KMCO Question

[Broder Illing 812400]

Hi All,

 

this is a specific question ( well maybe not ) and I hope to get some Info here.

 

Tonight we where flying into KMCO with 5 Aircarft. Despite all of us have filed a LEESE Arrival with the OCALA Transition for the ILS 18R all of

us where vectored to a visual Approach into 18R by Approach. crossed LEESE at 11000 / 250 wich was fine, then overshot the Localizer still at

11000 ( not been cleared for the visual nor brought down to the Approach Fix Altitude ). It very much seemed that the Approach Controller was

not able to vector any Aircraft, neither approaching nor departing ( some where sitting on the ground for ages since Tower could not release them ).

I was ( and others too ) far too far over the Centerline for 18R not to mention 17L and then had to take a steep turn in order to get any Runway

at all.

 

Now is this normal at KMCO to get viuals to 18R when there is ILS available ? And shouldn't we been cleared down to 5000 too ?

 

Btw we where all flying 744, 752 and 763 so no GA aircraft

 

Any information appreciated.

 

Needless to say that the Approach Controller was a bit overloaded with the 10 Aircraft around Orlando and the fun had been spoiled a bit

 

Nevertheless looking forward to our next Flight from KMCO to KPHL next Sunday

 

Cheers

[Tom Ferry 942166]

An email to the ATM would better answer this question. Just my opinion.

[Gregory Sumner 883451]

My apologies for your flight with us tonight. At ZJX to help controllers with thier training, we allow students to staff a position in which they are training for during non-peak hours. The APP controller that was with you was such a student and has only been working APP for a few times. When your aircraft entered his airspace he was in direct control of an unusually high amount of traffic for a student. The Mentor that was monitoring him thought that he did a good job for his first time with that amount of "LIVE" traffic. That being said, you should have recieved descent instructions along with the proper vectors to the runway. I hope that you will fly with us again and that our service next time is greatly improved. We hope to see you with us again soon.

 

If I can help you any further, feel free to contact me via our website and I will be more than happy to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ist you any way that I can.

 

Greg Sumner, ATM

[James Hudson 951027]

And if the weather is right, Visual Apps are and should be used. ILS is intended for bad low viz weather.

[Fred Shepherd 812089]

Greetings,

 

Firstly, if weather conditions permit visual approaches to 18R, then we'll run the inbound traffic the full Leese Arrival and have them cross the Orlando VORTAC at 2,500 feet. I instruct the pilot to make a right turn to hdg 180 when crossing the VORTAC and that will have the aircraft approximately 6 miles out for rwy 18R. The pilot would/should have been cleared for a Visual Approach to 18R just prior to crossing the Orlando VORTAC when you were arriving.

 

Secondly, although a 6 mile approach may seem to be very short for our pilots, this is the real world means for arriving aircraft on the Leese Arrival when landing south. Check out liveatc.net for the Orlando live ATC feed to hear the instructions for this short approach.

 

Lastly, if there is no departing traffic going off of 18L during the time that arriving traffic is turning onto the approach for 18R, the leftside will be made available to the arriving traffic as a means for shortening the taxi to the terminals. An arriving pilot may choose to accept the leftside or stay for the rightside as originally planned. This is made available in real world and at KMCO with us (or at least it is with me).

 

As Greg indicated, it apparently was a student who was at the Approach console when you and your friends arrived. Regretably, you had an unfortunate experience, but hopefully that is only a one time situation for you. Typically, MCO_APP is manned with experienced controllers and I am one of them. So, we hope to see you again in our skies and I'd like to see you manuver that heavy jet on the short approach without an ILS.

 

Kind Regards,

Fred Shepherd

Senior Controller (C-3)

Jacksonville ARTCC

[Broder Illing 812400]

Hi there,

 

firstly if I wanted to complain to the ARTCC Chief I would have via email and not here. We all started at some point at the learning curve is steep, however

with a 20nm seperation it should not be a problem when I am manning an APP Position of a large Airport like KMCO.

If I would now man an APP Position at a major international Airport I am absolutely certain that the Chief would recieve more than one complaint about me .

 

In any case I deliberately did not mention any names, CID's or equivalent, but formed a normal question which has been answered .. thanks for that !

 

I am sure we where some sort of hazard for the Controller as he was for us ,we still had fun flying to Florida and will continue our Route next Sunday, so maybe

time for him to have another DEP lesson

[Bo Gercke 845743]

Hi there,

 

firstly if I wanted to complain to the ARTCC Chief I would have via email and not here. We all started at some point at the learning curve is steep, however

with a 20nm seperation it should not be a problem when I am manning an APP Position of a large Airport like KMCO.

If I would now man an APP Position at a major international Airport I am absolutely certain that the Chief would recieve more than one complaint about me .

 

In any case I deliberately did not mention any names, CID's or equivalent, but formed a normal question which has been answered .. thanks for that !

 

I am sure we where some sort of hazard for the Controller as he was for us ,we still had fun flying to Florida and will continue our Route next Sunday, so maybe

time for him to have another DEP lesson

 

I'm curious to know why you're calling the controller a "Hazard".

 

You expecting, and not receiving the ILS, has no bearing whatsoever on the controller. It was his discretion to give you a visual approach. He is a controller. He controls. You fly. VMC means expect visual approaches. It was your error to not communicate your inability, or desire, to fly something other than the visual approach. While the situation may have looked simple, and easy for you, to the new approach controller, it was not.

