Contact approach question

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

wrote in message ...

True, provided you cancel, or receive a clearance for a contact or visual
approach. Otherwise you must fly the IAP regardless of how good the
weather
might be (VMC, not VFR).


A visual approach is not an option when an instrument letdown is necessary.

Depends on how you define "when necessary," Steve. The FAA postion is that
"when necessary" is when the pilot is on an IFR flight plan and has not
received a clearance for a visual or contact, regardless of weather
conditions. It's in the AIM that I cited to someone else here.

wrote in message ...

Depends on how you define "when necessary," Steve.


I use the standard dictionary definitions.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

wrote in message ...

Depends on how you define "when necessary," Steve.


I use the standard dictionary definitions.

Good for you. Nonetheless, you don't set policy for the FAA. Those who do
have kept the context going quite nicely by placing in the AIM the FAA
definition of "when necessary."

It sounds like you have little regard for those folks in DC who write ATC
policy. That doesn't seem real healthy for a working controller.

wrote in message ...

Good for you. Nonetheless, you don't set policy for the FAA.


Who does?



Those who do have kept the context going quite nicely by placing in the
AIM the FAA
definition of "when necessary."


Where does the FAA define "when necessary"? The AIM is not regulatory.



It sounds like you have little regard for those folks in DC who write ATC
policy. That doesn't seem real healthy for a working controller.


No doubt it seems that way to those without a good knowledge of ATC.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

wrote in message ...

Good for you. Nonetheless, you don't set policy for the FAA.


Who does?


Those who do have kept the context going quite nicely by placing in the
AIM the FAA
definition of "when necessary."


Where does the FAA define "when necessary"? The AIM is not regulatory.


It sounds like you have little regard for those folks in DC who write ATC
policy. That doesn't seem real healthy for a working controller.


No doubt it seems that way to those without a good knowledge of ATC.

That would include most controllers these days who don't understand squat about
instrument approach procedures, and how to provide clearances for RNAV
approaches.

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 05:04:35 -0800, wrote:

That would include most controllers these days who don't understand squat about
instrument approach procedures, and how to provide clearances for RNAV
approaches.


I don't know if I'd say "most", but it certainly is "many".

Just a week or two ago I had to debate the controller about a
procedure as I was flying it. The controller later came back on and
apologized, but it hppens more often than it should.

Another situation involved a former student who was severely
reprimanded by the controller for flying the procedure as it was
charted. A letter to his facitlity also resulted in a (written)
apology, and it was clear from the letter that they had discovered
that the controller in question was not the only one who did not
understasnd what he was doing.

wrote in message ...

That would include most controllers these days who don't understand squat
about
instrument approach procedures, and how to provide clearances for RNAV
approaches.


Well, it would certainly include many controllers, what is your evidence
that it would include most?

wrote in message ...


"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote:

wrote in message
...

Good for you. Nonetheless, you don't set policy for the FAA.


Who does?


Those who do have kept the context going quite nicely by placing in
the
AIM the FAA
definition of "when necessary."


Where does the FAA define "when necessary"? The AIM is not regulatory.


It sounds like you have little regard for those folks in DC who write
ATC
policy. That doesn't seem real healthy for a working controller.


No doubt it seems that way to those without a good knowledge of ATC.

That would include most controllers these days who don't understand squat
about
instrument approach procedures, and how to provide clearances for RNAV
approaches.


Gee, ya think we have a procedures training problem in ATC-land? I sure do!
Too bad we are so short staffed on the line that we don't have time for
procedures training. We're too busy working too much traffic with too few
people while simultaneosly trying to field the latest and greatest gee-wiz
people-replacing maximum-efficiency ATC gizmo. Little wonder many of us
don't have a clue! IAP's are the least of our worries (but the among the
greatest of yours, considering that almost every person killed in aviation
dies when an airplane strikes the ground....)

Added to this ***complete*** lack of recurrent procedures training, there
are quite a few "trained to succeed" equal-opportunity controllers who don't
even know what an airplane looks like. Rather than being terminated for
failing to check out in the max amount of hours, they get certified to make
the face of ATC look like the face of America (and to avoid an EEOC
hearing). Most of them can't even read a plate. Half of them can't even
get to work on time. They're too busy meeting with their career counselor
seeking a way up the corporate ladder to the RO or into a staff job.

It helps little that our "leaders" in FAA management are there because they
have risen to the level of their incompetence, see above. Almost to a man
or a woman, career service AT managers are in air traffic management because
they sucked badly as controllers. That's goes from flow control to the
basic first level supervisor all the way up to the Crystal Palace in DC. It
helps even less that "controllers" occupying staff jobs like "Procedures
Specialist" aren't filling that 530 billet because they are the best or the
brightest, but rather because they are either scared to work traffic or
because they are dangerous when working traffic. Hell, we've got so many
cowards and fools in Air Traffic doing management and staff jobs that we've
run out of room in the offices and they're spilling out into trailers.

These are the AT folks who are supposed to be approving TERPS stuff and
*coordinating* it with the people keying the mic. That coordination has
been discombobulated for years now. As all of these new IAP's magically
appear in each new 56-day cycle, air traffic controllers fall farther and
farther behind on the safety curve. In my facility, our area airspace and
procedures "Specialist" hasn't worked airplanes since 1993. He hasn't
cleared a single aircraft for approach in over a decade. His boss hasn't
cleared one in 15 years. Neither man even possesses a current medical.
What in the hell does either man, either "controller" (ya, right) know about
ATC clearances or TERPS? Nada. Neither knows shinola about how any given
IAP fits into the fabric of the ATC sector they are supposed to be
"supporting". All they want to do is their 8.5 hours and head home with
their six figure salary. A few more years of riding a desk and they can
hang up the ties and head for the links every day. They've read about GPS
and RNAV approaches, but hey, that's what we pay those controllers to figure
out, right? Not our problem, now who brought the donughts?

The real ****er to me is that TERPS folks who create these procedures don't
even seem to attempt to coordinate new IAP's with front line controllers.
The Regions (or "Service Areas" as they are now called in the Newspeak of
the present "performance" based operation) just seem to plop new IAP's
willy-nilly in the NAS, or else change vital components of existing IAP's
without notice *and without input* from the guys and gals who will be
controlling the procedure. They don't consider the ATC part of it, things
like traffic, frequency coverage, sector boundaries, etc. The whole chain
of command seems to expect that the effected controllers will somehow
magically acquire technical proficiency *after* an IAP is published or
modified. Heck, they even seem to believe that controllers will magically
aquire knowledge of any changes or newly published procedure. Because of
the utter lack of support from above, I force myself to check the plates
every cycle because it is the only way I can discover a new IAP or change to
existing one *before* I might kill someone with a bad clearance. Sure would
be nice to get a head's up what is new and what has changed. Better yet, it
would be nice to get a little training when a new procedure gets plopped
down in my airspace. At least that way I'd know about it before some pilot
asked for a clearance to fly it.

No wonder we controllers don't understand squat about instrument approach
procedures or how to provide clearances for RNAV approaches. The entire
training and support mechanism has run off the rails and no one holding down
a desk in the Great Oz above has even noticed...

Chip, ZTL

"Chip Jones" wrote in message
k.net...

It helps little that our "leaders" in FAA management are there because
they
have risen to the level of their incompetence, see above. Almost to a man
or a woman, career service AT managers are in air traffic management
because
they sucked badly as controllers.


That's not rising to your level of incompetence, that's moving beyond it.