Question for mil pilots: DIY IFR approach legality in emergencies?
I though ATC was indispensable, but clearly not
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Originally Posted by [email protected]
ATC aka the Flying Prevention Branch
Salute!
We may have some Aussies here that flew in 'nam those early years, and they can add to my comment. Her Majesty would not allow our Brit exchange pilots to deploy with us when our unit went there.
My first tour in 67/68 had almost zero "traffic control". The CRC's ( combat/control reporting center - Paddy, Peacock, Paris, Pyramid, etc.) provided advisories and tracked us if we used a specific squawk. We would get with the nearest one and tell them our mission number, planned altitude and provide altitude updates, but mostly did our own navigation. They could help, but we did most of it. The CRC would advise us of altitude and route conflicts, but nothing like stateside ATC at the time. They also coordinated with approach control and the control agency or whatever at our destination/target.
There was virtually no civilian traffic except a few airliners at the big airfields.
They had good connections with the military command centers and would coordinate changes to our mission, plus tell fields we were inbound with an emergency or fuel divert. Think "real" ATC type control.
By the end of 1972 we were getting to "ATC" type stuff with the CRC's- assigned altitudes and such. If not on a combat mission we had to file an ICAO flight plan at the tower.
By 1975 on my last tour it was like stateside, with training areas and low level routes and so forth.
Oh well, we innovated, improvised and overcame. But the early years required good airmanship and DIY approaches on many occasions.
Gums recalls...
We may have some Aussies here that flew in 'nam those early years, and they can add to my comment. Her Majesty would not allow our Brit exchange pilots to deploy with us when our unit went there.
My first tour in 67/68 had almost zero "traffic control". The CRC's ( combat/control reporting center - Paddy, Peacock, Paris, Pyramid, etc.) provided advisories and tracked us if we used a specific squawk. We would get with the nearest one and tell them our mission number, planned altitude and provide altitude updates, but mostly did our own navigation. They could help, but we did most of it. The CRC would advise us of altitude and route conflicts, but nothing like stateside ATC at the time. They also coordinated with approach control and the control agency or whatever at our destination/target.
There was virtually no civilian traffic except a few airliners at the big airfields.
They had good connections with the military command centers and would coordinate changes to our mission, plus tell fields we were inbound with an emergency or fuel divert. Think "real" ATC type control.
By the end of 1972 we were getting to "ATC" type stuff with the CRC's- assigned altitudes and such. If not on a combat mission we had to file an ICAO flight plan at the tower.
By 1975 on my last tour it was like stateside, with training areas and low level routes and so forth.
Oh well, we innovated, improvised and overcame. But the early years required good airmanship and DIY approaches on many occasions.
Gums recalls...
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Interesting posts guys.
What kind of precautions do you take for obstacle or terrain management if you're in this kind of scenario? Do you fly a steeper approach than usual or just go for it normally?
I think in the book author's case, there was limited ATC available (No radar IIRC). I suppose the F16 can use its A2G radar to locate obstacles on the glide path. Mountains probably not much of an issue in that particular region of the world. If I remember correctly, because it was a sandstorm there was no "cloud base" so they flew it right to the runway with minimal visibility all the way down. Sounds like fun for practice but not so fun after finishing a long and tiring mission.
What kind of precautions do you take for obstacle or terrain management if you're in this kind of scenario? Do you fly a steeper approach than usual or just go for it normally?
I think in the book author's case, there was limited ATC available (No radar IIRC). I suppose the F16 can use its A2G radar to locate obstacles on the glide path. Mountains probably not much of an issue in that particular region of the world. If I remember correctly, because it was a sandstorm there was no "cloud base" so they flew it right to the runway with minimal visibility all the way down. Sounds like fun for practice but not so fun after finishing a long and tiring mission.
Of course, you may have to do it all yourself, and rely on local knowledge.. Came back to Kiriwina, Trobriand Is., once from a photo run way out to the east to find a heavy, but heavy, rainstorm sitting over the airtrip. Well, that's what you have island reserve for, so started orbiting the island, no point going anywhere else as the only fuel was at Kiriwina. An hour later things were getting interesting as the storm showed no sign of moving or abating. We could see the island outside the storm, so forming a mental map of the tracks near the strip I picked a point on the track nearest to the strip to start a turn to the strip heading. Points in my favour - nothing higher than a palm tree in the area, and a B29 strip made with coronous surface. May flood, but never gets soft or slippery and 10,000 Ft long by 300 ft wide (from memory) So run in at 100 ft., on strip heading, look down on both sides, check we could both see cones going past, set the DG accurately, go back into the clear, wheels and flaps down, do it again. Cones established, close throttles and hold heading. Absolutely nil forward vis in the rain. And then there was the time coming into POM when the tower advised that a storm would beat me to it. Storm coming from the west, me from the east. Bootless Bay marker, B17 wreck still visible, a dead heat at the outer marker aerial. But there's a service track from the strip to that installation, flat ground. So tuck that track under the side window at about 30 ft. and wait for the tarmac to show up. Call from the tower "Where are you?" "Ön the ground, on the strip" "That's good, can't see you, strip's closed". The good old days?
