Surveillance Radar Approaches

[Pengintai]

I am interested in your experiences with Surveillance Radar Approaches (SRA's) conducted in the simulator. Does your airline practise this type of approach in the sim., and how do you find the training value of it? TIA for your assistance.

[Max Angle]

Never done one in the sim. and to be honest as it's not a pilot interpreted procedure I am not sure that there is much point doing it. Have flown a few for real but mostly get to do them when ATC ask us if we would accept one for thier own training.

[Jetset320]

SRAs are quite a precise and usueful procedure. I had never done one since my CPL days 12 years ago, when, last December we where overwhelmed by the quick degeneration of the weather during an NDB approch into Norwich.

During our decent the wx changed to marginal, and had icing to contend with for most of the way down too.

Then, when identifying the Nav aids (NDB) at 10,000 ft, noticed that the NDB needle was intermittent. It was dusk as well as loads of static, but as our A320 had only one NDB digital pointer (the anologue has been DDRed on all Airbuses for over a year), I was unable to determine whether it was our kit or the NDB itself.

We were thus offered an SRA, but I was quite reluctant at first, as I had never done it for real, in a jet, and my last practice was 12 years old.....which is good for whiskey, but not so good when flying a plane in such poor conditions. Especially so when it is sprung upon you, downwind and in marginal IMC conditions, and with a tiny runway awaiting should you manage to break cloud at the right place.

After extending downwind and checking company minima for an SRA, we accepted and gave it a try..........and it worked like a dream.......bang on at minima!

I do feel that it should be practiced more often, maybe better than Sim, in real life in good wx, when our hard worked ATC buddies have the time perhaps!