What do you do in the real world?

Mxsmanic wrote:
Tim writes:


I know the answer. My point is that a pilot should not get anywhere
near an IFR flight plan if he/she doesn't know the answer to that
question. I am not being melodramatic. It can get you killed. You
NEED to know that stuff.


So what is the answer?

I believe your question was: "This still leaves some unanswered
questions, though. If you are given a heading without a fix, and the
heading does not intercept your flight plan or any approach or any
expected routing, where do you go? In VMC you are clearly expected to
go VFR and land. In IMC, what do you do?"

If you don't know the regulation and the controller makes a mistake
(they do) and does not give you the fix/reason you are being vectored,
then it is ambiguous. You always need to know why you are being
vectored and what you are being vectored to. So if you get vectors and
are not told anything else other than you are being vectored you need to
ask them why/where to, etc. They are required to give that information
to you.



The fact that the person did not even look it up and instead came to a
newsgroup for an answer is also a problem.


Where would he look it up?


Your assumption tht those who don't post the answer don't know the
answer is ridiculous.


It's actually very logical. People who have the answer are usually more than
willing to give it. Those who don't are usually eager to find a way to
distract attention from their failure to provide an answer. And, of course,
some people just make things up.

Your logic is flawed. Not all people are like you and want to show off
how much they (think they) know.



Spoon feeding pilots who are dangerous and ignorant is a sure way to
disaster.


So when I don't look something up, it's bad; and when I do look something up,
it's bad. Do you see a problem here?

I didn't say that. Not looking it up or knowing where to look it up is
a problem. It is one thing if it is a vfr pilot asking - or someone
curious about it. But if the pilot is instrument rated and files IFR
for flights he/she should know it. That person probably then has other
gaps in their training and is a danger to himself and others.



In your little world of games, icing, lost comms, etc don't happen, and
when they do no one dies. In the real world pilots like these can kill
themselves and others. I don't want them flying around when I am up
there flying around.


Since you don't know what to do in this situation, I suppose yours would be
the first NTSB report.


explitive deleted you.

In article ,
Tim wrote:

If you don't know you shouldn;t be filing IFR. Period. You can get
someone (including yourself killed.)
....
I know the answer.

Then what is it? And please note that the question is not what do you
do by the book. The question is what do you do in the real world.

(Actually it turns out that there are some interesting subtleties
involved in figuring out what to do in this case even by the book.)

Spoon feeding pilots who are dangerous and ignorant is a sure way to
disaster.

I would think that allowing ignorant pilots to remain ignorant would be
a much surer route to disaster.

For the record, the weather was VFR the whole way (and I knew it) so I
was a good deal more casual about it than I would have been if it had
been IMC the whole way. (I also strongly suspect that if it had been
IMC the whole way I would not have received a direct clearance. I've
flown that route a zillion times and it's never happened before.)

rg

Ron Garret wrote:
In article ,
Tim wrote:


If you don't know you shouldn;t be filing IFR. Period. You can get
someone (including yourself killed.)

...

I know the answer.


Then what is it? And please note that the question is not what do you
do by the book. The question is what do you do in the real world.

(Actually it turns out that there are some interesting subtleties
involved in figuring out what to do in this case even by the book.)


Spoon feeding pilots who are dangerous and ignorant is a sure way to
disaster.


I would think that allowing ignorant pilots to remain ignorant would be
a much surer route to disaster.

For the record, the weather was VFR the whole way (and I knew it) so I
was a good deal more casual about it than I would have been if it had
been IMC the whole way. (I also strongly suspect that if it had been
IMC the whole way I would not have received a direct clearance. I've
flown that route a zillion times and it's never happened before.)

rg

I am not sure how to answer this if you don't want to believe that you
are expected to do what it says in part 91. If you want to make up your
own stuff or do things other people do in the "real world" then go ahead.

As an aside - the whole atc "you are x miles from x, maintain x thousand
feet until established - cleared ILS x at x." was put into place because
in the "real world" people (including atp pilots) were not flying "by
the book" but flying in "the real world." You can find that crash that
killed lots of people if you like. Flying in the real world can kill
you. Go ahead and ignore the regs. I just hope the next time I am IFR
in IMC and some cowboy who lost comms does not come flying into me
because he decided to "vector himself" to an approach when he should
have been following the rules.