On the Island of Unst the airstrip was enlarged to support the Shetland Basin oilfield. There were no aids apart from an NDB on the coast 1 nm east of the runway.
The trick when it socked in with low cloud etc was to fly from the platforms descending to 200 ft approaching the coast. Homing on to the NDB carefully dodging around a couple of small islands brought you to the installation, sometimes at 50 ft/50 yds.
Continued flight was easy. You followed the excavator marks where they had laid the cable from the corner of the apron to the beacon.
You can still see it on Google Earth.
The trick when it socked in with low cloud etc was to fly from the platforms descending to 200 ft approaching the coast. Homing on to the NDB carefully dodging around a couple of small islands brought you to the installation, sometimes at 50 ft/50 yds.
Continued flight was easy. You followed the excavator marks where they had laid the cable from the corner of the apron to the beacon.
You can still see it on Google Earth.
Salute!
Some really good techniques for the newbies here.
For home field, pay attention to all the landmarks off the end of the runway.
Looking over the side to see a familiar barn or house or intersection or whatever might be the only way to "update" your internal nav system no matter what your aircraft nav system says.
I made many landings in heavy snow and it was nice to see a red barn about 3/4 mile on final.
Gums recalls...
Some really good techniques for the newbies here.
For home field, pay attention to all the landmarks off the end of the runway.
Looking over the side to see a familiar barn or house or intersection or whatever might be the only way to "update" your internal nav system no matter what your aircraft nav system says.
I made many landings in heavy snow and it was nice to see a red barn about 3/4 mile on final.
Gums recalls...
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Another IFR approach that had debatable clearance was the Trails GCA. In both the Phantom F4 and Tornado F3 it was common place for a formation to use their AI radar to follow the leader whilst he performed a GCA. We flew up to 4 aircraft at 1nm spacing down the approach with cloudbase as low as 200ft.
With a good GCA controller, as soon as the 1st aircaft called visual, the talkdown switched to the next in the stream and so on. It was a very efficient way to recover 4 aircraft quickly, although could be fraught with difficulty.
If ILS were available it was much easier as a Trails ILS put all of the control in the cockpit. For Combat Ready crews the workload was quite manageable.
With a good GCA controller, as soon as the 1st aircaft called visual, the talkdown switched to the next in the stream and so on. It was a very efficient way to recover 4 aircraft quickly, although could be fraught with difficulty.
If ILS were available it was much easier as a Trails ILS put all of the control in the cockpit. For Combat Ready crews the workload was quite manageable.
In desperation, set your GPS to the aerodrome reference point, set the inbound track to be the most into-wind runway, and let yourself down gently - you might end up in the aerial farm, or if lucky, offset from the runway, but in a chopper you could be slow enough to get away with it.
In both the Phantom F4 and Tornado F3 it was common place for a formation to use their AI radar to follow the leader whilst he performed a GCA
I feel that I ought to point out on behalf of the WIWOLs here that this procedure was an SOP in the Lightning force well before the advent of the F4 and Tornado F3 albeit for pairs only. I doubt that any authorisers would condone launching a 4-ship with Y2/Amber forecast bearing in mind the Lightning's paucity of fuel.
I feel that I ought to point out on behalf of the WIWOLs here that this procedure was an SOP in the Lightning force well before the advent of the F4 and Tornado F3 albeit for pairs only. I doubt that any authorisers would condone launching a 4-ship with Y2/Amber forecast bearing in mind the Lightning's paucity of fuel.
There is of course the other 'internal aids' approach as demonstrated by Puddy Catt one day when recovering his Hunter (no internal aids apart from DME) to Brawdy in typical low cloud conditions. When told by ATC that the colour state was Y2 and asked what type of instrument recovery he would like, responded in his inimitable fashion 'the weather's far too bad for an instrument recovery dear boy, I shall be recovering visually'.
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nipva,
In your day ATC could recover aircraft a 3nm spacing. By 1990 due to "skill fade" they seemed to need 6-7 nm which normally ended up at 8-9nm! A Long stream with 4 ac to land. We also flew Pairs Tied but not normally when the X wind was above 20kts.
