transitioning from instruments to visual landing on final

(Michael) wrote:
I'm glad you recognize where the big issue is on the approach. See,
when you do them at night, especially if the visibility is less than
perfect, this becomes obvious.

Night is good practice, if only because there are so many ground lights
to confuse you. For example, on the ILS-16 at HPN, if you're a little
left of the localizer and correcting back to the right when you look up
at maybe a mile or two out, you'll see yourself perfectly lined up with
a line of white lights. The only problem is, it's not the approach
lights, it's I-684. The illusion that it's a runway is really hard to
fight if you've never seen it before.

You really need to stay on instruments until you're absolutely sure
you've identified the runway visually.

Roy Smith wrote in
:

Night is good practice, if only because there are so many
ground lights to confuse you. For example, on the ILS-16
at HPN, if you're a little left of the localizer and
correcting back to the right when you look up at maybe a
mile or two out, you'll see yourself perfectly lined up
with a line of white lights. The only problem is, it's not
the approach lights, it's I-684. The illusion that it's a
runway is really hard to fight if you've never seen it
before.

You really need to stay on instruments until you're
absolutely sure you've identified the runway visually.

Years ago - about 30, to be more precise - I used to fly
practice approaches to Paducah, KY at night. If you were just a
little off, you not only saw a row of lights, you had saw
sequenced strobe lights leading to them. The strobes were on a
very tall tower, and I'm mildly surprised that no one ever hit
it in the dark, thinking they were lined up for the runway. So
yes, stay on the instruments until short final.

--
Regards,

Stan

This is a weak spot for CFII's. Most will have students shoot approaches
down to MDA or DH and then go around, with no emphasis on transitioning to
VFR and landing. Their reasoning is that they can't take the time to taxi
back when they might be able to squeeze in just one more approach. Not good
real-world training. I have found ATC to be very accomodating, if you tell
them well in advance what you want to do.

Bob Gardner

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote in message
ink.net...
I'm about 14 hours into my IFR training with 11 of those on the sim.
I had to go to LAS for work (non-aviation) for 3 weeks. I came back
and was dying to go flying. Well I expected the worst. I hadn't
flown a plane in nearly 2 months since I was working on the IFR stuff.
First time flying approaches in a plane. At night. I expectedt to be
near dead afterwards. According to my CFII, I would have been close
to the PTS standards. yea, it put a big smile on my face.

The biggest problem I had was going from the IFR part to the
visual on short final. The night time might have had something
to do with it but regardles I had a hard time adjusting. I presume
this is somewhat normal. Any words of wisdom?

Gerald

"Gerald Sylvester" wrote...

The biggest problem I had was going from the IFR part to the
visual on short final. The night time might have had something
to do with it but regardles I had a hard time adjusting. I presume
this is somewhat normal. Any words of wisdom?

The instrument-to-visual transition is indeed the hardest part of the
process for many/most people. Several things help:

On an ILS, be set up perfectly as soon as possible. When you first see
the runway, DO NOTHING -- the airplane will continue to fly the LOC and G/S!

After you see the runway, go back to the instruments. Avoid the urge to
"go visual" as soon as you can.

Take only peeks at the runway until you are over the threshold. Stay on
the instruments. Even when you "break out" at minimums, stay on the
instruments, except for those peeks. At 200' AGL, you still have 15-20
seconds of flying to do, and the flare takes less than the last 5 of those.

On a non-precision approach, plan a rate of descent to get yourself at
MDA at the VDP. If no VDP is on the approach plate, construct one using DME
or timing. If you "break out" approaching the MDA, DO NOTHING until you
have oriented yourself with the runway. Then make the easy heading
corrections to establish lineup (if on a VOR or ADF approach; should be
unnecessary on a LOC) while the airplane continues at the normal rate of
descent. At 400' AGL, you still have 30-40 seconds of flying to do; there
is seldom a rush to do anything RIGHT NOW.


Did I mention -- stay primarily on the instruments until over the threshold.
:-)

Gerald Sylvester wrote:
I'm about 14 hours into my IFR training with 11 of those on the sim.
I had to go to LAS for work (non-aviation) for 3 weeks. I came back
and was dying to go flying. Well I expected the worst. I hadn't
flown a plane in nearly 2 months since I was working on the IFR stuff.
First time flying approaches in a plane. At night. I expectedt to be
near dead afterwards. According to my CFII, I would have been close
to the PTS standards. yea, it put a big smile on my face.

