Brief approach

[NovemberEcho]

How far out do y'all generally brief an approach and what do you go over when you do brief it?

Reason I ask is because the other day there was an unusually large amount of corporate traffic going into EWR. As many of you know, when doing the ILS 22L, you'll get vectors for sequenceing and then often time direct TEB, with it being the IAF for the approach. I was pretty busy, and everyone was being given direct TEB at some point, but for probably 4 out of 6 of the corporate jets, when I told them proceed direct TEB they responded "uh we're not landing TEB". Wouldn't the fact that TEB is the IAF have clued them in, or the 10 airliners in front of them being given it as well? Or is this generally something that they wouldn't have expected? Our airspace for the base leg is like a funnel and extremely narrow, only about 4 miles wide at its narrowest where y'all go from 4000 to 3000, so direct TEB rather than a heading can be much more efficient and easier for keeping everyone on the same track.

I asked this on a FB forum and the general consensus from the corporate pilots was that the ATIS should say "expect ILS 22L from TEB" and that it's very rare to ever get direct an initial approach fix in the US.

 

[Stone Cold]

Were they N registered? It's been about a decade since I went into TEB, but I don't remember ever getting direct to the field, even in the middle of the night. Maybe they weren't looking that far ahead, or maybe I've forgotten how it is up there, but I wouldn't worry too much about it other than wonder why they'd confirm that in the first place...it doesn't sound like the normal routine for going into TEB from what I remember...

 

[NovemberEcho]

Were they N registered? It's been about a decade since I went into TEB, but I don't remember ever getting direct to the field, even in the middle of the night. Maybe they weren't looking that far ahead, or maybe I've forgotten how it is up there, but I wouldn't worry too much about it other than wonder why they'd confirm that in the first place...it doesn't sound like the normal routine for going into TEB from what I remember...

They were landing EWR, all N registers. And no, no one is ever given direct TEB that's landing TEB except the occasional VFR.

 

[EIR]

If we're getting vectors, it'll usually be a vector to join the LOC. You'll see that a lot with RNAV / GPS approaches, though. They may already have sequenced past the IAF and had the FAF as their next fix on the FMS. I don't know as I was not in the plane. I normally load the full approach with the IAF just for this reason. It's easier to delete the fix rather than reloading the FMS while in the terminal area.

 

[BigZ]

If we're getting vectors, it'll usually be a vector to join the LOC. You'll see that a lot with RNAV / GPS approaches, though. They may already have sequenced past the IAF and had the FAF as their next fix on the FMS. I don't know as I was not in the plane. I normally load the full approach with the IAF just for this reason. It's easier to delete the fix rather than reloading the FMS while in the terminal area.

This. Getting vectors pretty much = sequence the approach = that IAF isn't in the box anymore.
Had something similar to what's described a couple of times, typically the standard response is "Ugh... seriously?"

 

[Ian_J]

We’ll brief an approach 20-30 minutes out usually. Don’t really cover the IAFs because like the others said, most of the time we’re vectored to final. That being said, the times I get a direct somewhere in the terminal environment it’s always a point somewhere on the approach and it’s not hard to add it if you didn’t load the whole thing. Unsure why the corporate guys just wouldn’t look at the plate once you gave them direct. Only thing I can think is when they heard TEB they thought of it as an airport rather than a fix.

 

[ppragman]

I may not be the right guy to ask - but generally speaking, when I was flying down in America going to weird places my philosophy was "brief the approach by reading the plate from top to bottom and committing important altitudes and courses to memory, only program what you filed or what they told you to expect unless VTF or some route is painfully obvious." That said, I don't think that's what's going on here - I think the difference between the VOR and the field is the issue.

If I got the clearance "proceed direct 'Teterboro'" I'd probably clarify if you wanted me to go the field or the VOR too, or at least say something like, "hey you know we're going to EWR, right?" Now if you said, "proceed direct TEB VOR, expect (or if you didn't want to commit for lost comms "plan the") ILS 22L" then I'd know exactly what you meant.

There are a lot of fields like this in the country. Consider an airport from my backyard. Soldotna.

If you look at the VOR/DME-A to Soldotna, the approach starts at the ENA VOR.

