Another Visual Approach Question

Palmpilot

Palmpilot

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Richard Palm
Years ago, approach control cleared me for a visual approach from about 5000 AGL when I was more or less overhead Camarillo Airport (CMA). Since it was at night and the airport was in a valley with whose boundaries I was not intimately familiar, I felt the safest thing to do would be to spiral down overhead the field. This was after the control tower closed for the night, so I had to call to cancel IFR after landing. When I did so, the controller had a problem with how I flew the approach, so I explained the safety reasons for doing what I did. It was pointed out, either by him or by forum participants or both, that if I'm planning to do something unexpected, I should let the controller know.

That certainly sounds reasonable enough, but the question that still lingers in my mind (and which I didn't think to ask at the time) is how do I know whether my planned route on a visual approach is unexpected? Is there a normal type of flight path that ATC expects on visual approaches? In this situation, would they be expecting me to just make the downwind, base, and final legs long enough to lose the 5,000 feet that way?
 
When I go to an unfamiliar airport at night that I know has rising terrain around it, I will follow the approach in if there is one. Might check the A/FD to see if there is a recommended visual approach at night. I hate it when controllers keep me at altitude before releasing me for a visual. In your case I that might have been his minimum vectoring altitude.
 
Good question, and one I would like to see other responses too.

Last year, I was coming into a Northern Nevada airport. I am way high, and Approach says to report when the field is in sight. But, due to all the smoke and sun position, I realized that I would not be able to see the field until directly overhead, and I would not get lower until. So, I asked for an instrument approach. That worked out well...
 
Palmpilot said:
Years ago, approach control cleared me for a visual approach from about 5000 AGL when I was more or less overhead Camarillo Airport (CMA). Since it was at night and the airport was in a valley with whose boundaries I was not intimately familiar, I felt the safest thing to do would be to spiral down overhead the field. This was after the control tower closed for the night, so I had to call to cancel IFR after landing. When I did so, the controller had a problem with how I flew the approach, so I explained the safety reasons for doing what I did. It was pointed out, either by him or by forum participants or both, that if I'm planning to do something unexpected, I should let the controller know.

That certainly sounds reasonable enough, but the question that still lingers in my mind (and which I didn't think to ask at the time) is how do I know whether my planned route on a visual approach is unexpected? Is there a normal type of flight path that ATC expects on visual approaches? In this situation, would they be expecting me to just make the downwind, base, and final legs long enough to lose the 5,000 feet that way?
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My guess is that it was the individual controller's problem or question rather than anything regulatory. Not long ago I was waiting for takeoff at KRIL (Garfield County, CO) and had to wait for a Lear that was circling down on the visual. This was in the daytime. At night, especially if there is terrain I would stick with the approach, but I can remember using the spiraling down technique back in the day when there were many more airports without approaches. No one ever said anything.
 
Without knowing exactly what the controller said, the controller's actual traffic situation, your distance, altitude and how you maneuvered for landing, it's hard to form an opinion on what occurred.

The controller is responsible for resolving any possible conflicts with other IFR traffic but they can't anticipate extreme maneuvering away from the clearance airport.
 
Zeldman said:
When I go to an unfamiliar airport at night that I know has rising terrain around it, I will follow the approach in if there is one. Might check the A/FD to see if there is a recommended visual approach at night. I hate it when controllers keep me at altitude before releasing me for a visual. In your case I that might have been his minimum vectoring altitude.
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+1 Absolutely, always at night. I request an approach way out so they can set me up in advance. I do this at every unfamiliar airport. Plenty of unlit towers and other things out there, it just isn't that big a deal to fly the approach.
 
I too have concluded that it would be better to use a published approach in situations like that. On the flight in question, I had picked the airway that passed closest to the airport instead of near an IAF, but due to nearby terrain, that didn't really gain me anything, because the MEA left me with so much altitude to lose.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Without knowing exactly what the controller said, the controller's actual traffic situation, your distance, altitude and how you maneuvered for landing, it's hard to form an opinion on what occurred.

The controller is responsible for resolving any possible conflicts with other IFR traffic but they can't anticipate extreme maneuvering away from the clearance airport.
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I wish I had thought to ask what route he was expecting.
 
Palmpilot said:
Years ago, approach control cleared me for a visual approach from about 5000 AGL when I was more or less overhead Camarillo Airport (CMA). Since it was at night and the airport was in a valley with whose boundaries I was not intimately familiar, I felt the safest thing to do would be to spiral down overhead the field. This was after the control tower closed for the night, so I had to call to cancel IFR after landing. When I did so, the controller had a problem with how I flew the approach, so I explained the safety reasons for doing what I did. It was pointed out, either by him or by forum participants or both, that if I'm planning to do something unexpected, I should let the controller know.