The biggest problem I had was going from the IFR part to the
visual on short final. The night time might have had something
to do with it but regardles I had a hard time adjusting. I presume
this is somewhat normal. Any words of wisdom?

Gerald

I was lucky and never found this to be a problem. I took most of my
training at night due to work obligations, but in retrospect this was
probably good as it makes flying in the daytime so much nicer! The only
problem I had in transitioning was when I didn't take the time to form a
mental image of what I would see. For example, let's say you are
crabbing 10 degrees to the right on final. If you mentally expect to
look 10 degrees left of the nose for the runway, then it all makes more
sense when you look out the window. One time I was on a real approach
into, I think, Lynchburg, VA, and I was holding something like 20
degrees of crab due to very strong wind. When I first broke out, I was
slightly disoriented as the runway wasn't where I expected it to be, but
I pretty quickly caught on to what was what. I now try to always think
through where the runway will be when I look up from the hood (or break
out of a real overcast) and I find the transition very painless.


Matt

Gerald Sylvester wrote:

The biggest problem I had was going from the IFR part to the
visual on short final. The night time might have had something
to do with it but regardles I had a hard time adjusting. I presume
this is somewhat normal. Any words of wisdom?

I wouldn't call this wisdom -- I got my rating only nine months ago -- but
for me, the important thing is not to muddle around. When you're IFR, you
want to be either on instruments (full scan) or visual (looking outside and
cross-checking instruments), but never halfway in-between.

The hood or foggles do a lousy job of showing what IFR flying is really
like. In real life, it's often a matter of flicking in and out of cloud
tops or cloud bottoms, alternating between IMC and VMC every few minutes or
even every few seconds. To pull that off, you have to imagine a virtual
switch in your brain between instrument flying and visual flying and flick
it back and forth as conditions change -- even say it out loud to yourself
if it helps.

Landing is just a special case of that problem. I find it useful to decide
in advance when I'm going to start looking for the runway (assuming the
weather is low enough for a full IAP rather than a visual approach). Until
I hit that time or altitude, I'm only on instruments; at the moment when I
hit my preselected point, I look up for the runway.

If I can see the runway clearly, I throw the virtual switch in my head to
"visual" and finish the landing; if not, I plan to stay on "instruments"
until the DH or MAP and then go missed (so far, I have not had to do a
missed approach -- my rule is never to start out unless my destination is
forecasting at least standard alternate minima).

Staring out the windshield saying "I can sort-of see the runway, but I still
need to sort-of follow the ILS and sort-of use the gyros to keep the plane
level" is probably not a good flying mode -- your "instruments/visual"
switch is stuck in the middle.

I hope that you enjoy your IFR training as much as I enjoyed mine last year
-- it can be frustrating sometimes, but it can also be a lot of fun, and it
made an enormous difference in the usefulness of my plane.


All the best, and good luck,


David

David Megginson wrote
I wouldn't call this wisdom -- I got my rating only nine months ago -- but
for me, the important thing is not to muddle around. When you're IFR, you
want to be either on instruments (full scan) or visual (looking outside and
cross-checking instruments), but never halfway in-between.

I could not disagree more strongly. The essence of flying a good
visual segment in low visibility is exactly the opposite of this - the
blending of visual and instrument references for aircraft control. If
you fly in low vis, especially at night, you will encounter situations
where neither will be sufficient.

If I can see the runway clearly, I throw the virtual switch in my head to
"visual" and finish the landing; if not, I plan to stay on "instruments"
until the DH or MAP and then go missed (so far, I have not had to do a
missed approach -- my rule is never to start out unless my destination is
forecasting at least standard alternate minima).

I think you will discover that your method will not work on those days
when the conditions are iffy - ceiling within 100 ft of mins, and
flight visibility at MDA/DH of a mile or less (two miles or less for
night circling approaches).

Staring out the windshield saying "I can sort-of see the runway, but I still
need to sort-of follow the ILS and sort-of use the gyros to keep the plane
level" is probably not a good flying mode

If you ever hope to land out of an ILS at 3000 RVR or less, it's the
only viable flying mode. People have driven the gear through the
wings of the airplane more than once because they transitioned to
visual references with visibility that was legally sufficient to
descend below DH but not sufficient to maintain precise control of the
airplane.

