Arriving in style, VFR or IFR
You're 20 miles out, and it's time to start thinking about just how you'll handle the landing at your destination airport. Some important strategic decisions are at hand, and how you conduct yourself over the next 10 minutes or so will have a huge bearing on the quality of your arrival. As the saying goes, good approaches make good landings. How true, but what does that old saw really mean, operationally and procedurally? What are the tactical steps in a good, safe arrival?
Of course, the steps vary according to the flight rules you're using. VFR procedures are less formalized than IFR arrival procedures, and IFR procedures focus more on issues of navigational tracking and adherence to other procedural items. But operationally, the steps leading up to a safe landing are more similar than you might think. That goes for see-and-avoid measures, too, and we'll talk about these shortly.
Descent
But first, you have to plan your descent so that you'll arrive at the proper pattern altitude (VFR) or initial approach altitude (IFR) at the correct time and place. In IFR or controlled-airport operations, this can pose a problem, because air traffic control (ATC) may assign you—and keep you at—an altitude so high that you'll need to make a dive-bomber descent to reach the target altitude without zooming past an arrival fix.
This is exactly what you don't want. VFR or IFR, the secret to a smooth approach and landing is going slow and steady, with nice consistent airspeeds and rates of descent. For most light airplanes, a target descent rate is no greater than 500 feet per minute. Hopefully, you'll be able to talk ATC into an earlier descent so that you can arrive at your fix on speed and on altitude.
VFR or IFR, a good rule of thumb is to know in advance when you want to begin your ideal 500-fpm descent. To know this, you can use a rough rule of thumb that works for most light airplanes: figure out how much altitude you have to lose, drop the last three zeros, and multiply that by three. Now you've got a general idea of when to dial back the throttle or begin pestering ATC. For example, let's say that you're at 8,000 feet, and the destination airport's pattern altitude is 1,000 feet. You've got 7,000 feet to lose. Drop those zeros and you have seven; multiply that by three, and you've got your ballpark range for starting the descent: 21 miles.
Thinking ahead
Now that you know where you should begin descending, what speed and power setting will you use? That's the next in a string of issues that involve your knowledge of power management and configuration control. Knowing the combinations of airspeed, power, and flap settings (plus propeller rpm and landing gear in complex airplanes) ahead of time makes your job easier when navigating in and around airport traffic areas and traffic patterns.
The theory is simple: Know the power, flap, and other configuration elements, and you'll know what to expect in terms of airspeed and rate of descent (or climb). Just set the controls for the regime of flight you want, wait a few seconds, and your airplane will give you the desired results.
What? You don't know your airplane's power and configuration settings for descent and landing? Then shame on your instructor for not hammering it into your head, or shame on you for forgetting. But enough of the blame game.
For a light single, try the following for an approach-to-the-pattern (or initial approach fix) series of guidelines:
- Carburetor heat on (as necessary per your flight manual).
- For airplanes with fixed-pitch propellers, power to 1,600 rpm, depending on weight. The bigger your load, the higher the power setting, but not by more than 100 or 200 rpm.
- For airplanes with constant-speed propellers, a manifold pressure of approximately 14 inches and a propeller setting of 2,400 rpm.
- First notch of flaps.
- Retrim to remove control pressures, as necessary.
This should give you an airspeed of about 90 to 100 knots and a descent rate of around 500 fpm. The numbers vary with each airplane, of course, and you must experiment to find the exact combination of settings that will give you the appropriate airspeeds and descent rates.
Now that you're set
With your airspeed and descent rate under control, you're free to better concentrate on other important steps in the arrival process. There's traffic to search for; pattern entry procedures to think about; landmarks to check; ATIS, AWOS, or ASOS to listen to; and a tower, unicom, or CTAF call to make, stating your position and intentions. By the time you're 10 miles from the airport, you should know which runway the wind favors, who—if anyone—else will be in the pattern, and what your strategy for final approach will be.
IFR arrival checklist
Assuming that you're flying on an IFR flight plan, there are some additional tasks. The best way to prepare for an instrument approach is to thoroughly examine all of the appropriate charts. This could include a terminal area chart in busy airspace, plus any charts showing published arrival procedures, and, of course, the instrument approach plate(s) for the runway(s) in use.
