Cleared for the approach?

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blmoore

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Brian Moore
Over the weekend, I was able to get some actual instrument time in Denver. On the way back into KBJC, I shot the ILS 29R approach.

I was getting vectors from the north. I got from approach "turn right 260 to intercept the localizer". The final approach coarse is 293 on this procedure.

Denver did not clear me for the approach until just after I passed through the localizer. My understanding was that you needed to hear the phrase "cleared ILS <runway> approach" or "cleared approach" in order to follow the localizer. The instructor with me at the time said that the "turn right 260..." was sufficient enough to have started the approach.

I'm just curious on what the right thing to do here is. I have yet to find anything in the FARs, AIM or any of my texts that discuss this situation.

Thanks,
Brian
 
blmoore said:
I got from approach "turn right 260 to intercept the localizer". The final approach coarse is 293 on this procedure.

Denver did not clear me for the approach until just after I passed through the localizer. My understanding was that you needed to hear the phrase "cleared ILS <runway> approach" or "cleared approach" in order to follow the localizer. The instructor with me at the time said that the "turn right 260..." was sufficient enough to have started the approach.
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Since the controller told you to intercept the localizer you can do that. However, you need to maintain your last assigned altitude until cleared for the approach. You can't start descending on the glide slope until then.
 
blmoore said:
I was getting vectors from the north. I got from approach "turn right 260 to intercept the localizer". The final approach coarse is 293 on this procedure.

Denver did not clear me for the approach until just after I passed through the localizer. My understanding was that you needed to hear the phrase "cleared ILS <runway> approach" or "cleared approach" in order to follow the localizer. The instructor with me at the time said that the "turn right 260..." was sufficient enough to have started the approach.
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Not quite Brian,

The instruction in the first part said to intercept the localizer so that is what you should do.

Cleared for the approach cancels all altitude and speed restructions so you can descend to the altitudes on the approach plate.

We get this often when some conflicting traffic keeps us from descending.

Joe
 
I'll join the others, Brian

An instruction to "intercept the localizer" means exactly that. Whether a localizer, airway, VOR, etc "intercept" means the same thing: continue on present heading and when the needle comes alive, turn to intercept and track it, maintaining your last assigned altitude. It does not mean, "continue on your present heading and fly right through the localizer."

But it does not clear your for the approach. "Cleared for the Approach" means you may follow the twists and turns and altitudes of the segments of the approach chart.
 
Really? Sometimes ATC intends to vector you through the final approach course.

In thumbing through the AIM tonight, I see this in section 5-4-3(b) Radar Approach control:

1. Where radar is approved for approach control service, it is used not only for radar approaches (Airport Surveillance Radar [ASR] and Precision Approach Radar [PAR]) but is also used to provide vectors in conjunction with published nonradar approaches based on radio NAVAIDs (ILS, MLS, VOR, NDB, TACAN). Radar vectors can provide course guidance and expedite traffic to the final approach course of any established IAP or to the traffic pattern for a visual approach. Approach control facilities that provide this radar service will operate in the following manner:

(a) Arriving aircraft are either cleared to an outer fix most appropriate to the route being flown with vertical separation and, if required, given holding information or, when radar handoffs are effected between the ARTCC and approach control, or between two approach control facilities, aircraft are cleared to the airport or to a fix so located that the handoff will be completed prior to the time the aircraft reaches the fix. When radar handoffs are utilized, successive arriving flights may be handed off to approach control with radar separation in lieu of vertical separation.

(b) After release to approach control, aircraft are vectored to the final approach course (ILS, MLS, VOR, ADF, etc.). Radar vectors and altitude or flight levels will be issued as required for spacing and separating aircraft. Therefore, pilots must not deviate from the headings issued by approach control. Aircraft will normally be informed when it is necessary to vector across the final approach course for spacing or other reasons. If approach course crossing is imminent and the pilot has not been informed that the aircraft will be vectored across the final approach course, the pilot should query the controller.

(c) The pilot is not expected to turn inbound on the final approach course unless an approach clearance has been issued. This clearance will normally be issued with the final vector for interception of the final approach course, and the vector will be such as to enable the pilot to establish the aircraft on the final approach course prior to reaching the final approach fix.​
 
Also, isn't "turn right to 260 to intercept the localizer" a bit of non-standard radar vector clearance? I thought it should be more like this (AIM section 5-4-7 b):

Five miles from outer marker, turn right heading three three zero, maintain two thousand until established on the localizer, cleared ILS runway three six approach.​
 
rpadula said:
Really? Sometimes ATC intends to vector you through the final approach course.
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That's true, but if they intend to vector you through the final approach course they will not tell you to intercept the localizer like Brian said they did in the original post.
 
rpadula said:
Also, isn't "turn right to 260 to intercept the localizer" a bit of non-standard radar vector clearance? I thought it should be more like this (AIM section 5-4-7 b):

Five miles from outer marker, turn right heading three three zero, maintain two thousand until established on the localizer, cleared ILS runway three six approach.​
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I did get the clearance for the approach in a 2nd transmission (shortly after passing through the localizer). I only overshot the localzier by one dot anyway before getting cleared.
 
rpadula said:
Also, isn't "turn right to 260 to intercept the localizer" a bit of non-standard radar vector clearance? I thought it should be more like this (AIM section 5-4-7 b):
Five miles from outer marker, turn right heading three three zero, maintain two thousand until established on the localizer, cleared ILS runway three six approach.
​
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What you quoted from the AIM is the proper way to issue an approach clearance, but that's not what the controller in this case did. Instead, s/he issued a normal radar vector instruction IAW 7110.65 for the aircraft to fly a heading and join the localizer without clearing it for the approach, which would have required all the other verbiage. The controller would then have to issue the approach clearance when whatever was preventing the issuance earlier was cleared up, something like:
Five miles from the outer marker, maintain two thousand until established, cleared ILS runway three six approach.
​
Note that the "until established" part still must be stated because the pilot could have joined the localizer outside the published portion of the approach (the "fat black line") or be joining from below.
 
