Mandatory call at 1 or 1,5nm finals....

[His dudeness]

....our airport authority came up with a plan to make flying at our place more safe.

Part of this plan is to call "PAPI in sight and established" at 1 or 1,5nm final. (not finally clear what is correct)

The MAP (following a LOC DME) is at 1,0nm at which point the 3,7° LOCDME becomes a 4° PAPI visual portion. The 4° are required to clear an elevated 6 lane street just in front of the threshold.

We consider this call to be unsafe, because it should be done in the phase of the highest required concentration and when workload is high.

The wise people from the asylum say, that this call would raise the situational awareness and alertness.

Thoughts ?

[Piltdown Man]

One word describes this well. Bollocks! It will add nothing to safety and introduce an additional but unnecessary action 30 seconds or so before landing. A steeper than normal normally keeps you on your toes anyway. But the very dangerous bit is the road in the undershoot. So re-design the approach, remove the road or displace the threshold - or close the runway. Attempting to shift the responsibility for having a poorly designed approach or difficult to use runway (for many) onto the pilots will achieve nothing. But just out of interest, what will happen if they (whom ever "they" are) don't hear the call?

PM

[His dudeness]

Then we will call the PAPI. The law is the law. I personally am appalled by what they enforce there - the idea stems from a person without IFR who is a professor at a University. Need I say more ?

[F-16GUY]

Is it really that hard to make that call while concentrating on flying the aircraft? How do you deal with other radio calls during other challenging parts of the flight?

How will redesigning the approach change that fact that the angle to the runway has to be 4 degrees to clear the road? Why are you so sure it is an attempt to shift the responsibility to the pilot? And who has the final responsibility for the safety of the aircraft in any case?

I tend to agree that this call might create more SA thereby enhancing the alertness of both pilot and ATC controller. In all cases I suggest to attempt a dialog with the "wise people at the asylum".

[Piltdown Man]

Not it's not difficult, just pointless. Without seeing the airfield in question I can not guarantee that a redesigned approach will increase the road clearance, but it is a possibility. But at least if it designed with a constant descent angle it will be easier to fly. But as for the call, what does it do? How does it increase safety? What does it do for the pilot flying the approach. Answers- Nothing, No & Nothing. And the responsibility always rests with the pilots but ignorant rule makers start banging their safety gongs if you miss "important" radio calls. But the easiest thing to do would be to displace the threshold.

PM

[His dudeness]

F-16GUY believes that the procedure might improve SA, for both pilot and ATC. One cannot disagree that it might. But is that the objective? And what has been going wrong that improved SA is needed and will fix? And, maybe more importantly, if something is done to manage a particular risk and reduce it to an acceptable level, it needs to be effective - might is not enough.

Is there any supporting documentation to explain any of this?

Well there is. Problem is, its in German and quite a lot, thus I won´t have the time and stamina to go over it and translate it . The airport concerned had an accident in 2008, where a Do328 overrun the rwy after touchdown fast and late. The rwy has no RESA thus the investigators asked to minimize or mitigate the risk. A professor from a German university (AFAIK a non-pilot) was asked for an expertise on what to do to lower the risk.
They (Authority) now - based on his report - raised the minimum required visibility by 300mtr to 1800m and required 3 t/o & ldgs with an TRI/TRE either on the airport or an approved sim to operate on this airport. Anything above 10 tons needs to prove with a performance study that it can t/o and land safely. And we have to call the Papi in sight and stabilized at 1,0 DME (the 1,5 was an mistake made by the authority) - that is exactly the MAP from the LOC/DME approach, where the 3.7° degrees instrument part changes in to 4° PAPI visual portion. the 4° are required to stay safely above the road in front of the THR even when 3 red/1 white are seen. A few other things are required to.

I do have an issue mainly with the training, firstly there is no tng program issued, secondly the TRI/TRE is not required to be familiar with the field (WTF?) and lastly I think a CBT with a video etc would be the way better approach and the call is IMHO more of liability than anything else. IF I´d require an uplift in SA when approaching a 1066mtr runway in a 14 ton jet from a non-prec approach into a 4° PAPI, I will volunteer to give back my license...

The accident that was the reason for the whole affair, had nothing to do with a minima or a familiarity: the D0 was based on the field and worked an airline there. The owner and most of the pilots of this ops are now doing the same airline again under a different name, and the only one to be exempted (before we protested it) where the guys that...you guessed it... operate the DOs.

Aviation authorities are soooooo......

[F-16GUY]

I believe in dialog. In the past, when I have experienced issues with ATC and the like, I have solved the problem in the following way:

• Show up in the tower, introduce myself and break the ice.
• Ask them about the issue from their perspective.
• Invite ATC to join me for a flight.

