PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - How to safely accomplish a visual approach in a jet airliner
Old 10th Sep 2013, 22:02
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framer
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: 41S174E
Age: 57
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Ok, I'll start with a couple of things I think are a good idea in the 737:

Know your gates. It will probably be more difficult to work out track miles to run than on a normal approach, so have a think about how you are going to do it. I always use the same method. Gates A B & C. For me gate C is always 3 miles and 1000ft so the only thing I have to work out for each approach is " how will I know when I'm 10nm from gate C ( gate A) and how will I know when I'm 5nm from gate C (gate B). This is normally easily done using range rings. The height/speed/configuration at A & B depend on wind and traffic etc, whatever you choose on the day is just normal energy management, I am normally a little conservative but a standard 3x profile works fine ( obviously) . One thing worth mentioning here is that looking out the window and seeing how the airfield looks is remarkably accurate, doing that as a regular part of the scan is sometimes overlooked which is a bit strange considering it's a visual approach.

Know when you want to have your landing checks completed by. If you don't want to be doing checklists as you judge the turn onto final then the checklist will need to be started at about 1600ft so you'll need to call for final flap about 1800 ft so know where that is as it might be earlier than you're used to on the ILS.

Know what N1 you are going to set as the final flap comes out and speed reduces onto Vapp.

Aim for the inside corner of the runway, works a treat.

That's about it for me, great feeling to do it well, shame we don't get more practice .
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