Little terminology help here...

woodchucker

Pattern Altitude
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woodchucker
I'm a low-time PPL, and my job is a high school teacher. Anyways I have a student who wants to be an air traffic controller. We chat about flying pretty frequently. Anyways he had a question for me that I didn't know.

He heard from listening to liveATC: Something about following the localizer to the wheel?

What does that mean? Would love to pass the info onto him. Thanks in advance!
 
Said by a pilot or said by a controller? And near which airport?

If by a controller, he probably misheard it or it was some local landmark or fix. The term does not appear in the ATC handbook or P/CG

If by a pilot, could be almost anything.
 
I'm a low-time PPL, and my job is a high school teacher. Anyways I have a student who wants to be an air traffic controller. We chat about flying pretty frequently. Anyways he had a question for me that I didn't know.

He heard from listening to liveATC: Something about following the localizer to the wheel?

What does that mean? Would love to pass the info onto him. Thanks in advance!

Retired controller here, and I think he misheard also, or misunderstood. The localizer provides lateral guidance to a particular runway. There can be fixes along the localizer course so it's possible the controller may have instructed the pilot to follow the localizer to a named fix.
 
Retired controller here, and I think he misheard also, or misunderstood. The localizer provides lateral guidance to a particular runway. There can be fixes along the localizer course so it's possible the controller may have instructed the pilot to follow the localizer to a named fix.
Question: Assuming it is the one in my link, would it make a difference that the localizer is one of those "navigational localizers" that appear on the enroute chart?
 
Question: Assuming it is the one in my link, would it make a difference that the localizer is one of those "navigational localizers" that appear on the enroute chart?

That I do not know, sorry. I'm sure someone might answer that for ya soon.
 
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Could "the wheel" be a VFR point that happens to be located on or very near the localizer line?

Like in Albuquerque, there is a VFR point called "the big eye". It is where I-25 and I-40 cross and very noticeable, but it is not near an IFR approach.
 
//RANT ON//
"anyways?" dude, you need to shake off the teenage syntax when you leave the classroom...better yet...use the right lingo all the time so our kids don't say "Anyways!"
//RANT OFF//

Sorry...Pet Peeve there... we're still friends, right? :D
 
I'm no pilot, but could it mean: follow localizer to touchdown? "to the wheels?"
Instrument procedures don't include anything like that. You're cleared for the approach and then contact tower (if present) for landing clearance.

Now if things go really sideways/wonky/fubar then controllers can say things in plain language (off the pcg and controller scripts). It is difficult to imagine a controller substituting "wheel" for "touchdown." I can imagine a controller saying something like follow the localizer until airport in sight but even that is a stretch. On a couple occasions I've heard "keep'er coming" when I've reported "airport not in sight" when flying to an unfamiliar airport.

In other words it'd have to be a really strange situation for a controller to say something like that.
 
//RANT ON//
"anyways?" dude, you need to shake off the teenage syntax when you leave the classroom...better yet...use the right lingo all the time so our kids don't say "Anyways!"
//RANT OFF//

Sorry...Pet Peeve there... we're still friends, right? :D

Like I totally down with that.
 
I'm a low-time PPL, and my job is a high school teacher. Anyways I have a student who wants to be an air traffic controller. We chat about flying pretty frequently. Anyways he had a question for me that I didn't know.

He heard from listening to liveATC: Something about following the localizer to the wheel?

What does that mean? Would love to pass the info onto him. Thanks in advance!
I got nothing.
 
Well, it seems like a really strange situation, "anyways".
Hey, I’ve been called out to other traffic as a Dodge Dakota so anything is possible.
 
I think he's hearing it incorrectly. Can you get an airport, frequency, date, and time so we can listen to the archive?
 
Probably he was listening to liveATC, and most likely KSLC approach. I can ask him on Tuesday.
 
Wheel as in a Blue Donut? You can follow the Blue Donut all the way down the localizer...

“N123 fly heading 220, intercept the localizer and follow the wheel..err..blue donut all the way down.”

ie.,
Adobe-Spark_2D00_16.jpg
 
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Could have been ,fly the localizer,down to the REIL,just a guess.
 
My money is on some private pilot crazy jargon, or a known waypoint.

You should see all the official, but not chart official waypoints near Juneo.
 
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