Slowing down on final approach.....

[Del Prado]

too slow. the ones that reduce below 160kts outside 4dme.

[IcePack]

Yeh, the other week in a very light 75 got asked to "Maintain 180Kts for the time being" at LGW. Squealed to slow down at six and a half. Unfortunatly the a/c took so long with the throttles shut it tripped the snitch box at 500' for low pwr. They were coming up honest. Yep I thought it would have been possible from 6 miles too but not on the day. Sorry guys after that you don't get 180 inside 9 now from me as don't want another conversation with me chief.

[duece19]

It seems fairly clear to me, that there are two diffrent issues about the same problem. An aircraft just doesnt loose speed like a car and with todays SOPs becoming more and more strict regarding stable criterias this creates a problem.

Having said that, there is no excuse for disregarding a speedinstruction without letting the controller know why and what will happen.

But since this really is a problem Im quite surprised that the flightops management at various airlines have not communicated this to ATC.

Del Prado - you name a few "offenders". Since this seems to happen near enough most of the times with these types of aircraft/airline combinations then there may actually be an issue?

Letting people slow down earlier may well lead to increased delays, but the other is pressing crew in to inacceptable positions regarding height vs speed and surely this is not the way forward?

I think there has been many examples shown in this thread already about how hard it can be to loose 45ish knots in 1 mile, but I also believe the issue of regarding speedinstructions as serious as they are has been "properly" adressed.

Something needs to be done bout this, so why cant we start communicating through official channels rather than just moaning and groaning here?

hat, coat...

Duece

[flash2002]

I wouldn't know for the airbus. But in the 737 I drop the gear and flaps 15 at approx 5NM and wind the speed back at around 4.6
The gear must be down and locked at 1500ft AAL

You might see this on your screen as reducing early, but the 737 will still be doing 160 at 4NM maybe 5kts slower.
But remember we should be stable at a 1000ft AAL. Thats flap 30 or 40.

[barit1]

I know "communicate" is #3 down the list, but it IS a 2-way street!

[78deg]

Good thread

Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons.

Any new ATC clearance supersedes all previous clearances, does it not?

This presumably applies to speeds.

[flash2002]

What if i'm at 10NM at 180kts. And the controller says maintain 160 between 7 and 4 contact the tower on.............

Does this mean he wants mee to keep 180 till 7nm or can I slow down immediately?????

[Skypartners]

Not just for the big boys

I was following a Citation down the ILS into Coventry today - he was well ahead of me with the vectors and as I was positioned on base (he was well down final by then) I was asked to reduce to MAS because he had slowed down. By the way I was in a single engine piston! (Albeit a fast one)

[HundredPercentPlease]

Originally Posted by Del Prado

I'd say over 30% of aircraft inbound to gatwick reduce speed below 160kts outside 4dme. The worst offenders in my experience are BA 735s, A330s and Easyjet A319s. I wonder if there's been a change in Easyjet SOPs or an increase in training as Easyjet used to be a lot better?

I'll let NoD offer an answer from here:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...29#post2962429

At easy, the best way to achieve the mandatory stable by 1000' is to fly 160 to 5.0 (nearer 6.0 in still air/slight tail), then cut the thrust by selecting managed speed and putting the gear down.

So do you want all of us to say "it will be 160 to 5/6" on receipt of the instruction? As it stands, the attitude in the flight deck is that we will do our best to accommodate your speed requests, but ultimately we will fly the speeds that we feel are safe and meet our stable approach criteria.

[126.825]

...thanks for all your contributions so far......

cheers guys and girls for all your replies......just a quick update and some replies......

i dont want to turn this into a them and us debate. i am a controller.my job nice and simple (sometimes) provide a service to aircraft departing and arriving at egXX. (my name will give it away). this to me means firstly safety and then service. i try where possible to update pilots ie maintain 180kts i will slow you shortly etc.

411A...you're paid to land the aircraft safely and im paid to firstly keep the aircraft safe and then to offer a service to the aircraft. i do operate precise speeds and i expect them to be complied with....if they can't then i expect the pilot to inform me. now the airport i provide this service for is busy however, rarely too busy for a pilot to speak. i'm guessing you dont fly...because of your answer to keep aircraft in the hold! it worries me slightly that you think controllers put aircraft in jeopardy for our "convenience".....i think not.

flash2002 - i sometimes say "arrange your speed to be 160 between 7 and 4 dme." to me this means free speed but be 160kts between 7 and 4 dme - it helps the tower controllers if they need to cross the runway with tugs etc if the aircraft is doing standard speeds.

finger bob - 170 to 5 is rarely a problem as long as we know - like most things if we now early enough we just work round it....downwind is a good time when leaving a flight level for an altitude.

thanks again for all your comments

[NigelOnDraft]

"100% please" has saved me requoting the whole earlier thread

I can 100% guarantee that no BA Airbus crew flies "160 to 4", despite being asked to on 99% occasions They just vary in how much they "cheat it" i.e. the distance >4 they slow down, and/or the techniques they use to then slow down.

