2 upcoming MITRE events (Feb 4/5 and Feb 9)

[Garry Morris 920567]

It was no worries Mike. I did hear you chiding him to get his butt descended.

 

I've flown the Citation X a ton, and the maneuverability really helps a ton when the approach goes south like that. I got it down in one piece (though the right main gear is a bit muddy, and you'll probably have to replace a few runway lights on the right near the touchdown marker) - I think those winds were pushing the envelope of my aircraft's abilities frankly. The gusts would nearly knock me off the left side of the runway, and the moment I got the nose around to compensate they'd quit and I'd go zipping back off the other side. It was a very challenging landing.

 

It was fun though.

[Anthony Atkielski 985811]

The gusts would nearly knock me off the left side of the runway, and the moment I got the nose around to compensate they'd quit and I'd go zipping back off the other side. It was a very challenging landing.

 

Were you using SquawkBox weather? It doubles the speed of all wind gusts, so with gusty winds, the effect on your flight is far more severe than the real weather might produce (and the real weather was pretty gust as it was). I worried about this a bit because the instructions said not to use ActiveSky (which doesn't have this problem), but I was lucky on this flight.

[Brad Littlejohn]

The gusts would nearly knock me off the left side of the runway, and the moment I got the nose around to compensate they'd quit and I'd go zipping back off the other side. It was a very challenging landing.

 

Were you using SquawkBox weather? It doubles the speed of all wind gusts, so with gusty winds, the effect on your flight is far more severe than the real weather might produce (and the real weather was pretty gust as it was). I worried about this a bit because the instructions said not to use ActiveSky (which doesn't have this problem), but I was lucky on this flight.

 

I don't know if this could be thrown onto SB weather, because the weather pretty much was against us. We had winds hovering around 15/16kts from the north, but the tailwind component was barely on the edge to support the calm wind runways. Towards the end of the event, they started to gust, and Gary, I believe you came in around the middle to tail end (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

I know that the last arrival from the north (KSLC) ended up having to go around off of 19R because he ended up with a 17kt tailwind, and at that time, winds were 340/14G21.

 

Today's winds (5 Feb 2008) are a lot calmer, and should continue this way for the weekend. We should get some better results then.

 

BL.

[Garry Morris 920567]

Yup, I was in fairly late (had an 8:52pm PDT wheels up time in PHX). Activesky was turned off, but I was using FSInn's VATSIM weather button. At time of landing, the Wx screen (last I looked before my knuckles went white on the yoke and throttles) was showing sustained 25mph winds coming from 80 degrees someodd off runway heading. I have a yoke and rudder pedals and usually have little trouble adjusting for crosswinds, even high ones, but kept having to crank it back and forth, so I suspect there were definitely gusts.

[Daniel Genis 991550]

Good evening everyone,

 

Mike my case (COA152) would be a cl[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ic example for what you described.

You gave me the instruction, it came broken I asked to check and yeah well the result was what you described above since there was another aircraft on final.

He had to go around too, Tower told him that he is way too fast compared my speed as I p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed over the threshold.

I have no idea what the distance was when I p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ed the threshold.

 

I just wanted to say that it is quite a lot of work to make a visual approach doing 210 knots with in my case about (estimated) 6 mile final once you get that base/final turn.

Furthermore the early turn to final really took me off guard I did not expect it.

 

Another mistake I made was to set my Squawkbox range so low (i think i had it at 7 nm). I had no situational awareness regarding other aircraft (I saw none when you gave me

the final turn and just as I turned I started to see that other aircraft.). I was afraid of too many airplanes and low frames .

 

We never stop learning

 

Regards,

 

Daniel

[Anthony Atkielski 985811]

I just wanted to say that it is quite a lot of work to make a visual approach doing 210 knots with in my case about (estimated) 6 mile final once you get that base/final turn.

 

What type of aircraft? Two hundred and ten knots seems very high when you're six miles from touchdown, if this is a large jet.

 

[Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming, say, a Vref of 140 KIAS, and [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming you want to be stable 60 seconds before touchdown, that gives you barely sixty seconds to lose 70 kts. Unless you're descending a lot more steeply than the glide slope, it's going to be very difficult indeed to shed those 70 extra knots, and even if you can reduce your descent to lose speed, stabilizing before you cross the threshold will be very challenging. If you are using the autopilot to make an ILS approach, changes are that you'll have to go around, as you'll already be on the correct glide slope, with no margin to take action to slow down. There are other issues as well, such as the fact that you may not be able to run with flaps in the required landing configuration at 210 kts (you have to be at 170 kts or below for full flaps on a 747, for example), and they won't extend quickly enough to slow you down or to accommodate a 70-kt change at that distance from the runway. And you're too close and too low to safely deploy spoilers, in most cases.