Most likely ATC is going to shut down a bunch of airspace if they lose
comms with someone. Unfortunately they appear to be justified in doing
that because of the ignorance and insistence of the stuff in this thread.

I don't make stuff up when I fly an IFR plan. It doesn't lend itself to
staying alive.

Ron Garret wrote:
snip



First, the regs explicitly sanction "making up your own stuff" (as you
put it) in emergency situations, which lost comm in IMC can easily give
rise to.

How is this an emergency?


Second, a lot of the regs were written before the advent of moving-map
GPS. Many procedures that make sense if you're navigating on a VOR make
less sense if you always know at a glance exactly where you are.

I don't see how with a gps you know where you are and with 2 VORs (for
example) you don't know where you are. Just because they were written
before GPS does not mean they are no longer valid. RNAV was around
long before GPSs.


Third, going by the book makes you do some overtly stupid things. The
classic example is going NORDO while flying from AVX to FUL. Going by
the book requires you to fly to SLI, reverse course, return to the exact
spot you just came from (which is over water BTW), and reverse course
again. This procedure is manifestly more dangerous than just flying the
approach straight in (because it involves more maneuvering, more time in
the air, more time over water). Moreover, under normal conditions the
approach is ALWAYS flown straight in (via vectors) and under NORDO
conditions the controllers expect you to fly the approach straight in (I
know because I asked them) notwithstanding that this technically
violates the regs.

If you already know the answer and were given instructions by
controllers to do this in the past, why pose it here? Can you get that
information from the controllers in writing?

While your specific example may work for you in this case, applying that
logic in other places will get you killed. If you follow the regs the
way they are written you will be fine and you won't get in trouble. If
you have an emergency (and I don;t think a non-op comms radio qualifies)
then you certainly can do whatever you need to do to make a safe ending
to the flight.


How does going to FUL require what you state? Cannot you pick which
approach and IAF?

Why do you choose the VOR procedure at FUL rather than the LOC/DME? In
that case it is easy to pick the approach with nopt.


And fourth, the regs leave a lot of stuff unspecified. If you go by the
regs in the current situation, you end up over KVNY at 11,000 feet, at
which point you're supposed to initiate your descent. But there's no
published hold at KVNY (to say nothing of the fact that KVNY is not an
IAF for any approach to KVNY) so you have no choice but to improvise at
that point.


So you are saying you don't know what you are supposed to do when you
reach a clearance limit and there is no published hold?

Are you sure direct VNY means KNVY and not eh vor or an iaf? Did the
controllers say "...SNS, direct" or "...SNS, direct KVNY?" there is a
difference I think.

VNY IS an IAF. So is FIM. Why not choose those as IAFs and follow a
published approach rather than your own vectors?

VTU is an NOPT to the LDA.
So is FIM

If you want to use your GPS you can use that for the GPS approaches.
You have your pick of the approaches and the IAFs.

rg

In article ,
Tim wrote:

Ron Garret wrote:
In article ,
Tim wrote:


If you don't know you shouldn;t be filing IFR. Period. You can get
someone (including yourself killed.)

...

I know the answer.


Then what is it? And please note that the question is not what do you
do by the book. The question is what do you do in the real world.

(Actually it turns out that there are some interesting subtleties
involved in figuring out what to do in this case even by the book.)


Spoon feeding pilots who are dangerous and ignorant is a sure way to
disaster.


I would think that allowing ignorant pilots to remain ignorant would be
a much surer route to disaster.

For the record, the weather was VFR the whole way (and I knew it) so I
was a good deal more casual about it than I would have been if it had
been IMC the whole way. (I also strongly suspect that if it had been
IMC the whole way I would not have received a direct clearance. I've
flown that route a zillion times and it's never happened before.)

rg

I am not sure how to answer this if you don't want to believe that you
are expected to do what it says in part 91. If you want to make up your
own stuff or do things other people do in the "real world" then go ahead.

First, the regs explicitly sanction "making up your own stuff" (as you
put it) in emergency situations, which lost comm in IMC can easily give
rise to.

Second, a lot of the regs were written before the advent of moving-map
GPS. Many procedures that make sense if you're navigating on a VOR make
less sense if you always know at a glance exactly where you are.