I'd have preferred to hear "join the localizer" instead of "to intercept the localizer". The first is clearly an instruction, the second can be interpreted as a statement of the controller giving the reason for the vector, without being an instruction to actually intercept.

That said, I'd join anyway and let him yell at me if he didn't want me to turn. The odds that he did in fact want me to turn.
 
TMetzinger said:
I'd have preferred to hear "join the localizer" instead of "to intercept the localizer". The first is clearly an instruction, the second can be interpreted as a statement of the controller giving the reason for the vector, without being an instruction to actually intercept.

That said, I'd join anyway and let him yell at me if he didn't want me to turn. The odds that he did in fact want me to turn.
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Tim,
I agree that there were two legitimate interpretations there. I think the proper response would have been to query the controller if unsure.
 
TMetzinger said:
I'd have preferred to hear "join the localizer" instead of "to intercept the localizer". The first is clearly an instruction, the second can be interpreted as a statement of the controller giving the reason for the vector, without being an instruction to actually intercept.

That said, I'd join anyway and let him yell at me if he didn't want me to turn. The odds that he did in fact want me to turn.
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"Join" would definitely have been the more proper ATC-standard verbiage. But I really don't see intercept as meaning anything other than as an instruction to turn on course once you've reached it.
 
midlifeflyer said:
"Join" would definitely have been the more proper ATC-standard verbiage. But I really don't see intercept as meaning anything other than as an instruction to turn on course once you've reached it.
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If he'd said " Fly heading 260, intercept the localizer" I agree that's unambiguously TWO instructions.

"Fly heading 260 to intercept the localizer" is ambiguous, in my opinion - it could be two instructions, or it could be one instruction with the reason for the instruction.
 
I don't think there's anything non-standard about the instruction.

"Intercept the localizer" - you do just that. Fly the assigned heading and then intercept (yes, "join" would have been better, but it means the same).

"Cleared for the approach" - this would happen after you've joined the localizer. It's quite common to have planes line up on the localizer and then clear them for the approach later.

-Felix
 
midlifeflyer said:
"Join" would definitely have been the more proper ATC-standard verbiage. But I really don't see intercept as meaning anything other than as an instruction to turn on course once you've reached it.
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Gee, Mark, I searched the 7110.65S using "join the localizer" as a search argument and got no hits. ..so it is hardly ATC-standard. Nothing about "join" in the P/CG, either.

Bob Gardner
 
bobmrg said:
Gee, Mark, I searched the 7110.65S using "join the localizer" as a search argument and got no hits. ..so it is hardly ATC-standard. Nothing about "join" in the P/CG, either.

Bob Gardner
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You're right. I re-searched. Both the word "join" and the word "intercept" appear in the context of reaching a course and then following it.
Compare CROSS/JOIN VICTOR/(color) (airway number), (number of miles) MILES (direction) OF (fix).
​
in ATC Handbook para 4-4-1 with
INTERCEPT (route) AT OR ABOVE (altitude), CRUISE (altitude).
​
in para 4-5-7.
 
TMetzinger said:
If he'd said " Fly heading 260, intercept the localizer" I agree that's unambiguously TWO instructions.

"Fly heading 260 to intercept the localizer" is ambiguous, in my opinion - it could be two instructions, or it could be one instruction with the reason for the instruction.
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I paid particularly close attention to the verbiage used yesterday when I was being vectored for the ILS. ATC clearly said, "Fly heading 170 to intercept the localizer." I thought that they generally used the word "to" but I never paid that much attention until this discussion came up.
 
Everskyward said:
I paid particularly close attention to the verbiage used yesterday when I was being vectored for the ILS. ATC clearly said, "Fly heading 170 to intercept the localizer." I thought that they generally used the word "to" but I never paid that much attention until this discussion came up.
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That sounds like a four digit heading. I like to avoid using "to" if it can in any way be confused with "two".
 
roncachamp said:
That sounds like a four digit heading. I like to avoid using "to" if it can in any way be confused with "two".
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I also try to avoid the word "to" as well as "for" but this instruction was not confusing to me because I know there is not a heading 1702. Besides, that's not what the confusion was anyway. Read the whole thread to find out.
 
roncachamp said:
That sounds like a four digit heading. I like to avoid using "to" if it can in any way be confused with "two".
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There's a lot on which roncachamp and I don't agree, but on this one, we do. I make it a practice to never use the words "for" or "to" adjacent to any numbers. If I'm issued a vector, I respond "Left 300," not "Left to 300." Checking in, it's "Passing two thousand four hundred, climbing six thousand," or possibly "climbing to maintain six thousand," not "climbing to six thousand." Put this in a category with "one-zero, ten thousand" and "one-one, eleven thousand" -- not required, but a darn good idea.
 
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