 

That the tower controller was not just throwing airplanes at the approach controller w/o a release is a good thing. It means that they were communicating, and working things out. Good for them. It's also a good thing that there are facilities that allow new, inexperienced controllers to get on and work positions that they aren't fully qualified on during slow, or off-peak periods to let them acclimate to the next position they will be training. It's easy to publicly call out someone on a forum, with snide cheap shot remarks, but what you experienced in MCO is going to make for a better controller, ultimately. I see that controller doing a lot of things right. Sorry that you see it differently, and choose to use snide, cheap shot remarks to try to illustrate a controllers incompetence.

[Broder Illing 812400]

Hi Bo,

 

I have probably chosen the wrong wording. My apologies, as I am not a native english speaker. However what I called hazardous was

certainly not the fact that we got visual approaches ( I'm fine with that ) but the fact that I was still 11000 ft high when I should be

at 5000 according to my Approach Plate, over the IAP and more on a base leg rather than on something like the Final Approach Course.

As I pilot I have learned to follow ATC instructions hence I have neither changed my [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned altitude nor my heading.

 

That is what I mean when I said hazard from my point of view.

[Richard Green 810012]

Hi Bo,

 

I have probably chosen the wrong wording. My apologies, as I am not a native english speaker. However what I called hazardous was

certainly not the fact that we got visual approaches ( I'm fine with that ) but the fact that I was still 11000 ft high when I should be

at 5000 according to my Approach Plate, over the IAP and more on a base leg rather than on something like the Final Approach Course.

As I pilot I have learned to follow ATC instructions hence I have neither changed my [Mod - Happy Thoughts]igned altitude nor my heading.

 

That is what I mean when I said hazard from my point of view.

 

Gotta take the "[MOD-Come on- you know better RJ 800012]" side here Bo... I understand the logic behind letting someone learn off-peak, but in some cirumstances perhaps not everyone is ready to be cut loose... or at the very least they need a bit of hand-holding before going at it solo.

 

Also I would think nights/weekends wouldn't bee off-peak but thats just me...

[Gregory Sumner 883451]

The student approach controller was working on a Sunday afternoon, this event took place at approx 4pm ET which we consider to be non peak hours. A mentor was present with him also. By allowing the controllers to work actual traffic durring non peak hours, I believe that this helps the controllers to learn more than just using sweatbox sessions. Yes you should have been given your lower altiitude clearance but again, making mistakes and learning from them is part of the training process. Hopefully you will not have this experience again, and I apologize for any inconvience you may have had. That being said, I fully support my controllers and thier need to learn using actual VATSIM traffic. Maybe we can get a post started that allows controllers to complain about pilots not following proper procedures and/or controller instructions, but it would probalbly overload the servers.

[Broder Illing 812400]

The student approach controller was working on a Sunday afternoon, this event took place at approx 4pm ET which we consider to be non peak hours. A mentor was present with him also. By allowing the controllers to work actual traffic durring non peak hours, I believe that this helps the controllers to learn more than just using sweatbox sessions. Yes you should have been given your lower altiitude clearance but again, making mistakes and learning from them is part of the training process. Hopefully you will not have this experience again, and I apologize for any inconvience you may have had. That being said, I fully support my controllers and thier need to learn using actual VATSIM traffic. Maybe we can get a post started that allows controllers to complain about pilots not following proper procedures and/or controller instructions, but it would probalbly overload the servers.

 

As I said I neither mentioned names nor times and also I DO know that either ATC and Pilots have to learn how to handle situations. Pilotratings is probably a topic as old as Vatsim or Satco and I never said Pilots never make mistakes. Also afaik there are probably as many "complaints" from ATC about Pilots as the other way around in this forum.

 

Hats off Gregory you are standing in for your Controllers which is a very good thing ! So let's put it at rest. I made my point clear so did you and I am sure we will continue to enjoy flying our Route trough the US

 

Cheers

[Gregory Sumner 883451]

Thanks for your reply, and I truly look forward to having you visit us again soon.

[Bo Gercke 845743]

 

Gotta take the "[MOD-Come on- you know better RJ 800012]" side here Bo... I understand the logic behind letting someone learn off-peak, but in some cirumstances perhaps not everyone is ready to be cut loose... or at the very least they need a bit of hand-holding before going at it solo.

 

Also I would think nights/weekends wouldn't bee off-peak but thats just me...

 

Yeah.... You should know better!! Ok, now that I'm done rolling on the floor with laughter; I agree with this statement. I believe that good judgement and common sense is the deciding factor in this decision. I know that since we're talking about ZJX, of course they exercise good judgement, and common sense. I'm from there. Doesn't mean they won't be hazardous, or error prone from time to time.

[Richard Green 810012]

I didn't know that the word was bad... I have used it around many German friends and none have found it offensive... and as Broder is a PERSONAL friend I would doubt he did either.

[Jack Harrison 933681]

Here's a question for the pilot. Did you say anything when you realized you were in no position to make the approach? If you blindly flew across extended centerline at 11,000 feet then you're just as much at fault as the controller.

 

As the pilot in command you need to be constantly monitoring what's going on around you. Too many people get lulled into the false sense of security IFR control offers. Controllers are not only human and make mistakes, but they don't know the capabilities of your airplane.

 

If something doesn't seem right, speak up.

[Broder Illing 812400]

@ Rich

 

I didn't but other germans might well take offense from it

 

@ Jack

 

As I said before I would rather like the topic closed. However to answer your question , yes I have tried to contact the ATC and ask for further descent.

 

Also if my Flightplan says I am flying a B744 I would [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume that the ATC knows it doesn't has a turn radius of 500 meters

 

@topic

RIP

[Matthew Temple 880167]

Topic DED - Dead at thread starters request.

 

Border, thanks for your input that brought to Gregs attention a potential problem.

 

Enjoy KMCO the next time around, and say hi to Mickey Mouse for me.