In your day ATC could recover aircraft a 3nm spacing. By 1990 due to "skill fade" they seemed to need 6-7 nm which normally ended up at 8-9nm! A Long stream with 4 ac to land. We also flew Pairs Tied but not normally when the X wind was above 20kts.
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First visual approach method in IFR conditions one learnt in the olden daze hopelessly non-instrumented Vampires and Sea Venoms was this one (words from another Venom pilot before the end in 1971). I did a few of these myself but none so dramatic as described thusly: (lots of details omitted to protect innocent) 
"...Another GCA, below bingo fuel, lost us again.... hand signalled to wingman we would do the old Venom let down. DR'd out to sea, climbed to 5000, let down on the pressure alt to 1000', then onto the radio alt till visual (about 100'), left turn onto 270, reached the coast around Crookhaven, up the coast to the Shoalhaven River, down the river to Pig Island, onto 213°. To stay visual we were down to roof tops over the town, eased over the golf course and plonked down on the numbers r/w21...." [fuel must have been nada]
Last edited by SpazSinbad; 9th Oct 2017 at 14:10. Reason: add jpg
Avoid imitations
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In the event of an airborne emergency it's not a top priority to consider what the legal team might have to say afterwards....it's more about doing what needs to be done to save the aircraft with you in it.
Would anyone consider a Martin Baker letdown "legal" but an "ad-hoc" approach that brought the aircraft safely back not so?
Some military "jobs" in my distant past were often done IMC and almost always without radar cover (in fact we did what we could to avoid being seen on radar). ATC closed at midnight so there was no SRA available on our return in the early hours (and we had no ILS equipment fitted). I won't go into detail into what we needed to do to let down but it worked.
I never even considered what the legal opposition might have had to say about it.
Would anyone consider a Martin Baker letdown "legal" but an "ad-hoc" approach that brought the aircraft safely back not so?
Some military "jobs" in my distant past were often done IMC and almost always without radar cover (in fact we did what we could to avoid being seen on radar). ATC closed at midnight so there was no SRA available on our return in the early hours (and we had no ILS equipment fitted). I won't go into detail into what we needed to do to let down but it worked.
I never even considered what the legal opposition might have had to say about it.
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Have done a few trails GCAs in the distant past ... quite stimulating for the controller(s). Didn't work too well with Aussie Mirages, though, as their AI was some sort of harmonic of the PAR frequency, leading to quite severe jamming of the PAR picture!
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And ..l ShyTorque mentions the 'legal' aspects. There was a Lightning that overshot a GCA on a VERY claggy day, and with minimal fuel. REALLY minimal. He staggered around the circuit at 'stupid feet agl', found the runway again and landed.
AOC 11 Gp had several of his staff investigating the various legalities of IFR flight in the visual circuit, within a MATZ, unauthorised low-flying etc. etc. I know it was 'several' because when I called someone (IFS?) they said "What's up? This is the third call I've had today about this!" ISTR AOC let the topic drop after numerous 1v1 conversations with the staff involved ... it was too difficult!
If you consider the VFR criteria, a vast amount of circuit flying is technically IFR
AOC 11 Gp had several of his staff investigating the various legalities of IFR flight in the visual circuit, within a MATZ, unauthorised low-flying etc. etc. I know it was 'several' because when I called someone (IFS?) they said "What's up? This is the third call I've had today about this!" ISTR AOC let the topic drop after numerous 1v1 conversations with the staff involved ... it was too difficult!
If you consider the VFR criteria, a vast amount of circuit flying is technically IFR
During Op Deny Flight, F3 navs sometimes used the handheld GPS to monitor ATC instructions. We also tried approaches using runway heading and height for specific distances called by the nav. Seemed to work OK, but would have used it for real only in extremis.
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Pre-planning options for in extremis sounds very sensible to me. 
We all tend these days to rely on so much technical wizardry in our daily lives, without a lot of thought about what would happen if it wasn't there.
I don't have a stock of candles, but I certainly have a few flashlights [and batteries!].
We all tend these days to rely on so much technical wizardry in our daily lives, without a lot of thought about what would happen if it wasn't there.
I don't have a stock of candles, but I certainly have a few flashlights [and batteries!].
I recall many long gone occasions with talkdown telling me to look ahead at 200 ft, but then keep talking as often the cloudbase was well below that, and we needed extra help to get in. ISTR one Christmas in RAFG getting airborne on Christmas Eve with a poor forecast and (we were mudmovers) trying to do PI s with 3 aircraft - not very successfully!! I was glad to get the Bruggen recall as weather was going down. V impressed with my Nav as he stayed with me all the way (specially as the previous evening had been the Xmas Draw!!)although vis was close to 0 - I would have not been so trusting! However, we both made Christmas at home that year.