There's very little traffic going into Soldotna IFR, but if I was flying into there from 2000 miles away (and for whatever reason wasn't using the GPS approach) and ATC cleared me "direct 'Kenai'" from 500 miles away, I might not know what to put into my avionics. So, suppose now that I put PAEN into my GPS instead of ENA because I didn't know ENA was an IAF yet, or maybe I just goofed, or I didn't know they weren't co-located. When I check on with the last center frequency (say 50 miles out) and center says, "cross Kenai at or above 6,000, cleared VOR-DME A to Soldotna" I'm already "mode confused" because I'm going to the airport instead of the IAF and the GPS is taking me someplace where there is no IAF.

In your case the situation is kind of opposite - unless you told them to "proceed direct TEB VOR" those guys don't know what to program into the box. If you just say "proceed direct Teterboro" then the instruction is ambiguous. If you'd already been giving them vectors, they might have engaged VTF or whatever their avionics allows in the box and they may not have all the other fixes easily available to them in the avionics right in front of them. They might think "hey, you don't think he thinks we're going to TEB do you?" At which point, they query you because they're not sure what you're planning to do with them. They may have briefed the approach, but since they were on vectors they might be expecting VTF - they may not have even looked at that IAF because they (wrongly) assumed they were going to be VTF the rest of the way in.

Now if you're saying "Cleared direct Teterboro VOR," and they can't figure out what's probably happening next...well then they may just be dumb or alternatively, smart but behind the airplane for some reason, or too busy to think critically about your instructions.

This is one reason why I can't wait to have data-link for all my clearances to go along with my verbal clearance and even though it would gum up the NAS, I think it'd be great if ATC was required to read the full identifier.

"Cleared direct Tango-Echo-Bravo" versus "Cleared direct Kilo-Tango-Echo-Bravo" is a lot more explicit than say, "Cleared direct Teterboro," versus "Cleared direct Teterboro."

It's also worth mentioning that sometimes weird things do happen - I worked at a company that went to the same airport every night. Both dispatch and ATC ended up confused on a few nights when I was going someplace else due to weather for a UPS reroute:

Me: "Seattle Center, Freighter 685, 5,000 climbing 8,000."
Them: "Freighter 685, roger, hey, do you know where you're going?"
Me: "Uhhhhhh...Well I thought so until you asked. Where do you think I'm going?"
Them: "Freighter 685, I show you going to RBG, is that right? You never go there, you go to EUG."
Me: "Nope, that's correct I'm going to RBG."
Them: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Well, I want to go home, but they're making me go to RBG."
Them: "Ugh, I wanna go home too. OK, well, I guess keep going then, freighter 685, fly present heading, join victor 23 then resume own navigation..."

So I land in RBG and the dispatcher I call my times into is just as confused about where I'm at because the previous dispatcher didn't do the turnover right and wrote me down as my usual run and not the charter.

Anyway - moral of this story is "weird stuff happens" and pilots tend to get nervous when things don't conform to their expectations.

 

[milleR]

Always program an IAF.

 

[ppragman]

Always program an IAF.

I totally agree with this when it's practical. I also abhor "vectors to final mode" in most light airplane GPS for this exact reason.

Here's Pat's rules for not screwing up approach and landing. It's what I teach in the sim and what I try to practice in the airplane. In no particular order:

1. Always have course guidance (even if it's OBSing the runway) to the runway you're landing on so you don't pull an Atlas at Jabara (or one of the many others. If this is infeasible, consider using a runway where course guidance to touchdown is possible - you should really consider this at night, at unfamiliar airports, or when the weather is remotely crummy.

2. Always program a full procedure that starts from an IAF that you're filed to (that is don't file direct airport to airport everywhere). In every GPS I've ever used, going into "vectors to final mode" was always pretty easy to do. You can always go back to that if necessary, but never default to it. Also, complying with lost comms rules is easier when you do it like this.

3. Read through all the approaches in cruise on the way there. If time doesn't permit this, familiarize yourself with the approaches prior to going flying (this should be part of 91.103 anyway but whatever).

4. Use the autopilot for circling approaches and use the moving map so you don't get too close to the runway. Most people don't have any feeling for what being "1.5 miles away from the field" actually looks like. Most of the time, they can be further away than they think.