Third, going by the book makes you do some overtly stupid things. The
classic example is going NORDO while flying from AVX to FUL. Going by
the book requires you to fly to SLI, reverse course, return to the exact
spot you just came from (which is over water BTW), and reverse course
again. This procedure is manifestly more dangerous than just flying the
approach straight in (because it involves more maneuvering, more time in
the air, more time over water). Moreover, under normal conditions the
approach is ALWAYS flown straight in (via vectors) and under NORDO
conditions the controllers expect you to fly the approach straight in (I
know because I asked them) notwithstanding that this technically
violates the regs.

And fourth, the regs leave a lot of stuff unspecified. If you go by the
regs in the current situation, you end up over KVNY at 11,000 feet, at
which point you're supposed to initiate your descent. But there's no
published hold at KVNY (to say nothing of the fact that KVNY is not an
IAF for any approach to KVNY) so you have no choice but to improvise at
that point.

rg

Tim writes:

I believe your question was: "This still leaves some unanswered
questions, though. If you are given a heading without a fix, and the
heading does not intercept your flight plan or any approach or any
expected routing, where do you go? In VMC you are clearly expected to
go VFR and land. In IMC, what do you do?"

Right. What's the answer?

If you don't know the regulation and the controller makes a mistake
(they do) and does not give you the fix/reason you are being vectored,
then it is ambiguous. You always need to know why you are being
vectored and what you are being vectored to. So if you get vectors and
are not told anything else other than you are being vectored you need to
ask them why/where to, etc. They are required to give that information
to you.

Maybe, but it's extraordinarily common to just hear "turn left heading 045"
without any further explanation, particularly during an approach.

What do you do then?

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Ron Garret writes:

For the record, the weather was VFR the whole way (and I knew it) so I
was a good deal more casual about it than I would have been if it had
been IMC the whole way.

If visual conditions prevailed, the regulations say you should fly as if you
were under VFR. Which is all well and good, I suppose, but it doesn't provide
much guidance. The real question is: What should you do such that ATC will be
able to understand and anticipate your actions, so that they can continue to
provide separation? Just flying as if you were VFR doesn't answer that
question, because even VFR you'd normally be in communication with ATC in
controlled airspace, and in this case you've lost that.

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Tim writes:

I don't make stuff up when I fly an IFR plan. It doesn't lend itself to
staying alive.

So exactly how do you handle the situation under discussion? You still
haven't answered that.

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Mxsmanic wrote:
Tim writes:


I believe your question was: "This still leaves some unanswered
questions, though. If you are given a heading without a fix, and the
heading does not intercept your flight plan or any approach or any
expected routing, where do you go? In VMC you are clearly expected to
go VFR and land. In IMC, what do you do?"


Right. What's the answer?


If you don't know the regulation and the controller makes a mistake
(they do) and does not give you the fix/reason you are being vectored,
then it is ambiguous. You always need to know why you are being
vectored and what you are being vectored to. So if you get vectors and
are not told anything else other than you are being vectored you need to
ask them why/where to, etc. They are required to give that information
to you.


Maybe, but it's extraordinarily common to just hear "turn left heading 045"
without any further explanation, particularly during an approach.

What do you do then?



Are you purposely being dense? I just explained what you do/the
requirements from controllers when issuing vectors to/for something.
When you are getting vectors - you hear that initially/once. They don't
say it every time they give you a new vector. They are required to tell
you where/why you are being vectored. So, your question is moot. The
FARs (that you quoted) allow and require this. If you accept vectors
and do not know what they are for it is your responsibility to correct
that situation.

Do you always argue with people when they give you answers after you
have insulted them, told them don;t know the answer and then actually
get a correct response?

Tim writes:

How is this an emergency?

It endangers the flight and other flights around it. Losing all communication
in crowded, controlled airspace is clearly an emergency.

If you already know the answer and were given instructions by
controllers to do this in the past, why pose it here?

If you already know the answer, why have you still not provided it?

While your specific example may work for you in this case, applying that
logic in other places will get you killed. If you follow the regs the
way they are written you will be fine and you won't get in trouble.

So what's the answer?

If you have an emergency (and I don;t think a non-op comms radio qualifies)
then you certainly can do whatever you need to do to make a safe ending
to the flight.

Why doesn't an inoperative radio qualify? You're in airspace that requires
two-way radio communication.

So you are saying you don't know what you are supposed to do when you
reach a clearance limit and there is no published hold?

So enlighten everyone by explaining exactly what he should do.

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