I like my privatized airport :)

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
news
You're making this more complicated than it is. Fly the missed approach
procedure, just go to MGW instead of JST.

I specifically asked to fly the published missed and then go to MGW and this
was denied due to conflicting traffic. I was told to go DIRECT MGW as my
alternate missed approach instructions. I stated I was unable to assure my
terrain clearance if assigned DIRECT MGW on the missed so I wanted to fly
the published missed approach first and I was told again "Unable Published
Missed due to conflicting traffic." So I told them I would accept any
missed approach instructions for which terrain clearance were assured.
Remember, I was in IMC to near-minimums or below-minimums weather and inside
the FAF on an ILS approach -- there was no way I was going to take out a
chart and start calculating terrain clearance for a random route.

If there is another, simpler way I could have resolved this I would be
interested in hearing about another option.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Ken Hornstein" wrote in message
...

Ah, okay, I had to look around a bit, but I found some examples of this.
ASH is a FAA Contract Tower, and it looks like MTN is a contract tower
part of the time, and a non-federal control tower some of the other time.
At least, that's my interpretation of listing for MTN ... I wonder why
that is?


It has to be an error. Note that the hours of operation as an FCT coincide
with the Class D hours. I suspect this was an NFCT that became an FCT, and
the "NFCT" mysteriously remained in the A/FD.

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

OK, I should not do this late at night.

I meant MGW is a NON-RADAR towered field.

Separation is certainly harder to maintain in a non-radar environment than
in a radar environment.


This is not a non-radar environment. Radar services are provided by
Clarksburg Approach, they're just 24 miles southwest of MGW. Examine the
ILS RWY 18 approach, note that DIXIN can be determined by radar or the
marker beacon. That tells us radar coverage is good in this area.



As far as separating traffic by altitude, there may
be limitations in terms of what airspace MGW tower "owns" vs. situations
where they need to coordinate separation with other ATC facilities.


MGW is a VFR tower, they don't "own" any airspace. Airway MEAs that cross
MGW VORTAC run 4000 to 5000 MSL, so any enroute IFR traffic would likely be
well above the 3700 MSL top of the MGW Class D airspace.



I can only tell you what happened on departure this date... clearly the
controller was not ideally skilled or else he would not have debated the
departure procedure with me, so it would not be surprising if he were also
not optimally skilled at non-radar aircraft separation procedures. You
are correct at stating what he COULD have done to separate me from other
traffic; I am just reporting what he DID do.


The tower controller probably isn't applying any separation at all, he's
probably just relaying the clearance he received from Clarksburg approach.
I'm not saying ATC didn't make an error here, I'm just saying he didn't
necessarily make the error you think he did. There may have been a
procedural error, or there may have been a phraseology error, or you may
have misinterpreted the clearance, or it may have been a combination. To
know for sure we'd need a transcript of the communications between approach,
tower, and you.

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

I specifically asked to fly the published missed and then go to MGW and
this was denied due to conflicting traffic. I was told to go DIRECT MGW
as my alternate missed approach instructions. I stated I was unable to
assure
my terrain clearance if assigned DIRECT MGW on the missed so I wanted
to fly the published missed approach first and I was told again "Unable
Published Missed due to conflicting traffic."


So, they said nothing at all about an alternate missed approach until you
told them that in the event of a miss you'd like to go to MGW, and the
discussion took place inside the FAF? Is that right? There's a definite
ATC error here then. Clearance for the approach is clearance for the missed
approach procedure, so if there's conflicting traffic on the published miss
there's a separation error.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...


This is not a non-radar environment. Radar services are provided by
Clarksburg Approach, they're just 24 miles southwest of MGW. Examine the
ILS RWY 18 approach, note that DIXIN can be determined by radar or the
marker beacon. That tells us radar coverage is good in this area.


It is indeed a non-radar environment when the pilot is talking to MGW tower.
Clarksburg can indeed identify DIXIN by special request of the pilot, but
the much more routine procedure is for Clarksburg to hand the pilot off to
Morgantown Tower outside of DIXIN and then Morgantown Tower asks the pilot
to report DIXIN inbound, at which time a landing clearance is issued.
Morgantown Tower has no radar capability.


MGW is a VFR tower, they don't "own" any airspace. Airway MEAs that cross
MGW VORTAC run 4000 to 5000 MSL, so any enroute IFR traffic would likely
be
well above the 3700 MSL top of the MGW Class D airspace.

The MEA is 3000 feet; planes could well be enroute at that altitude due to
icing or planning to land at other local airports or for other reasons.


The tower controller probably isn't applying any separation at all, he's
probably just relaying the clearance he received from Clarksburg approach.
I'm not saying ATC didn't make an error here, I'm just saying he didn't
necessarily make the error you think he did. There may have been a

You are correct that the error could well have been by MGW tower or by
Clarksburg. Whatever the cause, it is clear that a left turn after takeoff
should never be considered an option departing MGW Runway 18 in IMC. So
this is an excellent example of CFIT avoidance and the importance of pilots
not delegating terrain avoidance solely to ATC on departure.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

So, they said nothing at all about an alternate missed approach until you
told them that in the event of a miss you'd like to go to MGW, and the
discussion took place inside the FAF? Is that right? There's a definite
ATC error here then. Clearance for the approach is clearance for the
missed
approach procedure, so if there's conflicting traffic on the published
miss
there's a separation error.