5. Constantly be doing the 3 to 1 math in your head on an approach to stay stable. On an ILS this is mindless, if you're flying a visual or a non-precision this can be more challenging. If you have 1 mile to the runway, you should be at 300', 2 miles 600, etc. Your descent rate to maintain a 3 degree glideslope should be half of your groundspeed with a zero added to the end of it. If you're flying the approach at 140kts, a "normal" rate of descent is 140/2 = 70, add a zero = 700fpm.

6. If the weather is remotely questionable (i.e. you're not going to break out with lots of time to think) use the automation and monitor it.

7. Fly every approach - even the visual - like it's an IFR approach. That is, be stabilized, fly it precisely, descend on a 3° glide path, don't yank-and-bank, etc.

8. Have a killer list of "do or die" items that must be done prior to landing - ideally these should be remembered as a mnemonic of some sort. Things like landing gear, lights, pressurization, configuration stuff" should be on this list - stuff that will cause an accident, embarrass you, or cause discomfort to the pax should be on this list. This might be more important single-pilot than with a crew, but single pilot, I couldn't tell you how many times I used the checklist but somehow got distracted and missed items - when I started using a "do or die" mnemonic I started trapping more errors. *




*Examples:
In the Pilatus before landing: "GLIPFY" . "Gear, Lights, Ice Protection, Pressurization, Flaps, Yawdamp."
In the King Air before landing: "GLIFFY PP." "Gear, Lights, Inertial Separator, Fuel, Flaps, Yawdamp, Props, Pressurization."
In the Navajo before landing: "PIMP-GF", "Pumps, Inboards (fuel), Mixtures, Props, Gear, Flaps."
It doesn't matter what airplane it is, you can find a list of this stuff, make a silly mnemonic and catch the big errors before they mess you up.

 

[milleR]

The number of times I’ve been given a fix after selecting VTF far, far outnumbers the times/inconvenience of just letting the box sequence itself. Don’t be lazy, look at the chart, and find the IAF that’s closest to your route. It’s less a big deal as a crew, but single pilot doing 250 you’ve got to be 100 miles ahead of the plane.

 

[Stinger]

That's the reason why once I initiate vectors for an aircraft I always leave them on vectors unless they ask for direct a fix.
But if I was to use a "proceed direct" in EWR's case, I'd be using GIMEE instead of TEB to eliminate the confusion.

 

[NovemberEcho]

That's the reason why once I initiate vectors for an aircraft I always leave them on vectors unless they ask for direct a fix.
But if I was to use a "proceed direct" in EWR's case, I'd be using GIMEE instead of TEB to eliminate the confusion.

And you'd be sending them straight into the face of TEB departures.

 

[Stinger]

And you'd be sending them straight into the face of TEB departures.

Where are they in relation to TEB when they're usually given direct TEB?

 

[NovemberEcho]

Where are they in relation to TEB when they're usually given direct TEB?

Northwest. Finals airspace for that base leg is a funnel, with just before TEB being only 4 miles wide. To the south of it you have TEB departures, to the north TEB arrivals. Direct GIMEE can work if you're far enough north, but usually by then your final is backed up due to winds and/or volume and your intercepting north of TEB anyway. GIMEE has the 2500' crossing restriction for TEB 24 departures climbing to 1500', as soon as they're passed the final they're climbing, so there's no intercepting south of GIMEE either (well, ideally lol). I use only vectors and heading lots of times too, but in some circumstances by giving everyone direct TEB from the same point keeps everyone on the same track much more effectively than just vectors.

 

[Kingairer]

I may not be the right guy to ask - but generally speaking, when I was flying down in America going to weird places my philosophy was "brief the approach by reading the plate from top to bottom and committing important altitudes and courses to memory, only program what you filed or what they told you to expect unless VTF or some route is painfully obvious." That said, I don't think that's what's going on here - I think the difference between the VOR and the field is the issue.

If I got the clearance "proceed direct 'Teterboro'" I'd probably clarify if you wanted me to go the field or the VOR too, or at least say something like, "hey you know we're going to EWR, right?" Now if you said, "proceed direct TEB VOR, expect (or if you didn't want to commit for lost comms "plan the") ILS 22L" then I'd know exactly what you meant.

There are a lot of fields like this in the country. Consider an airport from my backyard. Soldotna.

If you look at the VOR/DME-A to Soldotna, the approach starts at the ENA VOR.