 

Several arrivals to KLAS have speed restrictions of 170 KIAS all the way out at CHIPZ, before you even turn towards the approach. By the time I'm six miles out in a heavy, I'm no more than 10-15 kts above Vref unless I'm very light. In the worst case, I've maintained +20 kts until 4 DME at ATC request (at Heathrow), but that still left me at just 160 kts.

 

In large jets you have to anticipate everything in advance or you can get into all sorts of trouble really quick.

[Brad Littlejohn]

I'd say that turn to final is at least at 10DME, if not more. The base turn is generally abeam SHAND, which is 10DME out from the field (BLD R-304, 11DME), so you should have heard the call 'maintain speed 170kts until 7 mile final', which should keep you restricted at 170 until RELIN (6.88DME from the field). So going off the charts (SUNST2, KEPEC1), you'll already be at 210 by the time you turn base (210kts at SUNST and KIMME), so you'd have to start the slowdown in the base turn. So that would be about right.

 

The 170kt restriction at CHIPZ is if you're flying the full approach to be dropped off at the IAF, but that's 21DME out. So you should have the time to slow down to between 190 and 180 in the dogleg, but keep it to 170 by the time you hit SHAND.

 

The previous arrival probably didn't understand the speed restriction call, and went by what he last had on the chart, or quite possibly hit his Approach button in his FMS but didn't regard the speed. I remember that incident, and mentioned that he had a 40kt overtake on you. IIRC, I told him to go around.

 

BL.

[Daniel Genis 991550]

What type of aircraft? Two hundred and ten knots seems very high when you're six miles from touchdown, if this is a large jet.

 

I was flying the wilco A320 WITH modified .air file. (With the original wilco .air file you have problems slowing down from 210kts to final approach speed even when you are established on the ILS 9 miles out)

 

Just to clarify I was on the SUNST arrival doing 210 kts on my wav to KIMME and p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing half the distance between SUNST and KIMME I got the turn to directly to final/the runway.

So 6nm does not seem like a good estimate if you include the turn to final etc but look for yourself (~2 min intervals make this a rather speculative source of information) -> http://www.vataware.com/flight.cfm?id=843370

 

Due to me being biased (even though you try not to be you still are) I cannot really reconstruct it but I had to use speedbreakes (i had my gear down obviously ) to slow down. I retracted the speedbreakes about 1000ft agl on flaps 3 I think and managed the approach to be stabilized by 500ft agl (full flaps).

 

I was just wondering if anybody else had similar difficulties?

 

Edit:

 

The previous arrival probably didn't understand the speed restriction call, and went by what he last had on the chart, or quite possibly hit his Approach button in his FMS but didn't regard the speed. I remember that incident, and mentioned that he had a 40kt overtake on you. IIRC, I told him to go around.

 

Thanks Brad, nice to know.

 

Regards Daniel

[Anthony Atkielski 985811]

I was flying the wilco A320 WITH modified .air file. (With the original wilco .air file you have problems slowing down from 210kts to final approach speed even when you are established on the ILS 9 miles out)

 

Which is closer to the real aircraft, the Wilco file or the modified file?

 

Just to clarify I was on the SUNST arrival doing 210 kts on my wav to KIMME and p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing half the distance between SUNST and KIMME I got the turn to directly to final/the runway.

So 6nm does not seem like a good estimate if you include the turn to final etc but look for yourself (~2 min intervals make this a rather speculative source of information) -> http://www.vataware.com/flight.cfm?id=843370

 

It looks like you were turned too soon. If you were turned to final between SUNST and KIMME, you had 60 seconds to lose nearly 1/3 of your speed and nearly 4000 feet of altitude, then align yourself on the runway centerline and the glide slope, with 120 seconds to touchdown. It's extremely difficult to descend, slow down, and turn, all at the same time, in such a short distance in a large aircraft. With slippery airliners, it's hard enough to do that when you're following the full arrival and approach; it's a lot worse when you're expected to turn on a dime and just hop right in.

[Garry Morris 920567]

I will say that on both days, I was finally cleared for the visual approach very high over the localizer (usually more than 3k feet above it) which definitely would have caused problems with a more slippery aircraft.

[Daniel Genis 991550]

Which is closer to the real aircraft, the Wilco file or the modified file?

 

I personally would say that the modified version is more realistic but I am not an expert!

 

The drag created by flaps/gear/speedbrakes seems too little to me (and others).

 

Regards,

 

Daniel