The benefits of this procedure are that both sides (me and ATC) gets better understanding of the problems and concerns the other side has to deal with.

So go talk to them face to face. Ask them why they believe the call in question improves SA and try to see it from their perspective. And while there, take the chance to invite them with you on a flight where they can get a feel for the problem from your perspective. I will bet you this will solve the problem for you.

Last time I had to take someone with me in the aircraft, to show them what my problem was, it was one of our Intelligence specialists, who had complained to me over the fact that I did not note all timings for the different events I participated in during a low-level CAS sortie. He complained that the mission debriefing and reporting took to long since we had to go through the tapes to get all the information regarding timings and events.
On my next low-level CAS flight I strapped him in the back seat and ordered him to note all the information he required me to do, and I stated that that will be his only task during the mission.
After landing he admitted that even though he did not need to fly the aircraft or talk to ATC on one radio while talking to the JTAC on the other, he had a tough time scribbling down the required information. Ever since he has been extremely patient during mission debriefings.

Or maybe it was just a poor excuse for getting a backseat ride in the Viper….

[His dudeness]

Communication and dialogue are good.

- the tower has nothing to do with, apart from the fact that the ATCOs will have to transmit that we need to make this call. Its an oder by the "lower" aviation authority (we do not have 'just' the FAA - which would be the LBA in Germany, but every federal state has several "Regierungspraesidien" - in our state 4 (!) - which are in charge of the airports, private licenses and a few other things.)

At least 6 written formal objections were filed and 2 guys developed a CBT.

Problem is, the lady in question has no idea about aviation and flying, she is a civil servant and - I think - a lawyer. Before she was put in charge of this department, she headed a department for the protection of a country's historical heritage...

She just won´t deviate from that expertise...

[His dudeness]

Well, I´d say all the guys flying somewhat bigger iron on the airfield (we do have not only the Dos, but a F2000, an Lear 35, 3 Excels, 2 Challenger 300, a Lear 45, 2 Phenom 300 on the field) are okay with trying to make the field as safe as possible. And we are all very aware that it is far from perfect.

But I earn my bread there and we (our ops) have tried to mitigate the risk firstly by buying a C680 over the 560 at the time - which would give you a RESA if you look at actual landing distance required, which has 2 tires on each landing gear leg, by making it a captains airfield only since we started operating in 2007, by having experienced pilots. We see the sim annually and did so twice a year for the first 3 years of operating the aircraft. Lastly there is no pressure whatsoever to land there nor to takeoff over weight. We regularly use intermediate fuel stops in order to avoid being overweight for T/O. We run all the numbers (APG and CPCalc) both for T/O and LDG for every flight and have our SOPs in place.

NOW I must do something that is against my firm belief, our SOPs to certain extend and does certainly not raise my situational awareness as it is supposed to do. Add to that the complete and utter disregard not for only my opinion, but that of guys with 20000+ hours, flying out of the airfield since 30+ years, which are TRE/TRIs, FI(A)s and senior examiners etcetc. We did a rough count and came to close to hundred thousand accident free hours of flying at the table when meeting to discuss the thing. As stated above, 2 guys used their own time and resources to actually develop a CBT, which I think is a way better way to teach and show the special 'things' on the airport, way better than just 3 approaches with no tng program etc...but that was not evening considered.

On the other side there is EASA and the LBA telling me we are responsible for a safe and sound operation, I have asked the LBA about what to do and I did not get a real answer.

It is just utterly frustrating.

Wednesday I´ll make the call - hurray I´ll be finally.... aware !

[Piltdown Man]

Being cute... Do you start the call at 1.0 DME or finish it? And do you go-around if the frequency is blocked? And what if the PAPIs are U/S, presumably the runway is unusable?

Best of luck!

PM

[His dudeness]

Do you start the call at 1.0 DME or finish it?
You`ll start it there because you can`t be established BEFORE 1 DME, as the slope of the PAPI is steeper (4 vs. 3,7°) One 'hits' the 2 white/2red slot at exactly 1 DME

And do you go-around if the frequency is blocked?

Nope, thats the only point they were sensible about (after we replied to the first version) - if the freq is block you don´t have to do the call

And what if the PAPIs are U/S, presumably the runway is unusable? Yes it is. But there are 2 PAPIs installed....

[Cough]

My thoughts - Last mile of flight is critical - End of...

Consider an approach with maybe a tech failure in interesting weather. Making a call distracts the PM from monitoring other items. Prior to making the call the pilot may become goal focused in trying to visually acquire the runway/Papis - rather than monitoring the tracking and vertical profile on a critical non precision approach and calling deviations from that. Maybe they will miss the HYD failure which reduces the braking effectiveness??

Who knows, but I think the call seems ideal sat at a desk whilst pretending to be a pilot, not however whilst actually sat in a cockpit.