Scenario...What would you do?

david0tey

david0tey

Line Up and Wait
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Scenario:

You are asked to hold at the DRONE intersection with an EFC time in 10 minutes. Your flight plan after DRONE is to continue on to KCPK. The weather is IMC down to ILS minimums. For those that don't feel like looking up where these fixes are, DRONE is about 30 degrees off center from the ILS final approach course. It is not, however, an IAF or a feeder route to the runway 5 ILS at CPK.

Assuming you lose comms in the hold, my understanding is that you would depart the hold at the EFC time and maintain your last assigned altitude (highest of MEA, assigned, or expected) until you reach a published portion of the approach.

My question is, even though the holding fix is relatively in line with the final approach course, would you do a procedure turn? It seems counter productive to me unless you need it to lose altitude. If I recall correctly, though, since we wouldn't be receiving vectors and it is not a NoPT route, we technically should.

I realize this scenario is highly unlikely in real life but I have been told to expect it on the checkride. Hope my description makes sense.
 
Radar or non radar environment?
 
david0tey said:
Radar environment. No comms.
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Get out of their hair as soon as I can. Squawk 7600, and skip the PT. Years back I had just gone into IMC on my IFR clearance, and the radios went pure static. No tx/rx at all. My options were fly the next 3 hours according to how we are taught. Oh yeah, and have no ability to let them know I was deviating for TCU/CBS. Or, get out of their hair. I knew the bases were high enough to descend out of it, so I went 7600, descended and beelined for a field.

I never got in trouble, and the only call I got was from ZTL to the FBO saying they saw me diverting and they had put my flight plan back in the system with that airport as my new PoD in case I got it worked out quickly.
 
Interesting. I thought you would do exactly as you say and continue as cleared at the EFC time (as you say, you're IMC down to ILS minimums). No need to do a procedure turn right? Your last turn in holding IS the course reversal. Or at least thats what I would think.
 
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wilkersk said:
Interesting. I thought you would do exactly as you say and continue as cleared at the EFC time (as you say, you're IMC down to ILS minimums). No need to do a procedure turn right? Your last turn in holding IS the course reversal. Or at least thats what I would think.
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The hold at DRONE isn't part of the approach. The hold is for airspace issues, not as part of the approach. In a non-radar I would hold until EFC, then fly the full approach with PT. In radar, I hold until EFC and skip the PT - they can see what I'm doing. Oh, and I am not going missed.
 
And in non radar they wouldn't have a clue if you did a PT or not. Just sayin'.
 
I know this is wrong, as I write it. Lost comms, you squawk 7600 and if the field was reporting down to min you do whatever the hell you want, but you do it right now. Either head for an alt, or head for the first entry to the published approach. If that makes a mess on the radar, well they can send me a nasty letter once I'm on the ground or whatev. If I go to the alt, they'll figure that out with a few sweeps.

Sorry, but I am not going to sit there for 10 min in a hold with no comms. The other planes in the pipe HAVE a radio, and are under pos control(IMC). I fly my plane, and get my act together to get me down safe, and everyone else can go around, or missed, or descend, or climb, or slow down, or speed up. That's not my call, that's the guy sitting in the dark room looking at my radar bloom "7600". I have his attention.
 
Certain lost comms will lose the transponder, too. Like an electrical power failure.
 
Actually I believe it's leave the holding fix at your EFC, and your IAF at the ETA. That said, when you alter your destination it's anyone's guess.
 
I would still wait 10 minutes and squawk 7600. Gives the controller 10 minutes to hold arrivals and move a few airplanes out of the way if need be. Not sure what altitude you were given to hold at, but I would maintain that until established on a segment of the approach(probably the HILO pattern) and use the HILO to make a turn in holding and descend. Then shoot the approach as normal. If I was instructed to hold at say 3,000, I probably wouldn't need the turn in holding to descend so I wouldn't make the turn in holding and just execute the approach.
 
Kritchlow said:
And in non radar they wouldn't have a clue if you did a PT or not. Just sayin'.
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Yes, but in a non radar environment, they won't see the other planes that may be in the area in order to tell them to get out of the way. And they won't know I'm squawking 7600 either.
 
MAKG1 said:
Certain lost comms will lose the transponder, too. Like an electrical power failure.
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Which makes holding and shooting the approach, well, nearly impossible.
 
My answer to the PT part depends on the altitude I was holding at. Given the turn at NADLE is less than 90°, I'd proceed straight in unless I needed the HILO to lose altitude.

On when, I agree with Gucci. If I was reasonably satisfied it was only a comm radio issue, I'd give ATC a little time to figure out I'm NORDO before heading in.

Of course, if based on my flight, I knew there was significantly better weather close by, I'd probably head that way instead of trying a NORDO approach to ILS minimums.
 
david0tey said:
Scenario:

You are asked to hold at the DRONE intersection with an EFC time in 10 minutes. Your flight plan after DRONE is to continue on to KCPK. The weather is IMC down to ILS minimums. For those that don't feel like looking up where these fixes are, DRONE is about 30 degrees off center from the ILS final approach course. It is not, however, an IAF or a feeder route to the runway 5 ILS at CPK.

Assuming you lose comms in the hold, my understanding is that you would depart the hold at the EFC time and maintain your last assigned altitude (highest of MEA, assigned, or expected) until you reach a published portion of the approach.

My question is, even though the holding fix is relatively in line with the final approach course, would you do a procedure turn? It seems counter productive to me unless you need it to lose altitude. If I recall correctly, though, since we wouldn't be receiving vectors and it is not a NoPT route, we technically should.

I realize this scenario is highly unlikely in real life but I have been told to expect it on the checkride. Hope my description makes sense.
Click to expand...

What was your last clearance received prior to getting holding at DRONE? What routing were you told to expect in a further clearance? What was your filed route? Anyway, if you arrive at NALDE other than via CVI or ECG or vector to final, which obviously isn't happening in this scenario, you do the procedure turn(hold in lieu on this approach.) There are a lot of very valid, real life scenarios described above where you would do otherwise but you did say you were told to expect this on a checkride. I say comply with the FAR's
 
EdFred said:
Yes, but in a non radar environment, they won't see the other planes that may be in the area in order to tell them to get out of the way. And they won't know I'm squawking 7600 either.
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Don't get your point. It just doesn't make sense to this situation. Whatever.
 
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