Spearing a 182 on a radio tower

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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This month's IFR magazine has a very interesting article by Paul Berge about the time he got a "class A deal" while working Des Moines approach, working IFR traffic into Des Moines and Ames, when he sent somebody past the TV towers at 3000 feet. The pilot called when he saw the red lights at the top of the towers go by, IN IMC.

Very interesting read....
 
Des Moines is generally pretty good about asking if you have the towers in sight. Probably because of that event. I think Tony has a picture of them sticking out the top of clouds...big towers.
 
KennyFlys said:
I've seen 1600-1800 AGL around Atlanta and Houston. Those are eye openers.
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The ones between AMW and DSM are 1800-2000' AGL and there are 4 of them grouped together in about a 2-mile radius. It kinda stinks coming in from the east b/c you get vectored way south before turning northbound to get set up for the ILS01 at AMW. OTOH, it prevents DSM Approach from giving you a slam-dunk approach into AMW. ;)

DSM is really good with bugsmashers in and out of both AMW and DSM.
 
We have a gaggle of towers here about 20nm east of KSGF. There are 6 to 8 of them total with about 4 of them being 2000 AGL and 3600 mSL. It's amazing how intimidating they are. When I'm coming in from the east at 4500 I will still vector around them. Even though I KNOW I'm 900' above them, for some reason they sill LOOK like they're in my way!

:hairraise:
 
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ive heard about that deal. paul hasnt worked in the tower for a long time, but those guys are still super paranoid about the Alleman towers. those suckers stick up pretty high. and yes i have a picture of them from between layers around here somewhere.
 
In Atlanta, two TV stations are very close to each other on Briarcliff Road; both having HDTV towers. I've been at the foot of both when making courier deliveries. They don't appear all that intimidating from the ground. However...

Back in 2005 when I was doing my 709 ride with the FSDO safety officer, we flew from KGVL to KFTY on the other side of Atlanta. Clouds were too low to let me fly over KPDK so approach took me further south around the Class D. With that, we ended up over the top of those HDTV towers. Being right at a thousand above them, it didn't look like I was that high. They did indeed look very intimidating.

They bothered me more than the BoA building we came upon shortly after. It didn't look near as intimidating as those three-pronged towers.
 
As with that Angel Air helicopter tragedy, the issue is the towers have invisible guy wires going out to the radius matching the tower height. I could see myself being below the top giving the tower a wide berth and having the berth not be wide enough.

I was making my 45 into the pattern at Ames and those towers got my attention.

I use some water towers, cell towers, and a particular microwave tower as check points doing the same pattern lining up at home. I never get within 300 feet or a couple miles but they do get way too much of your concentration.
 
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A few years ago we were out in North Carolina, on the way to Kitty Hawk or Kill Devil Hill or whatever that town's called now. Can't remember. Anyway, we flew past a restricted area that had some super-high towers in it; I can't remember exactly how high but we were a long way up and their tops were still above us. Thousands of feet high, anyhow. Navy stuff, I think. I'm a Canuck so I don't know much about the US military installations. Do any of you know how high those towers are?

Dan
 
That KCCI TV tower and the FM towers surrounding it in Iowa cast quite a shadow:

GetImageArea.ashx
 
The ones at Ripon on the Oshkosh VFR approach when you are only 400' above them at 1800 MSL and looking for thousands of other VFR traffics always get my attention.

I've got that sectional chart piece as a jpg. How do I imbed it in the message?

Jim
 
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weirdjim said:
I've got that sectional chart piece as a jpg. How do I imbed it in the message?
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The absolute easiest way is to get a free photo upload account at www.photobucket.com

Once you upload the photo (click the "Choose Files" button), you'll see something like this:

photobucket.gif


Click inside the "IMG code" box (the part I highlighed in yellow above), copy the pre-formatted text that is there, and paste it into your POA message. Click the "Submit Reply" button and you'll get the image in your post. (that's how I did the picture above)

If you don't want to EMBED the picture, but rather just attach it, you can click the paperclip icon above the editing area to attach a file. When people read the message, they'll get a small preview icon of the file, but will have to click it to see the full thing.
 
weirdjim said:
...I've got that sectional chart piece as a jpg. How do I imbed it in the message?
Click to expand...