Others have advocated "non-standard" use of Flaps / Noise to achieve / closer adhere to ATC's speed requests. It's a balance, but I think we will be made to adhere to the tree-hugger way more and more - why are ATC so keen on a CDA if they want us to generate 15dB more, and burn 100Kg more to adhere to their speed schedule

Summary We adhere to the ATC speed request - we have tea and biscuits with our Mgmt. We adhere to our Mgmt/SOP speed schedule, you get tea and biscuits with your Mgmt. Result - Mgmt is the common factor - quelle surprise

[411A]

i'm guessing you dont fly...because of your answer to keep aircraft in the hold! it worries me slightly that you think controllers put aircraft in jeopardy for our "convenience".....i think not.

You have now been told by many, 126.825, that pilots have standard procedures to follow, and make no mistake, follow 'em they will, regardless of what you, or indeed any other air traffic controller, wants or desires.
Quite frankly, it really is that simple.
If additional holding or longer vectors with additional spacing on final is needed, you will not get any complaints from me, I carry plenty of extra fuel for the unexpected, perhaps quite unlike some others.
You, and the rest of the ATC folks will just have to learn to work a little harder, and in doing so I expect that you might find pilots just a bit more accomodating.
The type I fly is very flexible in the speed department, but some others clearly are not.
It's them you have to worry about...

[West Coast]

Further re-enforces my belief that ours and ATC's priorities aren't always the same.

[Fly3]

As a regular operator to the US and EWR in particular I find that the usual request is to maintain 190 to 4nm. However, I am often asked to maintain completely unrealistic speeds, the worst being 210 to DOOIN (1700ft) on the glide slope. On informing the guy that his request was not possible to carry out and 170 was the best I could do I was severely chastised, taken out of the pattern and vectored for 25 minutes, probably as a punishment. It seems that controllers in the States have little consideration for the capabilities of different aircraft types to slow down and go down, or of the requirements to be stabilized on finals, which in my companies case is by 1000ft.

[Aluminium Importer]

NOD

“Summary We adhere to the ATC speed request - we have tea and biscuits with our Mgmt. We adhere to our Mgmt/SOP speed schedule, you get tea and biscuits with your Mgmt. Result - Mgmt is the common factor - quelle surprise”

Or the third option, you adhere to your Mgmt/SOP speed schedule and a lighter aircraft behind you (at the minimum vortex spacing) has a nasty because you slowed down early without advising ATC. We all get to meet our respective Mgmts, but only the ATCO gets tea and biscuits, and (quite possibly) continued employment!

Why? Because the pilot failed to comply with an ATC instruction, and he/she didn’t tell ATC that they would be unable to comply with it. Simply speaking this is against the law.

All ATCOs (and certainly those at the London airports) are aware that certain aircraft and certain weather conditions mean that aircraft are unable to comply with ATC speed instructions and we don’t have a problem with this. We also know that you will fly your aeroplanes to comply with your company SOPs and we don’t have a problem with this either.

The vast, vast majority of the time slowing early to meet your SOPs has no effect on operations (apart from maybe the odd go-around) and we all go home to live another day. The vast, vast minority of the time (occasions we’d be unlucky to see in our careers but which are still quite possible) an incident / accident caused by the above circumstances would lead to the pilot being legally responsible.

The ideal answer should be (having advised ATC that you can’t meet a speed restriction), to advise your OPS department every time this happens. If this happens frequently (and I imagine it does!), your OPS should then liaise with our OPS and procedures (either yours or ours) will change for the better.

Just make sure it’s the OPS department of the relevant ATC unit they speak to and not senior management, who quite frankly couldn’t organise a pissup in a brewery, let alone an ATC operation in an ATC centre!

[despegue]

In response to the previous post:

This opinion is in my humble view somewhat incorrect.
I do not have to tell ATC if I have to reduce on final approach to ensure a stabilised landing, should the workload be too high OR if the frequency is blocked. However, I should announce this whenever I do have the chance.
ATC really vectors too short in my opinion in some airports. Remember that your first priority lies with the safe handling of the aircraft. That goes for ATCO's as well as for the Flightcrew. Expeditious and volume handling should always take a second place.
A rushed and fast approach followed by an unstable situation is in my book always worse then an approach broken of due to runway occupancy in CAVOK conditions.

