Briefing the Approach

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1 Transcript Briefing the Approach Featuring: Doug Stewart Copyright PilotWorkshops.com, LLC. This material is available to members of the PilotWorkshops.com web site, which is the only place it can be legally obtained. If you received this material from any other online or commercial source, please let us know by sending an to

2 Mark: Doug: In this ten minute segment, Master CFI Doug Stewart will give you tips on Briefing the Approach. The most important thing you can do during an IFR flight. Now, once you ve selected the approach that you re going to fly, the next thing you have to do is brief the approach. I ve really got to say that briefing the approach is probably the most important thing that we have to do in this whole IFR flight. We blast off into the soup, yeah, there are a few moments of panic and terror as we get out scan going. Then we fly enroute and yes, it can be boring and we stay as busy as we can. But now that we ve selected the approach, now it gets down to the nitty gritty flying the approach to a successful landing, safely. We can t brief the approach enough times. The briefing starts as soon as you ve selected the approach or know the approach you re going to fly, it s time to start briefing it. I personally use Jeppesen, and the reason I use Jeppesen is that most of their charts have a briefing strip. If you look on your computer screen, you ll see there the Syracuse ILS to Runway 10. And Jeppesen follows this briefing format on their approach plate. If we look across the top strip, it starts right off with the ATIS. Well, certainly, we need to have the weather. We need to know what s going on with the weather. It s possible that we ve already briefed that in selecting our approach. We probably should have. Does that mean we re done with it? Well, not necessarily. If we re going into a non-towered airport and there is an AWOS or an ASOS, to be quite honest, I keep listening to the AWOS or ASOS. I might even leave it on in the background on my number two com, all the way through the approach. Especially if I know conditions are changing because it gives me that heads up. Will I be monitoring it fro 50 miles out? No. But once I m on the approach, I ll actually continue to monitor it. So we re going to check the weather, we re going to see now our final approach control frequency. It s right there. It s the next thing on the strip. Certainly if we re flying along, when we re passed to that frequency, there s the heads up. These are the guys that are going to give you the vector, if you re requesting vectors. They re going to be the people who ask you, What approach do you want? perhaps, if you re going into a nontowered airport. Especially if they don t know what s going on with the weather. It s your choice. Copyright PilotWorkshops.com 1

3 So when you get that frequency, you re ready to say, when you check on with them. For example, here, Syracuse, Cardinal 2088Q, 4000, request. Go ahead with your request. We re requesting the ILS 10. Plain and simple. Once we have that frequency, now it is okay to put the tower frequency in our standby, and typically load the ground in your number two. At least I do, load the ground frequency into the number two radio. Just as a little aside, when I m flying with clients, quite often I ll say, Have you briefed the approach? And they ll say, Yep, yep. I briefed the approach. And I ll see that they haven t put the tower frequency in the stand by. And then they re given the intercept turn. Turn so and so, maintain such and such until established, cleared for the approach. Everything s fine. I say, You ve briefed the approach, right? Yep. And now they re two from final fix and ATC says, Contact tower. And now they scramble to find tower frequency and get it put in and bring it up and call the tower. Of course, in the meantime, now they ve either gone off of the localizer or missed the glide slope intersection and gone above glide slope, whatever. So things to stay ahead. Where am I? What s next? This briefing strip helps us through all of that. So the next thing as we come down to the next line, we see the frequency for the localizer or whatever the nav aid might be. Remember, if it is a localizer or a VOR, be sure to identify. If you re number dyslexic like I am, you might swap numbers, so really, that s why that identifying is really important, okay? It gives us our final approach course. Certainly, if we re on vectors, once we ve selected the approach if we re GPS or even if we re not once we re on vectors, it s time to set your course indicator on the HSI if you have an HSI, or on your omni bearing selector, if that s what you have, it s time to set your final approach course. So once you re on the vectors, if you re getting vectors, it s time to set that in. We ll see the crossing altitude over the final fix, and that s an important one to guarantee that you are on the proper glide slope. Next is our decision height and then the touchdown zone height. Copyright PilotWorkshops.com 2

