I’ve spent a lot of time in CRM training reading about accidents caused by this sort of thing. One strategy I use is to look up once in a while when I’m working on a problem. Literally just put my head up and look around the cockpit for a moment to make sure nothing is on fire or a chest bursting alien hasn’t killed my partner. It’s easy to get lost in a task and forget the bigger picture.
I think I’ll still stick to the paperwork about the button pushing rather than the button pushing itself. Everyone is definitely safer that way!
If you need someone to bury deep into manuals and regulations, though, I can do that like a BOSS!
I have the occasional opportunity to sit in various aircraft cockpits and fiddle with some switches and such, it’s enough for me! My favorite is the magic business jet CABIN DOORS button that pops all the doors open on planes that have that. Something about that just cracks me up (“customer, did you think you had privacy?”)
Old timer here. I have not flown for 30+ years.
I was looking at an approach plate, wherein a GPS was being used for a precision approach. Where does the pilot get vertical data? As a fellow with 6 GPS to my name for nautical navigation, I would only trust GPS vertical data within about 15m (50 feet). Without a glide slope, how does the pilot know when (s)he reaches the MDA? Is there some form of GPS corrections (better than WAAS) transmitted at the airport?
There are GPS approaches that are flown to MDAs and WAAS-enabled approaches that are flown to a decision height, just like an ILS. In the case of WAAS procedures the glidepath is generated geometrically, without barometric data. This is good because it eliminates the possibility of radio interference (though I don’t know how common that really is - I’ve never experienced it on an ILS).
That said, there are LNAV / VNAV approaches which combine the GPS signal with onboard barometry. That’s sort of a middle ground between purely LNAV and WAAS approaches. Then there’s LP, which is WAAS-like lateral precision, but no glidepath. You usually see those approaches in mountainous areas.
As far as actually flying them and knowing when you’ve reached the MDA… It’s on the pilot to level off, though various kinds of automation can help. But it’s much easier to identify the actual location of the MDA because the GPS tells you. A bit like using DME in the old days, but much more precise.
The only airport equipment as accurate would be the good old ILS, as far as I know. I’ve done a lot of GPS approaches in both props and jets, and I’m at the point of trusting WAAS enabled approaches more than I trust ILS.
On airliners and fancier aircraft you’d have ground-referencing RADAR below 3,000 feet or so, yes? I don’t know their accuracy, but I make a wild assumption it’s 10 feet or less.
I’ve had a radar altimeter in most jets I’ve flown, but it’s not the primary reference when flying instrument approaches. Certainly helpful, but we go by the main altimeter for MDAs and decision altitudes.
Ah, gotcha. I know that, at least on Boeing 7s, you can choose between barometric and “radio” DA/DH methods.
Thanks!
LSLGuy will know more about that, but I’m going to guess it involves Cat II and III approaches.
Unless I missed it, we don’t seem to have noted here on the SDMB that on Sept 4, a Trump/Vance campaign charter violated the protected airspace around the White House after taking off from DCA. No word from this video who was on board at the time.
Fascinating. It’s gotta be they were just being assholes – “you can’t make us turn until we’re ready, 'cause we won in 2020, and we’re still president.”
No?
I doubt a charter pilot has any political point to make at the cost of having to self-report a deviation.
It’s not like Trump or Vance were at the stick.
True. Deep down, I knew what you’re saying is likely the case.
It just seemed like exactly what a toddler would do. Test the boundaries just a bit (and toward the White House, no less).
Would a charter pilot also have less experience flying that departure than someone from an airline that serves it every day? I’ve heard that airport is particularly challenging, and it may have been the first time this crew was there.
I paused the video where it showed the departure instructions. I was struck by the part where it said to cross certain fixes at or above a particular altitude. What if you take off and your rate-of-climb isn’t sufficient to reach the needed altitude? It doesn’t seem like there’s much recourse; I doubt the controllers want you to circle until you’re high enough.
Definitely. I’ve only flown into DCA a handful of times. Most charter clients traveling to Washington land at Dulles, which is much simpler and cheaper.
While I realize it’s important to protect some infrastructure and associated populations, I think they have made the airspace around DC stupidly complex. Also some gotcha situations in New York and a few other cities.
One of the departures at Teterboro has a level-off at 1500 feet because of Newark traffic, but the chart (I believe because of TERPS rules on how they must be laid out) doesn’t make it crystal clear. It shows a “top altitude” of 2000, but you have to look carefully to see there’s a level-off before that. There really should be circles and arrows and flashing lights pointing to it. I used to fly there all the time and it was business as usual, but I have no doubt there are corporate pilots in the midwest somewhere who rarely go to TEB and get in trouble. Someone told me that departure is one of the most violated in the country, which to me is further evidence that it’s charted poorly.
Exactly right. Those very low-vis / low ceiling / low-decision height approaches determine the point to abandon the approach by reference to the radio altimeter, not the barometric one. As such the avionics need a switch to tell it which instrument to pay attention to.
The trick is that those approaches have such low minimums that the airplane is already over the paved or graded area immediately short of the runway at the time the altitude gets down to the magic minimum. So that can be done to high precision because the conditions on the ground there are a) well-known and b) well-maintained.
Conversely, using the radar altimeter for approaches with higher minimums would entail you being much farther back from the runway since you’re higher. And what’s under you at that point is maybe a freeway, maybe a ravine, maybe a 3-story building, etc. At airports near rough terrain it’s not uncommon to have the radar altimeter value jumping around a bunch as the ground under you is rising and falling.
Story time:
Background:
Most airplanes have an automated announcement descending though 500 feet on the radar altimeter. On Boeings it says “Five Hundred”. That’s kind of a last chance checkpoint on every approach. Is everything (except maybe seeing the runway) fully in readiness to land? If not, go around.
Story:
Going into Eagle / Vail airport in Colorado the approach runs the 15-mile length of a valley leading down to the bowl where the airport is. So although you start the approach about 7000 feet above the runway, you’re within a couple thousand feet of the rocks and as you slide down into the valley the rocks fall away at about the same rate you’re descending. The 500 foot alert occurs 3 times on a properly flown approach. The first two are true statements about your absolute altitude, but are false alarms from the procedural perspective.
Its also the case on the second one that you are very, very close to the triggering values for a GPWS terrain closure rate alert as you’re descending towards a ridgeline rising to meet you. If you had gotten slightly high on the descent path upstream of that point and are now correcting downwards towards the path while approaching that spot, that slight increment in your vertical speed will trigger a GPWS alert forcing a procedural go-around from an actually benign situation. Right past that ridgeline the terrain falls rapidly another 800-1000 feet But the computers don’t know that and the Boss doesn’t care.
When landing at Aspen if the GPWS does not go off, it may mean you aren’t descending aggressively enough. In the charter world I inhabited, we accepted GPWS warnings as normal during the approach there. I’m amazed there’s any airline service at Aspen - that airport is a deathtrap and should be paved over.
Eagle is tame by comparison. But the first time I went there I was startled to learn we would be taking off TOWARD the mountain.
TIL that there’s a civilian company providing aerial refueling services to the U.S. military. I would’ve thought that remained an exclusively military function.
IIRC the RAF & maybe other UK air arms use a commercial service as well.
I wonder how that works when a shooting war breaks out and refueling assets are combatants.
Makes clear sense in peacetime, augmenting organic warfighting aerial refueling capabilities.
Most if not everyone involved has a strong military background. Sense of duty; obligation to serve is strong. Heck, I did 37 years as a civilian Army guy all over the planet. I’d show up in a heartbeat at age 75.