You'll want to check and double-check that you?ve entered the correct frequencies for the fixes in use, dialed in the radials specified in the arrival/approach procedures, turn on the marker beacon receiver for a precision approach, and made good notes on any altitude restrictions as you make your way to the final approach fix.
Altitude awareness is key. That goes in spades if you're flying around high terrain. You?ll want to keep well in mind where the highest obstacles are, what the minimum safe altitudes (MSAs) are for the sectors you may fly through, and all the minimum altitudes for all the segments of the approach that you plan to fly. All of these altitudes are published on the approach and arrival charts, and the latter may even have a text description of the altitudes and routes to be flown. Follow the procedures to the letter, right down to the decision height or minimum descent altitude?and on through the missed approach procedure, if you don?t see the runway environment at the prescribed time and place.
VFR prepping
So far, it's been sounding as though pilots on IFR flight plans are the only ones who need to really dig into charts. Wrong-o. VFR pilots have some published information to check, as well, and these go beyond the sectional, world aeronautical, or terminal area charts used for navigation. For example, all pilots should check the following as part of the preflight briefing process:
? Airport/Facility Directory (A/FD). This provides all kinds of vital airport information, including airport traffic pattern altitude; ATC, CTAF, and other airport frequencies; fuel availability; runway conditions; unusable VOR radials; VOR test sites; parachute jumping areas; frequencies and telephone numbers of ATIS, AWOS, and ASOS broadcasts; and a whole lot more information of importance to both VFR and IFR pilots.
? Publications such as AOPA's Airport Directory, which is a detailed compendium of information about all public-use airports in the United States and U.S. territories. Listings include all of the information mentioned above, plus the names and phone numbers of FBOs, fuel availability, rental car agencies, nearby hotels and restaurants, plus many airport runway diagrams. Also included are the phone numbers of approach control, tower, and air route traffic control centers. There's also a section on procedures and regulations for operations at airports in and around Class B and C airspace.
The VFR pattern
If your destination airport is in or near Class B, C, or D airspace, you must make your calls to ATC in a timely manner. You certainly don't want to barge into controlled airspace without the proper clearance, so make your first radio call several miles from the controlled airspace boundary.
With that out of the way, it's time to concentrate on three main areas: traffic avoidance, your situational awareness with regard to the runway layout, and radio procedures.
With towered fields, the radio shots are more or less called by ATC. They'll ask for your position (you do know, don't you?) and altitude, then either clear you to land or sequence you behind preceding traffic.
At uncontrolled fields, your self-announcing technique gets a workout. At approximately 10 miles from the destination airport, make your first call-up, stating your altitude, range, and bearing from the airport. A few miles later, update your position with another call and listen for any other pilots broadcasting over the same airport's unicom or CTAF frequency. Having already determined the wind direction from ATIS, AWOS, ASOS, or some other reliable means, and already knowing the runway orientations from your preflight research, you should then say what type of pattern entry you'll be making and what runway you'll be using. Keep making your broadcasts as the airport comes into sight and keep your eyes peeled for any announced—or unannounced—traffic.
Other radio calls should be made at pattern entry, when established on the downwind leg, when turning from downwind to base, when on base leg, and when turning and established on the final approach leg.
By the time you're on downwind, you should be on speed, on altitude, and see the active runway passing through the mid-span point of the wing (low-wing airplanes) or wing strut (high-wing airplanes). The larger and faster the airplane, the greater your distance should be from the runway—this is to account for the greater distance consumed in the turns to base and final.
None of this is to suggest in any way that radio procedures take the place of a thorough scan of the sky around you. As some instructors like to say, "Fly with your eyes, not your mouth," meaning that see-and-avoid takes precedence over radio work.