That certainly sounds reasonable enough, but the question that still lingers in my mind (and which I didn't think to ask at the time) is how do I know whether my planned route on a visual approach is unexpected? Is there a normal type of flight path that ATC expects on visual approaches? In this situation, would they be expecting me to just make the downwind, base, and final legs long enough to lose the 5,000 feet that way?
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Anytime you deviate from ATC instruction you MUST tell them. Communicate, don't be obtuse and hope for the best. Better to ask for permission, than to ask for medical help later.
 
CTLSi said:
Anytime you deviate from ATC instruction you MUST tell them. Communicate, don't be obtuse and hope for the best. Better to ask for permission, than to ask for medical help later.
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Based on the OP's story he didn't deviate from any instruction. Hard to tell if the OP landed as soon as possible but at 5,000 ft above the airport, that would be pretty difficult to do.
 
CTLSi said:
Anytime you deviate from ATC instruction you MUST tell them. Communicate, don't be obtuse and hope for the best. Better to ask for permission, than to ask for medical help later.
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Do you believe that I deviated from an instruction? If so, how should I have flown the approach?
 
Velocity173 said:
He might have been hoping you would cancel in the air as well. How was the weather?
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It was a clear moonless night in the area of the destination.

The trouble with canceling in the air when there is not a control tower in operation is that if you crash or have a forced landing, it may be a very long time before someone comes looking for you.
 
Don't get me wrong, I think what you did was fine from both a safety and regulatory standpoint. That said I think he expected you to do what most people do around terrain at night and that is fly the published approach under visual. I think it was more being shocked by a plane dropping out of the sky on his screen, hence his admonishing to let someone know.
 
Palmpilot said:
It was a clear moonless night in the area of the destination.

The trouble with canceling in the air when there is not a control tower in operation is that if you crash or have a forced landing, it may be a very long time before someone comes looking for you.
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Yeah, I suppose there's always a slight risk in cancelling in the air and then crashing and no one on the ground or on CTAF hears it.

Have you ever gone out to the local airport and just done pattern work at night without being on a flight plan?
 
Velocity173 said:
Yeah, I suppose there's always a slight risk in cancelling in the air and then crashing and no one on the ground or on CTAF hears it.

Have you ever gone out to the local airport and just done pattern work at night without being on a flight plan?
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I have, but when I'm arriving at an airport and already on a flight plan, I don't see the point of canceling in the air. The sky was not exactly teeming with traffic that night.
 
Palmpilot said:
I have, but when I'm arriving at an airport and already on a flight plan, I don't see the point of canceling in the air. The sky was not exactly teeming with traffic that night.
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OK makes sense. Just trying to understand your personal ADM in that situation.
 
Velocity173 said:
Yeah, I suppose there's always a slight risk in cancelling in the air and then crashing and no one on the ground or on CTAF hears it.

Have you ever gone out to the local airport and just done pattern work at night without being on a flight plan?
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This begs the question, "Does anyone ever file a VFR flight plan after completing their primary training?"
 
tomf188 said:
This begs the question, "Does anyone ever file a VFR flight plan after completing their primary training?"
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My cousin said that he had a friend who had heard about a guy who might have.

Carry a 406-G/PLB.
 
tomf188 said:
This begs the question, "Does anyone ever file a VFR flight plan after completing their primary training?"
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I don't. If I'm in the pattern or flying around the local area I don't file or talk to ATC. If I'm doing a cross country I don't file but do use ATC. If I lived out west with expansive unpopulated areas and no cell coverage, I'd either file or get a PLB.
 
Filing a flight plan also means making a flight plan. I enjoy making them using iFlightPlanner. Filing them is a button push and a later call to WXBRIEF. If I a flying over 100nm from home, I always do it.
 
CTLSi said:
Filing a flight plan also means making a flight plan. I enjoy making them using iFlightPlanner. Filing them is a button push and a later call to WXBRIEF. If I a flying over 100nm from home, I always do it.
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So is closing them... but you have to remember to do it. And I remember one very embarrassing instance where I didn't.

Even so, I used to file them when overflying Canada or when flying where radar services were not a sure thing -- such as northern MI on days where there might be a ceiling too low for ZMP to see me.

I stopped using VFR plans when overflying Canada when I learned of the check IFR + altitude = "VFR" technique.

Now I just file IFR. :)
 
Palmpilot said:
The trouble with canceling in the air when there is not a control tower in operation is that if you crash or have a forced landing, it may be a very long time before someone comes looking for you.
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I'd not cancel in the air in such circumstances either. However, an IFR plan is no guarantee either. Unlike a VFR plane which automatically starts things going 30 minutes after the ETA if not closed, an IFR plan takes a controller to remember you were there and didn't cancel/close to kick things into action. There was a case up in Connecticut a few years back where the pilot still on an IFR plan was switched over to the CTAF frequency and the pilot even said the weather was bad enough he was likely going to be back on the missed. He crashed. ATC forgot about him. Nobody started looking until the next day.

Keep your flight plans open until on the ground, but it behooves you to have someone else know about your plans as well.
 
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