4 These are things that we need to know. If you re flying an approach and you re inside final fix and you ve got to look down here to see, What s our decision height? Sorry, folks. You re too late figuring that one out. You should know that certainly by final fix. But these are all things that can be briefed from the minute we know what approach we re going to do and then every time we ve got a few moments. Another thing that we do have to think about as we re briefing this approach is something that I talked about a little earlier in the workshop, and that has to do with the what ifs and redundancy. We have to back up in as many places as we possibly can. Do you have the localizer frequency in your number two nav as a standby? If we lose our number one radio, it s merely a push of one button and we ve got the localizer up in the number two nav. The other thing that we should look at I know here we ve been talking about the ILS to 10 at Syracuse but what if we were doing a standalone GPS approach? However, if further investigation, as we were selecting approaches saw, that there was also a localizer approach, have that localizer approach backed up so that if you lose GPS signal, you can back up with that number two nav, or the VLOC portion of your Garmin. I know this has happened to me, where although the RAIM was there, we checked RAIM. Receiver-Autonomous-Integrity-Monitor said everything should be in place, we should be able to do the approach, and as we hit final fix we get a message on the GPS saying that the approach is unavailable. Well, if you have to now go scrambling to find another approach or to back up with that localizer, you re probably going to have to go missed and come around and do the approach again. Whereas, if you ve already got the localizer loaded, boom, again, it s just a matter of a quick push of a button and you continue the approach. So always consider the what-ifs as you go through this briefing. Now, the next thing we see as we come down is the missed approach procedure. We certainly need to know at least the initial part of that climb to 3,000 via SYR VOR R-111 to STODA intersection. We know we ve got to climb 3,000 feet via such and such a VOR, which means is that VOR loaded in your number two radio. What if you have to go missed? Is it either in the standby of your number one or is it in the number two so that we can utilize it in the missed, if we have to go missed? Copyright PilotWorkshops.com 3

5 There are some notes, and we certainly have to look at those notes, as part of the briefing. Then we ll look at the lateral plan to have a sense of what s going on. It helps give us that situational awareness. Where are we? What are we going to do? Where are we in relationship to the approach? Certainly look at the vertical plan. For example, here, if we had to convert to a localizer, the glide slope s gone down. Well, my gosh. Let s see, there s one, two, three, four step downs. For example, one of the approaches that I do on my trip is a localizer DME5 into Springfield, Vermont. There are five step down fixes. And the reason they re there are because there are mountains. We also have to remember that obstacle clearance diminishes as we get into the final segments of the approach. So at the early part of the approach, you ve got a little more flexibility. I m not saying you should drop below the segment altitude. However, as we get closer in, that final step down fix for LOC 5 DME into Springfield, Vermont, has you about 200 feet above a ridge top. If you ve miss set your altimeter because you didn t pay attention to the weather or the notes, perhaps, that say you have to have such and such an altimeter setting and if you don t, you re limited to a higher MDA, perhaps. If you haven t done that, you re parked on that mountain top. So we certainly have to look at our vertical plan and understand it. And understand where is the wind. Are we going to have a headwind or tailwind? Are we going to be able to get down? How are we going to configure to get down? When do we need to configure? When do we need to slow up? When do we need to start slowing up? All things that we have by briefing the approach, okay? It s all in there. If we have to go missed, on the Jepps - it s all there, graphically, below the vertical plan. The other thing that people aren t aware with Jepps plates that is so wonderful, is that we see the descent rate required in feet per minute predicated upon a variety of different ground speeds, plus the times. Oh my gosh, if you re coming in and you have a GPS that shows, hey, I m doing 90 knots, well, I m going to need 484 feet a minute. It becomes a piece of cake. Bring your power back to the power you know is going to work with the configuration you know is going to work, pitch down to give you that 484 feet, and you re going to come right on down the glide slope. It s right there for us to look at. Copyright PilotWorkshops.com 4

6 This is all part of briefing. And when do we need to know this? Before we start flying the approach. If we re already into the approach, it s too late. Copyright PilotWorkshops.com 5

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