Thoughts on this approach?

"Yossarian" wrote in message
ups.com...

You're right, I should have requested the VOR approach from further
out.


What difference would that make? You said you were being vectored for the
VOR-C when you were cleared for the visual, so you must have made them aware
that you wanted the VOR-C sometime before that.

Yossarian wrote:
My concern with the visual is that I didn't want to do a lot of
maneuvering to get down because it was night in an unfamiliar area.

A perfectly legitimate reason to request an SIAP.

Yossarian wrote:

You're right, I should have requested the VOR approach from further
out. My concern with the visual is that I didn't want to do a lot of
maneuvering to get down because it was night in an unfamiliar area.

An excellent concern, especially around the mountains of Palm Springs.
Next time you encounter this uneasiness, feel very comfortable in
requesting whatever instrument approach you need to take you safely to the
runway.

Even if you are past the IAF for the approach when you discover that a
visual approach cannot be completed successfully, tell ATC and request
vectors back around to the IAF, or even delaying vectors to give you time
to properly brief and setup the approach.

--
Peter
























----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

Yossarian wrote:
Saturday was my first night IFR cross country. I was flying right seat in
a 172SP with an instructor on the left. The flight was from KHHR Hawthorne
CA to Bermuda Dunes. All was well and as expected until Palm Springs
approach. They vectored us to a point south of the VOR-C approach approx 4
miles from the VOR at 4000. We were not established on the final approach
course. Then I got "cleared for the visual".

Airport elevation is 73', meaning that a ridiculous descent of 1150 ft/min
at 90 kts would have been required to get to the MDA of 920 at the MAP if
we had been flying the VOR-C.

What was I expected to do here?

Navigate to the airport visually and land. The required descent rate
really doesn't matter much on a visual. You're free to maneuver as
necessary to manage the descent (S-turns, spiral down, whatever).

If you felt you could not do that (i.e. could not remain visual), you
should refuse the clearance, "unable visual approach".

I have an instrument rating but only 150 hours so I don't have much
experience. I expect an instrument approach, even a visual, to
allow me to make a landing using a normal descent rate and not have
to make laps in the pattern to descend.

No such requirement on a visual.

What happens if you refuse a visual approach?

They give you another approach. Typically, you would indicate which
approach you wanted when you turned down the visual.

If you put "request practice instrument approach at destination
airport" in the comments in your flight plan, it might help you get the
actual instrument approach. If it's VFR the ATC guy only budgets enough
time to clear you for the visual. You go around requesting an
instrument approach and he might get kinda ****ed off, cause he was
planning on you taking the visual and he's done with you.

"Doug" wrote in message
oups.com...

If you put "request practice instrument approach at destination
airport" in the comments in your flight plan, it might help you get the
actual instrument approach.


You'll still have to tell him which actual instrument approach you'd like.
You can do that on initial contact and skip the remark.



If it's VFR the ATC guy only budgets enough
time to clear you for the visual.


Let's see, "Cleared visual approach to Bermuda Dunes Airport" versus
"Cleared VOR Charlie approach to Bermuda Dunes Airport". How much more time
does it take to issue the VOR-C clearance? A tenth of a second? Less?



You go around requesting an
instrument approach and he might get kinda ****ed off, cause he was
planning on you taking the visual and he's done with you.


Well, so what if he gets kinda ****ed off?

Well, if they clear you for the approach they gotta tell you all this
other stuff and stay with you longer. Anyway, that's what has happened
to me. Guy suggested we put ii in the remarks in our flight plan and I
have had better results with that.

"Doug" wrote in message
oups.com...

Well, if they clear you for the approach they gotta tell you all this
other stuff and stay with you longer.


Do you mean more stuff for a SIAP than a visual approach? Other than what
I've already written, what more do they have to do? Why do they have to
"stay with you longer" on a SIAP than a visual?

I dunno. It's his job, I don't do ATC stuff, I'm the pilot. But he had
to read off a bunch of stuff to us. Notams I think. It was Center
clearing us into Goodland KS, not Approach, if that matters. He acted
perturbed cause we requested the ILS. I really don't know why. Maybe he
wanted donut or something. Maybe he was in a hurry. Maybe this, maybe
that. Like I say I'm the pilot. I don't do the ATC stuff. Been in a
tower a couple of times and toured Denver Tracon once. Hardly makes me
an expert.

Another thing they do. If you do a touch and go on your IFR cross
country, sometimes they cancel your IFR flight plan even though you
want to continue on. You know, the IFR cross country requires some
landings at more than one airport, so typically you do quick stop or a
touch and go, you take off and they've cancelled your flight plan if
you do it at a towered airport. Go to get your IFR clearance on takeoff
and the guy can't find it. Solution. File a seperate flight plan. I've
had that happen to me too.

One thing with me. If it's VMC and nice and clear, if they ask me if I
can see the airport, I say yes even if I can't. I mean I may not be
able to see it, but I know where it is, right at the end of my
navigation line on the screen. So its a roger I see it. I know this may
be fudging a bit, and I dont do it if there are any clouds or poor
visibility. But they can clear me for the visual and let me descend.
See, if you aren't cleared for the visual, they can't descend you. So I
say yes, and it definitely helps. ATC sometimes thinks I have
helicopter up there or something the way they leave you hanging up
there. But they have these rules. I don't know them all. No one does.

I'm having trouble seeing this in my mind...

Were you coming from up top (PSP) or from V64? 4000 I think is the MEA
between TRM and PSP, right (V137 TRM radial 304)? I am having trouble
"seeing" in my head how you can be "south of the VOR-C" and 4 miles
from the VOR and closer to the airport than the VOR when the VOR is
"generally" south of UDD... what was your heading at the time? Were
you pointed to the VOR or the field?

Even so, I think there must have been some sort of communication
breakdown, either between you and the instructor, you and the
controller, or the instructor and the controller. There could have
been erroneous assumptions made (perhaps the controller had just
cleared a bunch of aircraft VMC? perhaps the controller had told you to
expect vectors to visual and you forgot? If you were coming from PSP,
perhaps the controller erroneously thought that since you had pretty
much overflew the field at 4000, you could see the field (thinking it
was VMC), or the instructor radioed that s/he could see the field...

In any event...clarifications should have been in order...