Research Help! What do you say about current DAP & approach procedures?
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Research Help! What do you say about current DAP & approach procedures?
Hi fellow pilots,
I am a post graduate student doing a research work regards to Australian pilots views about integrated DAP & precision and non-precision approach.
So I would like to hear from you if you have some real experiences in flying those procedures.
In particular, from your experiences, what do you like the most about those procedures? why do you like them? Preferably I'd like to know what you dislike or should I say anything about those procedures that can be improved to facilitate a better departure and approach?
I will appreciate that if you can use a specific example to support your opinion, like for a particular approach procedure at a particular airport, anything that you think it can be improved?
Any constructive comments will be highly appreciated, as this research means a lot to me, thanks advance for your help!
I am a post graduate student doing a research work regards to Australian pilots views about integrated DAP & precision and non-precision approach.
So I would like to hear from you if you have some real experiences in flying those procedures.
In particular, from your experiences, what do you like the most about those procedures? why do you like them? Preferably I'd like to know what you dislike or should I say anything about those procedures that can be improved to facilitate a better departure and approach?
I will appreciate that if you can use a specific example to support your opinion, like for a particular approach procedure at a particular airport, anything that you think it can be improved?
Any constructive comments will be highly appreciated, as this research means a lot to me, thanks advance for your help!
I don't understand whether you are asking for feedback on the procedure design, or its representation on the instrument plates.
If its about approach design, I'm not sure that many of is have an opinion. We trust that the constraints of lowest safe altitudes, glideslopes, turn rates, error allowance etc means that there are not a huge number of degrees of freedom in approach design and we trust that AsA do a safe conservative job of it. I'm not sure how to judge how good AsA are at this - especially RNAV NPA approaches which pretty much draw a straight line back from the threshold.
And don't forget that reversal approaches (NDB , VOR) are now pretty much the approach of last resort. The ease of runway aligned RNAV approaches and lower MDA's combined with the increasingly poor maintenance and poor reliability of NDB & VOR beacons means that they are becoming less relevant.
If its about the plates, I changed to Jeppesen some years ago when AsA changed format to the current A5 side hole sheets. I didn't like the unilateral way it was introduced without seeking real world feedback, I didn't like the print quality and the paper format screwed up my flight bag / cockpit system. So, I thought if I'm going to rearrange my practices, then I might as well move to Jepps which were used by all the serious IFR pilots that I respected.
The key things I like about Jepp charts are:
1. The print quality is better, with better use of shading
2. Jepp use varying type faces and font size to make the important bits easier to read. Most times when you are flying an instrument procedure for real, the cockpit lighting is less than ideal (ie in cloud, or rain or at night).
3. Whether its real or not, Jepp seem to have less volume of updates. They seem to replace less pages because of mistakes.
4. After I changed, I learned that Jepp have a structured process for making changes in chart format. They start with studies in simulators, then move to trials with a panel of pilots drawn from airlines, corporate & private flying.
For your research, I think you could get a lot of useful information by constructing a trial in flight simulators. Maybe use this forum to ask (a different question) about tricky approaches to get a list of different ones to try, then have a group of pilots fly them in simulators. But, remember to run the tests in low ambient light and do something to stress the pilots so they cannot give the charts full attention (like a real approach in bad weather). Also remember that a lot of (non airline at least) IFR pilots are at an age that requires or nearly requires reading glasses. Beware using uni students with good, young vision as test subjects.
If its about approach design, I'm not sure that many of is have an opinion. We trust that the constraints of lowest safe altitudes, glideslopes, turn rates, error allowance etc means that there are not a huge number of degrees of freedom in approach design and we trust that AsA do a safe conservative job of it. I'm not sure how to judge how good AsA are at this - especially RNAV NPA approaches which pretty much draw a straight line back from the threshold.
And don't forget that reversal approaches (NDB , VOR) are now pretty much the approach of last resort. The ease of runway aligned RNAV approaches and lower MDA's combined with the increasingly poor maintenance and poor reliability of NDB & VOR beacons means that they are becoming less relevant.
If its about the plates, I changed to Jeppesen some years ago when AsA changed format to the current A5 side hole sheets. I didn't like the unilateral way it was introduced without seeking real world feedback, I didn't like the print quality and the paper format screwed up my flight bag / cockpit system. So, I thought if I'm going to rearrange my practices, then I might as well move to Jepps which were used by all the serious IFR pilots that I respected.
The key things I like about Jepp charts are:
1. The print quality is better, with better use of shading
2. Jepp use varying type faces and font size to make the important bits easier to read. Most times when you are flying an instrument procedure for real, the cockpit lighting is less than ideal (ie in cloud, or rain or at night).
3. Whether its real or not, Jepp seem to have less volume of updates. They seem to replace less pages because of mistakes.
4. After I changed, I learned that Jepp have a structured process for making changes in chart format. They start with studies in simulators, then move to trials with a panel of pilots drawn from airlines, corporate & private flying.
For your research, I think you could get a lot of useful information by constructing a trial in flight simulators. Maybe use this forum to ask (a different question) about tricky approaches to get a list of different ones to try, then have a group of pilots fly them in simulators. But, remember to run the tests in low ambient light and do something to stress the pilots so they cannot give the charts full attention (like a real approach in bad weather). Also remember that a lot of (non airline at least) IFR pilots are at an age that requires or nearly requires reading glasses. Beware using uni students with good, young vision as test subjects.
Bottums Up
Darwin ILS-Z RWY29
Don't like it.
There is an altitude restriction of 3000' at HWS. It is not obvious why this limit is "not below" 3000'. The MSA is 1600', the CTA LL is 1000'. A not below 2500' would be much more friendly to modern automatic flight systems.
Most of the STARs arrive at HWS at such a lateral angle (off set from the 286º Localiser) that the autopilot/flight director won't capture the glideslope without transitioning into an altitude hold mode because the LOC hasn't captured. If the ILS was joined at SARRE this would not be a problem.
As an example, in the 717s I fly, the FMS coding wants the aircraft to be at about 3070' passing overhead HWS if an ILS is programmed. If a visual approach is programmed, the FMS wants to pass overhead HWS at about 2780', some 290' lower. And, if an ILS is flown, and the aircraft is established on the G/S prior to HWS, the FMS records the level over HWS as 2900', which is 100' below the not below limit of 3000'.
The problem can be worked around by hand flying and ignoring the Flight Director commands, or, by creative work arounds in the FMS, but neither of these are good practices.
Don't like it.
There is an altitude restriction of 3000' at HWS. It is not obvious why this limit is "not below" 3000'. The MSA is 1600', the CTA LL is 1000'. A not below 2500' would be much more friendly to modern automatic flight systems.
Most of the STARs arrive at HWS at such a lateral angle (off set from the 286º Localiser) that the autopilot/flight director won't capture the glideslope without transitioning into an altitude hold mode because the LOC hasn't captured. If the ILS was joined at SARRE this would not be a problem.
As an example, in the 717s I fly, the FMS coding wants the aircraft to be at about 3070' passing overhead HWS if an ILS is programmed. If a visual approach is programmed, the FMS wants to pass overhead HWS at about 2780', some 290' lower. And, if an ILS is flown, and the aircraft is established on the G/S prior to HWS, the FMS records the level over HWS as 2900', which is 100' below the not below limit of 3000'.
The problem can be worked around by hand flying and ignoring the Flight Director commands, or, by creative work arounds in the FMS, but neither of these are good practices.
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Thank you guys, feedbacks like from CPT claret is exactly what I am after. You guys must be thinking of what is good or not, which way could be better since you have actually flown that particular approach thousands of times.
Thanks again!
Thanks again!