There's very little traffic going into Soldotna IFR, but if I was flying into there from 2000 miles away (and for whatever reason wasn't using the GPS approach) and ATC cleared me "direct 'Kenai'" from 500 miles away, I might not know what to put into my avionics. So, suppose now that I put PAEN into my GPS instead of ENA because I didn't know ENA was an IAF yet, or maybe I just goofed, or I didn't know they weren't co-located. When I check on with the last center frequency (say 50 miles out) and center says, "cross Kenai at or above 6,000, cleared VOR-DME A to Soldotna" I'm already "mode confused" because I'm going to the airport instead of the IAF and the GPS is taking me someplace where there is no IAF.

In your case the situation is kind of opposite - unless you told them to "proceed direct TEB VOR" those guys don't know what to program into the box. If you just say "proceed direct Teterboro" then the instruction is ambiguous. If you'd already been giving them vectors, they might have engaged VTF or whatever their avionics allows in the box and they may not have all the other fixes easily available to them in the avionics right in front of them. They might think "hey, you don't think he thinks we're going to TEB do you?" At which point, they query you because they're not sure what you're planning to do with them. They may have briefed the approach, but since they were on vectors they might be expecting VTF - they may not have even looked at that IAF because they (wrongly) assumed they were going to be VTF the rest of the way in.

Now if you're saying "Cleared direct Teterboro VOR," and they can't figure out what's probably happening next...well then they may just be dumb or alternatively, smart but behind the airplane for some reason, or too busy to think critically about your instructions.

This is one reason why I can't wait to have data-link for all my clearances to go along with my verbal clearance and even though it would gum up the NAS, I think it'd be great if ATC was required to read the full identifier.

"Cleared direct Tango-Echo-Bravo" versus "Cleared direct Kilo-Tango-Echo-Bravo" is a lot more explicit than say, "Cleared direct Teterboro," versus "Cleared direct Teterboro."

It's also worth mentioning that sometimes weird things do happen - I worked at a company that went to the same airport every night. Both dispatch and ATC ended up confused on a few nights when I was going someplace else due to weather for a UPS reroute:

Me: "Seattle Center, Freighter 685, 5,000 climbing 8,000."
Them: "Freighter 685, roger, hey, do you know where you're going?"
Me: "Uhhhhhh...Well I thought so until you asked. Where do you think I'm going?"
Them: "Freighter 685, I show you going to RBG, is that right? You never go there, you go to EUG."
Me: "Nope, that's correct I'm going to RBG."
Them: "Are you sure?"
Me: "Well, I want to go home, but they're making me go to RBG."
Them: "Ugh, I wanna go home too. OK, well, I guess keep going then, freighter 685, fly present heading, join victor 23 then resume own navigation..."

So I land in RBG and the dispatcher I call my times into is just as confused about where I'm at because the previous dispatcher didn't do the turnover right and wrote me down as my usual run and not the charter.

Anyway - moral of this story is "weird stuff happens" and pilots tend to get nervous when things don't conform to their expectations.

TLDR, but the answer is they just werent expecting to get TEB because they must be new to flying into EWR and didnt look closely enough at their chart to see TEB was on the approach and they failed to listen to what was going on ahead of them.

 

[Kingairer]

I asked this on a FB forum and the general consensus from the corporate pilots was that the ATIS should say "expect ILS 22L from TEB" and that it's very rare to ever get direct an initial approach fix in the US.

How about they pay attention, be a pilot, and RTFC instead?

 

[MidlifeFlyer]

If we're getting vectors, it'll usually be a vector to join the LOC. You'll see that a lot with RNAV / GPS approaches, though. They may already have sequenced past the IAF and had the FAF as their next fix on the FMS. I don't know as I was not in the plane. I normally load the full approach with the IAF just for this reason. It's easier to delete the fix rather than reloading the FMS while in the terminal area.

It's also why the AIM specifically recommends not loading VTF.

 

[TUCKnTRUCK]

I can see the confusion, especially for people flying to TEB routinely.

If it were worded (direct TEB join the loc) etc might reduce the questions I guess.

 

[NovemberEcho]

How about they pay attention, be a pilot, and RTFC instead?

This is the answer I was looking for =)

 

[adk]

Anybody who flies to Newark more than twice a year knows to expect direct TEB. I’m sure these guys also get confused on the way out when they’re cleared direct SBJ and they go “uhhh we’re filed over PARKE” ... RTFC