Winds on approach

Well, Mark and Tim, if I had been keeping up with weather conditions at the
destination while enroute, which is a common-sense precaution, and learned
that the weather was really going downhill, I would have landed short or
turned around and gone home. I have done this on Part 135 trips,
discomfiting but not killing my passengers. There is nothing so urgent that
you have to do what you had planned to do.

When I chose my alternate, I had to meet the 1-2-3 rule. If the wx at the
alternate has gone to hell in a handbasket, I have done a lousy job of
planning. The best alternate has good and improving VFR weather.

I've never had a fuel leak to deal with, but I would hope that sinking fuel
gauges would have caught my eye before I was on the approach. No platitudes
about fuel gauges, please.

Unexpected holding? The word is "unable due to low fuel state."

Bob Gardner

"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...
On 03/30/07 09:31, Bob Gardner wrote:
Let's see, Tim...you do carry IFR reserves, right? So you should have
enough
for the approach plus what it takes to get to an alternate plus 45
minutes?
Where does the risk of fuel come in?

To imagine that low fuel will never be a consideration is simply
ridiculous.
How about when you get to your alternate, and can't get in due to weather,
and you're forced to go to another airport? How about unexpected holding?
How about a fuel leak (as someone else pointed out)?

Are you really saying that a pilot need not consider the possibility?
That would be very bad advice, in my opinion.


Bob Gardner


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

I understand.

Weather and fuel are never a concern for you. I will flight plan
accordingly from now on.

However, I will continue to TIME my ILS approaches and if the GS ever
fails while I am on an ILS I will continue with the localizer approach -
but not because of fuel or weather concerns.

I see no FAR prohibiting this and still cannot find a single good reason
to discontinue its practice. No one has offered one that satisfies me.
There is nothing inherently dangerous about it.

tim


Bob Gardner wrote:
Well, Mark and Tim, if I had been keeping up with weather conditions at the
destination while enroute, which is a common-sense precaution, and learned
that the weather was really going downhill, I would have landed short or
turned around and gone home. I have done this on Part 135 trips,
discomfiting but not killing my passengers. There is nothing so urgent that
you have to do what you had planned to do.

When I chose my alternate, I had to meet the 1-2-3 rule. If the wx at the
alternate has gone to hell in a handbasket, I have done a lousy job of
planning. The best alternate has good and improving VFR weather.

I've never had a fuel leak to deal with, but I would hope that sinking fuel
gauges would have caught my eye before I was on the approach. No platitudes
about fuel gauges, please.

Unexpected holding? The word is "unable due to low fuel state."

Bob Gardner

"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...

On 03/30/07 09:31, Bob Gardner wrote:

Let's see, Tim...you do carry IFR reserves, right? So you should have
enough
for the approach plus what it takes to get to an alternate plus 45
minutes?
Where does the risk of fuel come in?

To imagine that low fuel will never be a consideration is simply
ridiculous.
How about when you get to your alternate, and can't get in due to weather,
and you're forced to go to another airport? How about unexpected holding?
How about a fuel leak (as someone else pointed out)?

Are you really saying that a pilot need not consider the possibility?
That would be very bad advice, in my opinion.


Bob Gardner


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

On Mar 30, 8:42 am, "John R. Copeland"
wrote:
"M" wrote in ooglegroups.com...

This is particularly important if it's windy and bumpy. If you fly
that approach at cruise power to keep the groundspeed at 90 knots
you're likely above your Va, which can overstress the airframe.

A touch of hyperbole, maybe?
Va is the G-safe speed for *abrupt full deflection* of any control.
Most of my ILS approaches thankfully don't require that. :-)

A big gust of wind with vertical components can put a lot of stress on
airframe. Va doesn't completely protect you against bent airframe
in turbulence but it provides a lot more protection than a typical
criuse IAS.

If weather is not a concern for me, why do I keep checking on destination
weather? Fuel is definitely not a concern because I plan conservatively and
always have more than enough. This philosophy got me through over 7000 hours
of piston and jet time, almost all of it for hire.

Bob Gardner

"Tim" wrote in message
...
I understand.

Weather and fuel are never a concern for you. I will flight plan
accordingly from now on.

However, I will continue to TIME my ILS approaches and if the GS ever
fails while I am on an ILS I will continue with the localizer approach -
but not because of fuel or weather concerns.

I see no FAR prohibiting this and still cannot find a single good reason
to discontinue its practice. No one has offered one that satisfies me.
There is nothing inherently dangerous about it.

tim


Bob Gardner wrote:
Well, Mark and Tim, if I had been keeping up with weather conditions at
the destination while enroute, which is a common-sense precaution, and
learned that the weather was really going downhill, I would have landed
short or turned around and gone home. I have done this on Part 135 trips,
discomfiting but not killing my passengers. There is nothing so urgent
that you have to do what you had planned to do.

When I chose my alternate, I had to meet the 1-2-3 rule. If the wx at the
alternate has gone to hell in a handbasket, I have done a lousy job of
planning. The best alternate has good and improving VFR weather.

I've never had a fuel leak to deal with, but I would hope that sinking
fuel gauges would have caught my eye before I was on the approach. No
platitudes about fuel gauges, please.

Unexpected holding? The word is "unable due to low fuel state."

Bob Gardner

"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...

On 03/30/07 09:31, Bob Gardner wrote:

Let's see, Tim...you do carry IFR reserves, right? So you should have
enough
for the approach plus what it takes to get to an alternate plus 45
minutes?
Where does the risk of fuel come in?