TangoWhiskey said:
The absolute easiest way is to get a free photo upload account at www.photobucket.com
...
Click to expand...

The absolute easiest way is upload it here using "Manage Attachments." You just point to the file on your computer [browse] and [upload] or you can give it a URL [copy image location] in another browser tab to get that, then paste).

Preview your post.

Right click, [Copy image location] or [... on IE] on the thumbnail you see at the bottom.
This one is
Code: 
http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=13850&stc=1&thumb=1&d=1225570198

Click on the little picture icon on top of the post box.
Paste in the above URL but backspace and delete to edit out the "&thumb=1"
Code: 
http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=13850&stc=1&d=1225570198

and you get this:
attachment.php


Don't do that on really large pictures because some people are bandwidth limited. If they are on dial-up they'll be gone before they live long enough to load and see the thread. :blush:
 

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Is this the largest tower in the US? I seem to remember it being near Des Moines...or maybe North Dakota...

Its a TV tower...
 
Ahh, its the KVLY mast in Blanchard, ND. I was close. Super tall though, over 2000ft.
 
I fly to IKV quite often. It is a good idea to stay on the little pink line.

Eggman
 

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It can be easy to get busy on the piloting side of things, and hand over positional awareness to atc - but this is a good reminder to check out the msa and sectionals when flying to unfam locations, monitor where the vectoring is taking you, question anything that seems 'not right'. What electronic displays out there will call out obstacles to the pilot right now? My AWM flashes a red warning on the screen for towers, balloons.

2nao7km.jpg


mhprg8.jpg
 
timwinters said:
We have a gaggle of towers here about 20nm east of KSGF. There are 6 to 8 of them total with about 4 of them being 2000 AGL and 3600 mSL. It's amazing how intimidating they are. When I'm coming in from the east at 4500 I will still vector around them. Even though I KNOW I'm 900' above them, for some reason they sill LOOK like they're in my way!

:hairraise:
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Yup, I nearly pranged them flying from 3MO to 3M0. Just happened to climb up to 4000 when I glanced at the MEA. I thought I was being paranoid..then those babies popped up under my left wing!
 
Dan Thomas said:
A few years ago we were out in North Carolina, on the way to Kitty Hawk or Kill Devil Hill or whatever that town's called now. Can't remember. Anyway, we flew past a restricted area that had some super-high towers in it; I can't remember exactly how high but we were a long way up and their tops were still above us. Thousands of feet high, anyhow. Navy stuff, I think. I'm a Canuck so I don't know much about the US military installations. Do any of you know how high those towers are?

Dan
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Must have been WECT TV6 Tower. 2000 ft tall situated at Colly Township, North Carolina at 34°34'44.0" N and 78°26'12.0" W. WECT TV6 Tower is, along with several other masts, the seventh tallest man-made structure ever created; it is not only the tallest structure in North Carolina, but also the tallest in the United States east of the Mississippi River.
 
ApacheBob said:
Yup, I nearly pranged them flying from 3MO to 3M0. Just happened to climb up to 4000 when I glanced at the MEA. I thought I was being paranoid..then those babies popped up under my left wing!
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Isn't 3M0 in Arkansas? That must have been quite the pattern! :D
 
sba55 said:
Isn't 3M0 in Arkansas? That must have been quite the pattern! :D
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Three Mike Oscar versus Three Mike Zero...Someone went to the wrong one first :)
 
Yikes those are tall. In Philly we have the Roxboro towers abot 4-5 clumped together you pass them on the way in to PNE from the West but they aren't on the acutal Instrument Approach like in IA
 
jesse said:
Three Mike Oscar versus Three Mike Zero...Someone went to the wrong one first :)
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The worst part is they're within 10 degrees of each other when you come from the east like us. Guess who saw the problem on the handheld vs. the panel?
 
wow I had no idea there were 2000' oil platforms in the Gulf!

ahh...most of it is underwater!



