Flying Life: Got your back

Do you think my son said, “Why, thank you, Mother, for caring so much about my safety. I’ll come back right away”? I don’t remember hearing those words exactly. I believed I was acting in his best interests, but my child thought I was being too careful, and spoiling his fun in the process.

As pilots, we are frequently forced to make split-second decisions. There is no time to push pause and weigh the possible consequences of certain actions. It’s only when the flight is over, and we have a moment to dissect our decision-making processes, that we come face to face with our 4-year-old selves.

On a recent local flight, my student and I were doing practice instrument approaches with VFR radar flight following from Memphis Approach Control. Because the airspace around Memphis is so busy, I rarely depart without flight following. It has kept me safe more times than I can count. Sometimes, however, it slows down progress when a situation that could easily be handled between two pilots communicating on a common traffic frequency turns into extended vectors or a hold by ATC in order to follow guidelines for traffic separation or wake turbulence. I thought this was the case when I asked ATC for vectors on an RNAV approach into Holly Springs, Mississippi, a small, nontowered airport where I frequently do practice approaches. ATC declined my request because of an active military training route (MTR) to the south.

In my 15 years of flying in this area, I had never been turned down for that reason. A military training route is a fairly insignificant-looking thing on a VFR sectional—nothing but a thin, pale line, easy to miss if you are not specifically looking for it. A quick look at ForeFlight told me what I wanted to know, that Instrument Route 091 passed 11 miles south of Holly Springs Airport, well outside my intended flight path. I called ATC back and told him we would like to do the approach on our own navigation and would be responsible for keeping ourselves clear of the MTR. “Squawk VFR and call me back on this frequency if you want flight following when you are done with your approach.”

We completed our approach without incident, vectoring ourselves right outside the final approach fix on a path that kept us a good 5 miles away from the hot military training route. When we got back on with ATC upon completion, he asked if there was an instructor on board—never a good sign.

“Are you familiar with a military training route?” he asked. I responded that I was familiar and had taken measures to verify that we kept ourselves far away. The controller then said that he had to issue a traffic call to the military jet, which was traveling at 340 knots, when our flight paths came too close. He also explained that his job is to protect 4 nautical miles on either side of the centerline because the aircraft regularly do “slops.” As a general aviation pilot, I must confess I had to consult a military pilot friend to find out what this term meant. SLOP stands for a Strategic Lateral Offset Procedure in which the aircraft intentionally fly a specified distance off the centerline in order to avoid any traffic collisions that could occur with someone traveling the opposite direction on the airway. So, although the airway was 11 miles south of our airport and at least 5 miles south of our approach path, a military aircraft offsetting his course could have been as close as 1 to 2 miles from us. What if that pilot had a momentary deviation? At a speed of 340 knots, it wouldn’t take long for things to get way too exciting.

No wonder that controller was nervous on our behalf. While I thought perhaps his operating rules were unnecessarily limiting our ability to complete a training flight, he saw the chance for disaster should either of us pilots make a mistake. When the controller finished his lecture, painful though it was, I told him thank you for the information. But unlike my 4-year-old, I meant it. I was grateful for two things: one, that we had not collided with a military jet traveling 340 knots across the ground. And two, that a busy controller took the time to educate a pilot who was making his life harder than it had to be.

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