To imagine that low fuel will never be a consideration is simply
ridiculous.
How about when you get to your alternate, and can't get in due to
weather,
and you're forced to go to another airport? How about unexpected holding?
How about a fuel leak (as someone else pointed out)?

Are you really saying that a pilot need not consider the possibility?
That would be very bad advice, in my opinion.


Bob Gardner


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

On 29 Mar 2007 12:59:55 -0700, "kevmor" wrote:

There have been a lot of answerers to this and I've not read the who
thread. but there are some very important things to take into account.
I flew yesterday and did some practice approaches, and the winds were
about 20 knots gusting to 26-28. I've flown almost all approaches so
far in a different 172 that had a 180hp conversion. Because of the
winds, I kept almost full cruising power on the descents to try and
maintain my normal 90 kts ground speed for timing and roughly 500fpm
for the ILS.

You are flying an airplane, you are not driving a car. You fly the
proper airspeed! If an ILS you adjust the power to maintain the GS.
Remember you fly the airplane, CALCULATE the ground speed
and from that derive the time. Your time will change with the winds.

Think of it this way. If you had a 30 knot tail wind would you slow up
by 30 knots from your regular approach speed? More than likely that
would put your below stall speed.

This plane did have an IFR GPS indicating ground speed, but the one
I've been using for all other approaches didn't, neither DME. The CFI
informed me I should have used known power settings. What are your

Yup! IOW you need to maintain the proper airspeed and rate of descent
where necessary.

thoughts? I'm not sure how I would've known the right power setting,

You will eventually learn to set the power to get the speed or rate of
descent at the speed you want. Although the power settings between the
two planes may be different there is going to be little difference in
the approach speeds.

unless I used what I normally do, and accept the lower ground speed,

Yes

then adjust my descent for the ILS to a much lower fpm descent?

Yes

As I said, you are flying an airplane in the air, not driving a car on
the ground. You fly the airplane at the proper speed and take what
ever ground speed you get. From that you calculate or derive your
times. You should try flying an ILS in a high performance plane with
a 30 knot tail wind, followed by a circle to land:-)) I normally
fly approaches at 120 be they step down or precision. I land VFR at 80
MPH minus 1 MPH for each 100 # under gross. That means I have a lot
of slowing up to do. Now add a 30 knot tail wind and I'm coming down
the ILS with 150 for ground speed. I have to circle at low altitude
and lose 70 MPH in the process. Actually that is for the over the
fence speed so I will need to lose about 80 to 90 MPH before I can get
the wheels on the runway.

BTW I rarely look at the power settings coming down the ILS. When I
adjust the power (MP in this case) to stabilize at 120. When I
intercept the GS I drop the gear while holding a level attitude. This
alone should put me right on the GS at the proper rate of descent. I
do know that 1" +/- MP will change the rate of descent 100 FPM. I do
look at the MP gage to get the one inch, but I really don't pay much
attention to the actual reading. Nor do I look out the window at the
scenery for visual clues as to GS as I don't care what the ground
speed turns out to be. I'm only concerned about air speed.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

http://www.warmkessel.com/jr/flying/td/jd/5.jsp

"The exceptional pilot uses his exceptional judgment to avoid having to use
his exceptional skill" --Anonymous

Bob Gardner

"Tim" wrote in message
...
I understand.

Weather and fuel are never a concern for you. I will flight plan
accordingly from now on.

However, I will continue to TIME my ILS approaches and if the GS ever
fails while I am on an ILS I will continue with the localizer approach -
but not because of fuel or weather concerns.

I see no FAR prohibiting this and still cannot find a single good reason
to discontinue its practice. No one has offered one that satisfies me.
There is nothing inherently dangerous about it.

tim


Bob Gardner wrote:
Well, Mark and Tim, if I had been keeping up with weather conditions at
the destination while enroute, which is a common-sense precaution, and
learned that the weather was really going downhill, I would have landed
short or turned around and gone home. I have done this on Part 135 trips,
discomfiting but not killing my passengers. There is nothing so urgent
that you have to do what you had planned to do.

When I chose my alternate, I had to meet the 1-2-3 rule. If the wx at the
alternate has gone to hell in a handbasket, I have done a lousy job of
planning. The best alternate has good and improving VFR weather.

I've never had a fuel leak to deal with, but I would hope that sinking
fuel gauges would have caught my eye before I was on the approach. No
platitudes about fuel gauges, please.

Unexpected holding? The word is "unable due to low fuel state."

Bob Gardner

"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...

On 03/30/07 09:31, Bob Gardner wrote:

Let's see, Tim...you do carry IFR reserves, right? So you should have
enough
for the approach plus what it takes to get to an alternate plus 45
minutes?
Where does the risk of fuel come in?

To imagine that low fuel will never be a consideration is simply
ridiculous.
How about when you get to your alternate, and can't get in due to
weather,
and you're forced to go to another airport? How about unexpected holding?
How about a fuel leak (as someone else pointed out)?

Are you really saying that a pilot need not consider the possibility?
That would be very bad advice, in my opinion.


Bob Gardner


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

For what it is worth, during my IFR training I was taught to time the
approach so that I'd have the option of continuing localizer only if
the GS failed. Both the ground instructor for the IFR written and
later my CFII during the flight instruction made this point -- and
there was no connection between the two instructors.

Short of reading this thread, I would have thought that this was
a common point of instruction for IFR students.

Steve


Tim wrote:
One should always time the approach. In some senses it is easier. if
the GS goes bad, just go to the minimum altitude - one less needle to
keep track of.

Always time it. The wx could go worse or low on fuel - why abandon the
approach if you have it set up already?