If you are at the 200 ft DH on an ILS and you can just barely make out
the line of approach lights through the fog or rain - what is your
plan? If you think you're going to be able to control the plane with
just that line, you need to think again. If you're going to miss
that's certainly your choice - but it's not necessary. You can go
down to 100 ft without seeing the runway. Even at 100 ft, if you spot
the VASI, the REIL's, or the red terminating bar (or anything else
listed in 91.175), you can land. It is literally quite possible and
legal (at least in the US - Canadian rules may differ) to not see the
lights until 220 ft, not see the REIL's until 150, not see the runway
itself until crossing the threshold at 60 ft or so, land, roll out,
and still not see the far end of the runway. BTDT.

Since alternate minimums are always at least 2 miles, I don't suppose
you're ever going to encounter these conditions - until the day the
forecast goes bust.

Michael

Michael wrote:

I wouldn't call this wisdom -- I got my rating only nine months ago -- but
for me, the important thing is not to muddle around. When you're IFR, you
want to be either on instruments (full scan) or visual (looking outside and
cross-checking instruments), but never halfway in-between.

I could not disagree more strongly. The essence of flying a good
visual segment in low visibility is exactly the opposite of this - the
blending of visual and instrument references for aircraft control. If
you fly in low vis, especially at night, you will encounter situations
where neither will be sufficient.

Thanks for the feedback. I agree that it's especially important to
crosscheck your instruments when flying a visual approach -- even on a night
landing in clear VMC, I will tune in the ILS (when there is one) and glance
down every few seconds to make sure that I'm at or above the glidescope,
because the black hole effect is so dangerous. As I mentioned in my
original posting, cross-checking instruments is always a good idea.

Still, if you're not a freight dog struggling to survive at the bottom of
the aviation food chain, a medevac pilot with a dying patient, or a pilot in
an emergency with flames shooting out from under the cowling, why push down
below minima when you cannot see the runway clearly even if it is
technically legal (say, because you made out a few of the approach lights)?
Presumably, you have an alternate that you can fly to with much safer
landing conditions.

We seem to lose a lot of good, experienced IFR pilots to approaches in IMC,
both in Canada and the U.S., and I suspect that one of the reasons is
pushing too far when there's not a clear visual transition available. A few
weeks ago, I was out over Lake Ontario flying the LOC/DME B circling
approach into Toronto Island in very easy daylight IMC (1000 ft and 2 SM),
but I still couldn't help remembering the poor Baron pilot who died on the
same approach last year, simply disappearing into the lake while trying the
approach, even after the Dash-8 ahead of him had gone missed and returned to
Ottawa.

Since alternate minimums are always at least 2 miles, I don't suppose
you're ever going to encounter these conditions - until the day the
forecast goes bust.

Standard alternate minima in Canada are 400 ft and 1 SM for an airport with
two usable ILS approaches -- in fact, those were the conditions during my
IFR flight test last August.


All the best,


David

David Megginson wrote
Still, if you're not a freight dog struggling to survive at the bottom of
the aviation food chain, a medevac pilot with a dying patient, or a pilot in
an emergency with flames shooting out from under the cowling, why push down
below minima when you cannot see the runway clearly even if it is
technically legal (say, because you made out a few of the approach lights)?

Because it's not just technically legal - it's entirely acceptable if
you use the right techniques - exactly the techniques you claim are a
bad idea. Also because diverting to the alternate means you didn't
get where you wanted to go when you wanted to be there. I think it
makes sense to maximize the utility of the airplane by flying to
published minima, rather than some higher minima required to
accomodate substandard flying technique.

We seem to lose a lot of good, experienced IFR pilots to approaches in IMC,
both in Canada and the U.S., and I suspect that one of the reasons is
pushing too far when there's not a clear visual transition available.

I don't buy that in the least. I suspect the real reason we lose so
many is the abysmal quality of initial training and the almost
non-existent recurrent training, combined with a real lack of
understanding of what you can and can't do. Lack of a clear visual
transition is a fact of life when shooting approaches to visibility
minima.

Michael