That said, I do have the utmost respect for ATC and know that they DO work hard in a lot of European airports. Especially in Western Europe.

[Ashling]

Seems to me that there needs to be substantialy more communication between the companies and ATC units.

More and more companies SOPs require that crews be stable by 1000' aal perhaps with a lower hard alt at 500'. It is nigh on impossable to achieve this if you are doing 160 kts at 4 nm. It would require a flap selection, a 20-30 kt speed reduction in under a nm and throttles spooled up. So crews acknowledge the instruction 160 to 4 and actually fly 160 to 5 or just under it. They are not disregarding an ATC instruction for the fun or the hell of it or because they do not understand the instruction they are disregarding it because their company requires them to do so. I'm sure most line pilots and controllers recognise this situation.

So the procedures need to keep up otherwise they become worthless and disrespected. 160 to 5 with a slowdown to 160 no later than 8 would be far more realistic in my view. So we have to get management at ATC and airline level to talk to each other and sort it out. That and pester the CAA. Otherwise operators will continue to struggle to make a round peg fit a square hole.

I should add that in my view ATC units at the London clutch airfields do an outstanding job. For me the real speed control problem lies elsewhere, mainly spain. But then commercialy my ops have been limited to Europe.

[AlexL]

It appears that despite the 160 to 4 instruction, most of us actualyl fly 160 to 4.5 to 5 ish. If that is what is actually happening, and its not messing up the flow rates, then why not just change the instruction to "160 to 5"? I bet you would get more compliance as well. Whilst most of us probably slow down between 4 and 5 to meet the stablised approach criterea, I'll bet there are some out there who say "I can't manage 160 to 4, so I'm going to completely ignore it". If you give 160 to 5 then they woud probably give it a better shot.

Also w.r.t the mode S comment earlier - what does your mode S show - my current IAS or my current selection in the MCP speed window? 'coz whats in the MCP speed window is completely irrelevent. In a 757 If I wind back the speed window at 4.5 miles, My IAS will still be 160 at 4 miles - which is what you asked me to do, but if you are monitoring what I'm setting then you will assume I've slowed down early - which I haven't.
If I wind the speed back at 5, then the IAS will start coming back somewhere between 4 and 4.5.

FWIW I always try and tell the Gatwick director if I am very light weight, for one, so he knows that I will be slowing back to <120kts, so anything fast behind me is goign to catch up damn quick in the last 4 miles, and for two, so hopefully he will realise I cannot slow up from 160 to 115 in a mile, and be stable at 1000ft.

[Del Prado]

So do you want all of us to say "it will be 160 to 5/6" on receipt of the instruction?

Yes please, or better still, tell your ops department to ask for 160 to 5 as a standard for your fleet.

ATC really vectors too short in my opinion in some airports

that does seem to happen a lot at gatwick. aircraft fly round the hold, then get vectored for a 7 or 8 mile final. by then it's too late to use a speed differential to catch up.

I wouldn't know for the airbus. But in the 737 I drop the gear and flaps 15 at approx 5NM and wind the speed back at around 4.6
The gear must be down and locked at 1500ft AAL

You might see this on your screen as reducing early, but the 737 will still be doing 160 at 4NM maybe 5kts slower.
But remember we should be stable at a 1000ft AAL. Thats flap 30 or 40.

I don't see a problem with this but too often they're 140kts AT 5 dme. (and I frequently see the IAS at 5 is maintained until inside 1 mile.)

BTW Flash2002 if you're given 160 between 7 and 4, when at 10dme you can slow to 160 anywhere between 10 and 7.

[Airbus Unplugged]

Please remember that those blips who don't do as they're told are not errant insects, they're living breathing machines flown by human beings. They're heavy, light, Boeing, Airbus, fully-loaded, lightly-loaded, flap this, config that, parking here, or parking there.

We do everything we can do comply with your requests, but every approach is not the same everyday, we don't simply drop the clutch, stand on the brake pedal and shift down a gear. In one day last week I flew a 321 at Flap 3 with a Vref of 147 knots and a 15kt headwind = 162 target Vapp, followed by a 319 in Flap Full with a Vapp of 117. I've flown lightly loaded 757's with a grounspeed of 90kts on short final. You just can't chastise pilots for doing their best.

And secondly, where do I get the time to discuss with you my approach strategy? I can barely get a word in edgewise to call established, let alone request permission to use the glideslope - that quaint old English custom.

What worries me is that no-one is looking at the flashing yellow 'Heathrow Full' caption. We just keep on packing them in and blaming each other. Everyday we're all just a little luckier than yesterday.

Management? Save your breath, tell them to BACK OFF! and lets take commercial pressure right out of the operation.