Personal Minimums SEL?

My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

So ILS mins of 200 and 1/2 seem quite reasonable.

vince norris

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message ...
My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

So ILS mins of 200 and 1/2 seem quite reasonable.

vince norris

You had ADF? You lucky guy!
We had to find the cone of silence, turn to the appropriate heading,
and make a timed descent to visual contact with the airport.
I don't remember the minima, but I think they were higher than 200+1/4.

You had ADF? You lucky guy!
We had to find the cone of silence, turn to the appropriate heading,
and make a timed descent to visual contact with the airport.

IIRC, our ADF was useless when shooting an Adcock range approach,
which is what you seem to be talking about. We flew to the high cone,
did a procedure turn, descended and flew to the low cone, than, as you
say, took a heading to the airport.

ADF approaches had no "cones." As I recall, we often shot them using
commercial AM radio stations. Perhaps those were just practice
approaches, not actual approaches in IMC. It was half a century ago,
and I don't recall all the details perfectly.

I don't remember the minima, but I think they were higher than 200+1/4.

Ours were, of course, if the terrain required, but could be as low as
200 and a quarter.

vince norris

vincent p. norris wrote:
My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

So ILS mins of 200 and 1/2 seem quite reasonable.

When students ask me what my personal mins are here in the fog, I used
to just tell them "2 dots". If at any point I get more than 2 dots off
the loc, I'll go missed, otherwise I'll follow it all the way to mins.
As a CFII I'm not really suppose to say that though

-Robert

When students ask me what my personal mins are here in the fog, I used
to just tell them "2 dots". If at any point I get more than 2 dots off
the loc, I'll go missed...

Sounds like prudent policy.

vince norris

vincent p. norris wrote:
My first several years of flying were in the military, when all we had
were Adcock range approaches and NDB (we called them ADF) approaches.
We did them to 200' and 1/4 mile. Sounds hard to believe today, but
we took it for granted.

Probably one of the differences back then vs now is that you probably
had at least one guy on the field that just went around and tuned up
ADF receivers. If you've been tuned in the last 30 days you could
probably get a good approach. Most ADF planes on the field now would be
lucky to get w/i 3 miles of the airport on the ADF today.

-Robert