By all means, don't fly a long, drawn-out pattern. Disorderly, B-52-size patterns are bad for several reasons. If you're too far from the runway, you won't be able to land on the airport if your engine quits. Also, it can be easy to lose sight of other airplanes in the pattern. Why is this bad? Airplanes on faraway downwind or base legs may find themselves cut off by airplanes turning base or final ahead of them—airplanes whose pilots never saw them precisely because they were so far away. Similarly, airplanes on straight-in approaches can also create traffic conflicts when their pilots draw near to the runway and confront conscientious pilots who are flying appropriately close-in approaches. The moral: All pilots turning to their base legs should take a good look along the extended final approach path. You may see an airplane already on final and coming your way.
The IFR final approach
Arrivals on instrument flight plans are more tightly controlled than their VFR counterparts. For the most part, ATC calls all of the shots as long as you're flying with obstructed visibility, and you'll be expected to fly published procedures or follow vectors designed to set you up on the final approach course. Your job is to stick to your clearance, hold your altitude and heading so as to comply with them, and prepare the airplane for landing.
Airspeed and configuration control become of extreme importance during instrument arrivals and approaches. You simply must know the power and configuration settings to produce an airspeed and descent rate that will satisfy the requirements for the procedures at hand. That's because you'll have to devote a great deal of attention to your tracking skills as you make your way "down the pipe" and to the runway. You can't do that if you're constantly fiddling with the throttle and flaps.
A stable approach is another must. Airspeed must be within 5 kt of the target speed; headings must be within just a few degrees of whatever's appropriate for the wind-correction angle needed to capture and hold a navaid course; and descent rates must be held to no more than 500 or 600 fpm, depending on the airplane's groundspeed—and what the arrival or approach procedure calls for. (Descent rates pushing 1,000 fpm may be called for in the case of some nonprecision approaches, so this rule is subject to modification where "slam-dunk" approaches apply.) If any of those variables gets out of whack?an airspeed that's 15 kt too fast or slow, a course indication needle that's drifting too quickly to the edge of the scale, or a descent rate that's bumping up against 1,000 fpm on a precision approach—well, that's the signal for a call to ATC for forgiveness, or an immediate missed approach.
Breaking out in VFR weather
There's something else that pilots flying instrument approaches should be aware of. If the weather conditions at or near the airport are at the upper limits of IMC (ceilings 1,000 feet, visibilities three statute miles) or are in a marginal VFR status (ceilings between 1,000 and 3,000 feet, visibilities three to five miles), you must be prepared to encounter airplanes beneath the cloud deck(s), flying perfectly legally under VFR. This is most problematic at uncontrolled airports, where there's no ATC or tower to coordinate and separate both IFR and VFR arrivals.
For this reason, it's important that pilots flying instrument arrival procedures at uncontrolled airports self-announce over the unicom or CTAF frequency. Pilots flying a VFR pattern need to know where the incoming IFR traffic is coming from and where to look—and vice versa. Otherwise, unpleasant surprises can ensue. An instrument pilot could break out of an overcast, then spot a training airplane turning a base leg in front of him. The training airplane's pilot would know and see nothing, until rolling out on base and seeing another airplane materializing from the clouds. One minute each is invisible to the other. The next, there's a traffic conflict.
Instrument pilots sometimes forget that VFR pilots may not know the names of the IFR fixes serving their airports. A pilot flying on instruments reporting that he's "at BLONY inbound" may mean nothing to a VFR-only pilot. But if the fix were converted into a simple range and bearing from the airport, these pilots would know where to look when instrument approaches are being conducted in marginal or light IFR weather. So instead of reporting "BLONY inbound," a more meaningful report might be "five miles northeast at 3,000 feet, descending."
Practice, practice
Arrival procedures, be they VFR or IFR, go much more smoothly with practice. Time spent with an instructor—learning configuration control, planning descents and pattern entries to strange airports, and making radio calls—is always time well-spent. For VFR-only pilots, a few flights in marginal or actual instrument conditions will yield volumes of information to rookie or rusty pilots who want to build their skills in good arrival procedures—and build some quality instrument time.
Then, once you nail down the routine arrival procedures, you're ready for the biggest challenge of all: making a good landing.
Links to additional information on arrival procedures may be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links0004.shtml). E-mail the author at [email protected].
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