Outside the FAF, I told them I intended to go missed no matter what the
weather was. I asked for and received a clearance for DIRECT MGW after
executing the published missed.

Then inside the FAF they told me DIRECT MGW was my alternate missed
instruction, and I declined that clearance for the reasons already
discussed.

So yes, it seems as if there was a separation error because there was
conflicting traffic on the published missed yet I was cleared for the
approach.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

It is indeed a non-radar environment when the pilot is talking to MGW
tower.


Negative. It is a non-radar environment only when the radar is out of
service. It doesn't matter who the pilot is talking to.



The MEA is 3000 feet; planes could well be enroute at that altitude due to
icing or planning to land at other local airports or for other reasons.


Negative. There is no MEA below 4000 feet at MGW.



You are correct that the error could well have been by MGW tower or by
Clarksburg.


Or by you. Without knowing exactly what was said we cannot know what error
was made.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

Negative. It is a non-radar environment only when the radar is out of
service. It doesn't matter who the pilot is talking to.

You are correct that pilots are not told "Radar Service Terminated" on the
ILS 18 to MGW. As a practical matter, though, only under special
circumstances could/would they coordinate with Clarksburg to vector
airplanes talking to MGW tower. As a practical matter, Morgantown Tower
relies upon pilot position reporting for separation.

Negative. There is no MEA below 4000 feet at MGW.

Then how is it that I routinely execute instrument approaches at MGW and
then proceed IFR at 3000 feet to my very nearby home base of KWAY to see if
I can land visually at KWAY?

Or by you. Without knowing exactly what was said we cannot know what
error
was made.

Can you please tell me what IFR clearance taking off from MGW Runway 18
could appropriately contain the words "On Departure turn Left"?


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

You are correct that pilots are not told "Radar Service Terminated" on the
ILS 18 to MGW.


Earlier you said Morgantown Tower has no radar capability. What did you
base that on? If arriving aircraft are not being told "Radar Service
Terminated" it's probably because the tower has a BRITE scope, as would be
expected of a VFR tower that close to an ASR.



As a practical matter, though, only under special
circumstances could/would they coordinate with Clarksburg to vector
airplanes talking to MGW tower. As a practical matter, Morgantown Tower
relies upon pilot position reporting for separation.


Morgantown tower is a VFR tower. They provide runway separation.
Clarksburg approach provides IFR separation.



Then how is it that I routinely execute instrument approaches at MGW and
then proceed IFR at 3000 feet to my very nearby home base of KWAY to see
if I can land visually at KWAY?


An MEA is the lowest published altitude between radio fixes which assures
acceptable navigational signal coverage and meets obstacle clearance
requirements between those fixes. Morgantown Municipal Airport and Greene
County Airport are not radio fixes, and there is no published altitude
between them. Off-airways operations would be subject to the MVA when
Clarksburg approach is open and the MIA when Cleveland ARTCC takes the
airspace.

How is it one can become a CFII without knowing what an MEA is?

If the minimum altitude for IFR operations in the WAY area is 3000 MSL,
what's the point of executing an instrument approach at MGW to get into WAY?
An instrument approach is needed to descend beneath the minimum altitude for
enroute operations, not to descend down to it.



Can you please tell me what IFR clearance taking off from MGW Runway 18
could appropriately contain the words "On Departure turn Left"?


You're illustrating why we need a verbatim transcript of the communications.
Previously you said the instruction was "Cleared for Takeoff -- Turn Left on
Course", now you say it was "On Departure turn Left". To determine if an
error was made we need to know what was said and without a transcript we
don't know what was said.

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

Earlier you said Morgantown Tower has no radar capability. What did you
base that on? If arriving aircraft are not being told "Radar Service

MGW Tower routinely seems to not know where I am located when I call in on
the approach. They will sometimes, for example, ask me to "Report DIXIN
Inbound" when I am already inside DIXIN; if they saw me on radar they would
not ask for such a report.

If the minimum altitude for IFR operations in the WAY area is 3000 MSL,
what's the point of executing an instrument approach at MGW to get into
WAY?
An instrument approach is needed to descend beneath the minimum altitude
for
enroute operations, not to descend down to it.

The MVA is indeed 3000 MSL in the WAY area. So as mentioned in an earlier
posting IFR traffic could be at 3000 MSL in the MGW area and thus
conflicting with the departure procedure from MGW runway 18.

One reason why I might execute an approach at MGW to get into WAY would be
in the winter if I anticipate possible icing in the descent and I want the
option to land at MGW if I accumulate ice vs. continue to WAY if I am
ice-free. Full flaps are not permitted on my airplane after I have
encountered icing conditions, and I would much prefer to execute such a
landing straight-in out of an ILS to the 5000 foot runway at MGW rather than
to fly a traffic pattern around WAY and land on its 3500 foot, slightly
sloping runway.

Another reason why I might execute an approach at MGW to get into WAY is to
get a sense of whether I am likely to be able to complete a visual approach
to WAY. Circling WAY at 3000 feet I might be able to see straight down to
the airport yet forward visibility might be reduced when I start a visual
approach to WAY; the only way to get below 3000 feet at WAY is to cancel
IFR, so I could find myself IMC on a VFR flight plan below radar and radio
reception altitudes. I have found that a better plan is to execute the ILS
into MGW and then decide if the weather will allow me to proceed IFR to WAY
or if I should instead land at MGW.


--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com