Also I used to fly around this one regularily and it held the world record for 31 years!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cn_tower
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Let'sgoflying! said:
Also I used to fly around this one regularily and it held the world record for 31 years!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cn_tower
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I've stood on the glass floor in the observation deck of that tower... if you're nervous about heights, it takes some doing to make the leg muscles respond to the mind's commands. And when your inebriated friends JUMP out onto the glass when you finally get out on it... :sosp:
 
lancefisher said:
AFaIK the tallest man made structure in the USA is a 2063ft TV antenna tower in North Dakota.
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That thing has fallen... TWICE. Once when a Marine helicopter hit a wire (4 died); then again fairly recently when an 70 mph ice storm put 4" of solid ice on the entire structure...
 
It was a sad day when someone hit this 1000' tower near my former home, apparently scud running and following the 4lane highway trying to get back to Toronto.
 

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TangoWhiskey said:
I've stood on the glass floor in the observation deck of that tower... if you're nervous about heights, it takes some doing to make the leg muscles respond to the mind's commands. And when your inebriated friends JUMP out onto the glass when you finally get out on it... :sosp:
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Try walking on the Royal Gorge bridge in CO where you can see 1000 feet down into the gorge in the spaces between the planks you're standing on.

I only slightly noticed the looks on the faces of the pedestrians as I drove out. When I walked back I knew why. The planks bounce when you drive on them. :yikes:
 
Dealing with 2000-foot towers is no big deal for me, since there were three of them in Houston when I learned to fly there.

I've never been up a 2000-footer, but I've spent more than a little time at the top of a 1500-foot tower. Once upon a time, two of the three major network stations in Houston, and a major independent, were on the same tower. It's 1500 feet tall, and has a triangular candelabra, 150 feet on a side, at the top, with the TV antennas at the corners. There's a hexagonal building, 40 feet on a side and 2 stories tall, in the center. Catwalks run between the corners, and from the building out to the center of the sides. You think walking on a solid glass floor is bad...

Then, of course, there are the crazy guys who do tower work. One I know would do things like hang by his legs from the side of the catwalk to work on an antenna. Yow.
 
jmaynard said:
Dealing with 2000-foot towers is no big deal for me, since there were three of them in Houston when I learned to fly there.

I've never been up a 2000-footer, but I've spent more than a little time at the top of a 1500-foot tower. Once upon a time, two of the three major network stations in Houston, and a major independent, were on the same tower. It's 1500 feet tall, and has a triangular candelabra, 150 feet on a side, at the top, with the TV antennas at the corners. There's a hexagonal building, 40 feet on a side and 2 stories tall, in the center. Catwalks run between the corners, and from the building out to the center of the sides. You think walking on a solid glass floor is bad...

Then, of course, there are the crazy guys who do tower work. One I know would do things like hang by his legs from the side of the catwalk to work on an antenna. Yow.
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Jay:

The mere act of reading what you have written here makes my knees jelly.

Funny how I am mortified of heights, and am completely unaffected in the airplane.
 
SCCutler said:
Jay:

The mere act of reading what you have written here makes my knees jelly.

Funny how I am mortified of heights, and am completely unaffected in the airplane.
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That's not all that uncommon in pilots. I first heard it talked about by Neal Boortz. One of my students is a big fella and an ex-Marine. He's the same way... deathly afraid of heights.

For those who climb into a plane and think they will be afraid to look down, I'm told to have them follow the lines from the inside of the plane to the outside and along the wings until they are looking out and away from the plane down to the ground. The gradual change in perception makes the look down much different than if just looking out the window and straight down. I've never tried this with anyone but it would be interesting to see the result.
 
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