Briefing an approach plate, especially while flying

This is not a matter of regulation, of course, and it is not covered in the
AIM...more of a personal preference thing, unless there is a company SOP
requiring it. I won't pretend that I have thousands of hours flying jets,
but I do have hundreds, and I was never taught to brief those items nor were
they included in company SOPs...and we were moving fast enough to make
mistakes very costly.

Bob Gardner

"Ray Andraka" wrote in message
...
Doesn't hurt to look real quick at the MSA rings just to get a real rough
idea
of the underlying terrain. KIPT, for instance has a mountain just to the
left
of the localizer, and I think you'd want to know that is there if you
can't see
it. No need to memorize the heights, jsut a rough mental sketch of the
minimum
safe altitudes is enough. Why? well if something goes wrong at least you
know
which way not to turn...

Bob Gardner wrote:

You are cluttering your mind with unnecessary data. If you fly at an
assigned altitude or the altitude shown on the plate for a black line,
you
can forget about the MSA (which is not an operational altitude), the
highest
obstacle, and maximum safe distance...whatever that is. Frequencies,
courses, altitudes, and the miss procedure are enough.

Bob Gardner

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
My approach plate briefing, especially while flying, could use some
improvement. I received my instrument rating last March and have
about 75
hours of actual IMC time since then, but I honestly feel my briefing
of
the
chart is not as thorough as it must be for optimum situational
awareness.

I am not just referring to frequencies and approach minimums, but
rather
the plethora of other information, such as highest nearby obstacle,
minimum
safe altitude, maximum safe distance ring, etc. Although I try to
brief
an
approach during the lower workload of cruise flight, I discovered that
I
am
still missing some pertinent information.

Perhaps I should consider designing a checklist of sorts, but in the
mean
time I am curious what tips the more seasoned instrument pilots have
to
offer.

Oh, worth mentioning is that I use Jeppesen's approach plates and I do
fly
in an aircraft equipped with a dual axis AP.

--
Peter












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--
--Ray Andraka, P.E.
President, the Andraka Consulting Group, Inc.
401/884-7930 Fax 401/884-7950
email
http://www.andraka.com

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-Benjamin Franklin, 1759