly METARs and TAFs. -- Michelle P ATP-ASEL, CP-AMEL, and AMT-A&P "Elisabeth" a Maule M-7-235B (no two are alike) Volunteer Pilot, Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic Volunteer Builder, Habitat for Humanity |
#18
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This time I saw enough lights at DH to give me 100 more feet, and that was
it: made it. ... and you also had the required flight visibility? To be honest, I must say I did not count how many markings I could see down the runway. I was spring-loaded for another miss if it didn't look good to me. At DH I had the threshold lights; 100' lower, it looked to me like I had plenty of vis. On a standard ILS, at DH on the glide slope you're 3000 feet from the threshold, so (though slant visibility is not quite the same as forward visibility) you probably had the required 1/2 mile vis. A lot of pilots don't understand that the rule about going down to 100' on the approach lights doesn't remove the visibility requirement. If you see only a few approach lights at DH, you almost certainly do not have the required visibility, and should go missed. |
#19
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Chip Jones wrote: From an ATC stand-point, most controllers certainly could care less what a hold looks like when flown. Personally, I just want you to maintain assigned altitude and meander in orbit somewhere over the fix in the general direction assigned. We controllers get really conservative around holding patterns, and a tightly-flown pattern really doesn't matter. Likely, no one in ATC-land will even notice if you nail the turns and the times, because they are looking at a lot of other stuff on the scope. The prudent controller will be using vertical separation below and above your protected airspace, and he/she will be adding a lot of extra lateral protection around your bubble too, just in case. And unless you are in a charted holding pattern the idea of a protected side and unprotected side is pretty funny too. |
#20
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"Roy Smith" wrote: I suppose so. I always have this feeling my old CFII is sitting in the right seat, shaking his head when I don't do something "by the book." Single-pilot IFR is all about task prioritization. Take care of the important stuff, and don't waste time on the **** that doesn't matter. As long as you stay in the protected airspace, nobody cares what your holds look like, or how perfectly timed the legs are. Save the mental effort for important things like making sure your fuel planning is right, getting a good picture of the weather from flight watch so you know when to divert (and where), and briefing the approach you're about to fly. Good points, I know, but after 20 minutes of holding you've done all that and you'e really in need of something else to do! The PNS controller was doing a good job of updating aircraft on the freq. about conditions at nearby airports, but calling FW would have been a good idea. -- Dan C-172RG at BFM |
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