What no more visual approaches at Cape Town???

[Goldfish Jack]

So I believe the national airline has been banned from executing visual approaches onto runway 19, from Wolseley, because there have been too many unstable approaches recently.

Shame to all of you pilots that fly stable approaches. It seems like they have gone back to the good old days of the SAAF - " julle maatjies wil nie saam werk nie, so die hele klomp van julle - sien jully daardie boom? - weg is julle!" It does not make sense to me to tar the whole lot of you with the same brush, or should I say wood?

Surely if you are having a problem with unstable approaches it must because some people are struggling to fly the aircraft? SO why not send an instruction to the training section to sort the issue out - why punish everyone at the same time?

I wonder how long this instruction will last?

I ask only one thing of you please - do not abuse my colleagues if you are slowed down/rerouted because the aircraft just behind you wants a visual approach and we are "moving" him to in front of you to do a visual approach.

Remember the good old days when going north of the Tygerberg instead of direct to left base was considered fuel wasting and not expeditious? Now it seems that doing a visual approach and going around the Tygerberg uses the same amount of fuel - (please explain to me - I failed standard six many years ago and do not understand this!!??)

Oh well let me get back to my Noddy book - it makes more sense to me.

[saywhat]

Well, it goes like this. Some pilots (like yourself Chuck) are regular birds, and some have to work at it. Unfortunately, when you have an aircraft that monitors your approaches, you can not "hope" that the person you fly with will get the visual approach over the Tigerberg right. If he does not, you get top spend some quality time with the boss. This is unfortunately the way that most Airlines are going. Wheather it is right or wrong, I am not the one to say, as I'z just a driver.

It's not as if all visual approaches are not allowed, but as far as I understand, just this approach over the Tigerberg. Visual approaches at night are also not recomended.

SAA's attitude is that they are not there to entertain pilots, but to transport passengers safely. Once again right or wrong, I cant say, but for now you should not see visual approaches into CT on runway 19 by SAA aircraft.

How much time do you save by doing the visual approach. 1 minute? 30 seconds?

[126,7]

Traffic is usually vectored for a 8-10 nm intercept. If the pilot does a visual, he saves 3-4 mins. I suppose it makes no difference if there is just the one aircraft. But once you have more than one, the latter ones have to be slowed down further out and everybody ends up flying longer.
3-4 mins several times a day, several times a week/month/year etc etc. You do the maths!!

[Goldfish Jack]

I cant do maths - i work in a goldfish bowl, but when you are R6billion in the red............

I remember when the first B737-800s arrived - everytime they appeared on final, we had warnings of windshear (and many go-arounds). Then they learnt to master the new generation fluffy and back we went to turbulence. (When did you last hear a b737-800 moaning about windshear?).

Now the next lesson entails mastering the ILS. Once completed you can do a visual approach again....

"Then you can go and fly an airbus and we will have more windshear in the Cape and the circle repeats itself."

........Starting number 2....................

[REAL ORCA]

Goldfish, you are right again, BUT I am going to stay out of this one!;)

[Pontius' Pilot]

With the facts (rumours) as given here as the only source of information it is clear that this is a matter of safety, and not a time/money issue.

As SAYWHAT says flight monitoring is done in many airlines. Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) forms part of many airlines preventative safety programs.

Clearly with the advent of the QAR to compliment the FDR a Flight Safety Manager or Fleet Captain/Chief Pilot can see in detail what transpires during normal line operations.

As with all safety initiatives they should ideally be proactive, and this is clearly what SAA is doing, stopping the visual approach onto RW19 because there have been numerous deviations from what they consider a good approach. The fact that they may be routed the long way round or slowed down to allow another visual approach in ahead of them, should not be consideration for a reversal of this decision. Only the elimination of the problems causing the deviations should be reason to lift the ban.

The reasons for these deviations are not pertinent to this discussion, they are problems that need to be addressed in-house. In time to come SAA could reverse this decision when factors warrant it.

Approach and landing accident reduction (ALARS) is a major area of focus for airlines these days simply because a large majority of accidents/incidents occur during this stage of flight.

As far as Flight Data Monitoring goes, legislators in the UK view this so important that CAP 739, Flight Data Monitoring, has been released for review and comment.

This is clearly a very professional and safety orientated move by SAA.

[BAe 146-100]

Hi,

Will the SAA pilots be doing manual landings?

BAe 146-100

[AfricanSkies]

The math....well as nobody has jumped in yet, I'll take the initiative...and welcome any corrections.

3 min @ FF of (ave) 3000kg/hr = 150kg @ SG .75 = 200 litres @ R2,80 (?? very unsure of this) = R560.

Assuming 22 SAA flights to Cape Town a day (source : Flysaa.com)....thats R12 320 a day, and R4,496,800 a year.

For an airline thats already R6 billion in the red, as Goldfish Jack so subtly points out :p

Now assuming SAA decides to do the same at, say, 20 other airports..:}

Also, thats not taking into account the rest of us who have to slow down to let Spoories do the full ILS...

Now, the question has to be asked....why have the standards slipped? Has it anything to do with :uhoh: affirmative action :uhoh: ?!? Instead of more training, we'll do it the easier, but more expensive way.

Passengers should be able to count on being flown by someone who CAN fly the aircraft without depending on electronic aids.
If someone is struggling, help him, train him. What if the ILS goes u/s and the last time they did a visual was yonks ago?

Personally, I enjoy doing the visual, it's more hands on and you have to think more, it's healthy.