Another DCA River Visual question...

ZapBrannigan said:
Disagree. This is a noise abatement approach that just HAPPENS to have a tiny little prohibited area adjacent to the final approach course.

I've been flying into DCA since the mid 1990s. What gets guys in trouble (or got them in trouble back in the pre-RNAV days) was that they were so petrified of getting too close to P56 that they would hug the west bank of the river. So when you make the turn to final, it ends up being a rather steep bank and an aggressive maneuver.

What folks need to understand is that P56 is waaaaaaaaay over there on the east bank. You would have to make an extraordinary effort to get over there. If you simply fly the center of the river, or even slightly east of the center, the turn to final was a nice shallow, gentle bank.

People made the river visual and the Rosalyn LDA much harder than it needed to be. I'm glad RNAV is in place. Give the monkey a peanut and he'll follow the magenta line. Much easier for everyone.
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I agree that people make it harder than it needs to be.

As for air being both... I was going off what my 10-4 charts list as Noise Abatement and Prohibited Area Procedures. It shows the River Visual as being the preferred approach to comply with both.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Disagree. This is a noise abatement approach that just HAPPENS to have a tiny little prohibited area adjacent to the final approach course.

I've been flying into DCA since the mid 1990s. What gets guys in trouble (or got them in trouble back in the pre-RNAV days) was that they were so petrified of getting too close to P56 that they would hug the west bank of the river. So when you make the turn to final, it ends up being a rather steep bank and an aggressive maneuver.

What folks need to understand is that P56 is waaaaaaaaay over there on the east bank. You would have to make an extraordinary effort to get over there. If you simply fly the center of the river, or even slightly east of the center, the turn to final was a nice shallow, gentle bank.

People made the river visual and the Rosalyn LDA much harder than it needed to be. I'm glad RNAV is in place. Give the monkey a peanut and he'll follow the magenta line. Much easier for everyone.
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You can even hug the east bank, it's no issue, did that numerous times in the RJs.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
What folks need to understand is that P56 is waaaaaaaaay over there on the east bank. You would have to make an extraordinary effort to get over there. If you simply fly the center of the river, or even slightly east of the center, the turn to final was a nice shallow, gentle bank.

People made the river visual and the Rosalyn LDA much harder than it needed to be. I'm glad RNAV is in place. Give the monkey a peanut and he'll follow the magenta line. Much easier for everyone.
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If you really threaten P56, they'll shoot you down before you ever know you're getting that close. :)

I still love going over to Gravelly Point and watching you guys land. It's also cool to see little kids there for the first time - some of them freak out but others think it's the greatest thing since Frozen.
 
Nobody is getting shot down. People used to bust P56 routinely on takeoff in the time before the magenta line.

"Fly heading 340 to 2.3 DME, intercept and track outbound on the DCA 328 degree radial"

People blew through it constantly, bracketed back and flew up the river. I have no doubt that somebody was watching them, but unless you are an imminent threat to the White House or the capital nobody is going to shoot at you.

You might get a phone call from the chief pilot because poop rolls downhill, but that's about it.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Nobody is getting shot down. People used to bust P56 routinely on takeoff in the time before the magenta line.

"Fly heading 340 to 2.3 DME, intercept and track outbound on the DCA 328 degree radial"

People blew through it constantly, bracketed back and flew up the river. I have no doubt that somebody was watching them, but unless you are an imminent threat to the White House or the capital nobody is going to shoot at you.

You might get a phone call from the chief pilot because poop rolls downhill, but that's about it.
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I thought the smiley face made it seem that I was being facetious. :)
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Nobody is getting shot down. People used to bust P56 routinely on takeoff in the time before the magenta line.

"Fly heading 340 to 2.3 DME, intercept and track outbound on the DCA 328 degree radial"

People blew through it constantly, bracketed back and flew up the river. I have no doubt that somebody was watching them, but unless you are an imminent threat to the White House or the capital nobody is going to shoot at you.

You might get a phone call from the chief pilot because poop rolls downhill, but that's about it.
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This I disagree with to some degree. I was on a first name basis with "Bob" in the DCA control tower after my old employer had several P-56 busts in a row. We actually changed our Jepp 10-10 pages as a result of the (too numerous) phone conversations. He said that one of the aircraft had triggered the Secret Service to a high level because they appeared to level off and turn right. If you are climbing and look "normal" you won't get shot down, but if your profile looks at all abnormal, you very well may.

That flight that created the biggest stir had a "radar malfunction" that distracted the crew. The pilot flying inadvertently leveled the wings and reduced pitch because the radar drew his attention away from flying, and that caused a double P-56 bust (P-56 A and B). It turns out that the "malfunction" was probably their radar sensor being painted by the targeting radar on the ground. Scary stuff. It's actually a very interesting story, as the captain of that flight got a personal call from the FBI and was investigated. At any rate, they take P-56 very seriously. I'm not saying you shouldn't go to the East side of the river, but I definitely wouldn't be nonchalant about it.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
It's ok. You're very young and kinda low time. Once you gain a little experience you'll come around. [emoji8]
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Another fun thing to do is to watch the three ship element of helicopters coming to the South lawn of the White House, and try to guess which one the President is on before the actual Marine One moves in for landing.
 
killbilly said:
Huh. I'm certainly not qualified to criticize his position, but I'm sort of scratching my head because there are hundreds of safe operations in and out of DCA every single day. What am I missing?
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He SORTA has a point.

Both the FAA and my company stresses a stable approach. On a straight in approach to IAD or ATL I have to be configured by 1,000ft ATL and stable by 500ft. Granted I have as much experience flying into DCA as @BobDDuck's FO did, but I'm pretty sure that maneuvering to line up with the runway happens below 500ft.

Same with LGA on the expressway visual.

That said, I do think it can be done safely (Unless you try to land nose first). I've just always found it slightly entertaining that if I flew into CAE the same way we approach LGA on the expressway visual, I'd probably hear about it. But because its a charted procedure nobody cares.
 
ZapBrannigan said:
Nobody is getting shot down. People used to bust P56 routinely on takeoff in the time before the magenta line.

"Fly heading 340 to 2.3 DME, intercept and track outbound on the DCA 328 degree radial"

People blew through it constantly, bracketed back and flew up the river. I have no doubt that somebody was watching them, but unless you are an imminent threat to the White House or the capital nobody is going to shoot at you.

You might get a phone call from the chief pilot because poop rolls downhill, but that's about it.
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We had something like 3 crews in a two month span take off out of there and fly straight out. Supposedly the FAA was pretty close to telling us we can't go there anymore. *facepalm*
 
Screaming_Emu said:
That said, I do think it can be done safely (Unless you try to land nose first). I've just always found it slightly entertaining that if I flew into CAE the same way we approach LGA on the expressway visual, I'd probably hear about it. But because its a charted procedure nobody cares.
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Careful, start talking like that and you'll become known as dangerous.
 
Seggy said:
Excellent.

The approach controller instruction was prefaced by....

"Colgan 1234 we are going to have you do something different if you want, can you accept radar vectors to split the restricted areas?"
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I got that once.

I also departed 4 once and got a left turn up the river to join the 328 radial, which was really tight.
 
As a young Saab FO I was told, "When we depart off of 1 just put us in a turn where I can get good video of the Pentagon." He was joking, but as I recall, it worked.
 
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