Challenger Truckee
- Thread starter Boris Badenov
- Start date
Richman
JC’s Resident Curmudgeon
CTL is no joke. You need to be on the program, and honestly, there are very, very few people who have the skill in contact flying these days. Even in the few places they do teach it, it's done mechanically, by the numbers, which few CTL events fall into.
It was barely a good idea back in the large prop/turbo prop days. Jets? Madness.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Cant speak for other places, but during the first part of initial training we had sim partners, who generally were also newhires. I think we were together for every sim until the last couple MTs leading up to the Maneuver Val. From that point forward, all the sims were with a CA qualified seat sub, including MV and LOE checks.
I was getting more at the process of monthly position bids they have, where guys that are a tweener seniority wise, will sometimes take a downgrade to retain base/QOL during certain months. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can confirm or deny that.
Circle to land can be done easily in jets, one just has to have practice with maneuvering inside a circling protected area, judging a traffic pattern that is a lot lower than a normal jet traffic pattern, and having the caged eyeballs to judge how to not overshoot turns and when to begin a descent from the lower traffic pattern. But like you say, and I fully agree, that skill has to be kept up. It is when its: 1. Trained as some mechanical evolution in the first place, and 2. a skill that isn’t kept up; that is when it becomes akin to madness.
Ive had to circle to land a few times in the 737, it’s not a big deal, but its a general skill I’ve managed to keep up over the years and have translated to different aircraft In terms of keeping the shot group tight on performing these.
Heck, the best one was a Wx divert one day into BIF in the F-117. TACAN 21 approach, but needed to circle to land on 3 due to winds. The circling pattern altitude is only 600 AGL at Category E with the undercast not much higher, 900 feet lower than a jet traffic pattern, and at my weight at the time, my circling speed was 203kts with a 188-ish landing speed. Doable, as we would train for it, but things were definitely moving fast and there was little room for error. Accomplished it fine, but only due to practice.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
That’s what a permanent 68 degree wing sweep nets you. That’s just the touchdown. The 20 knot higher circling speed was to not fall out of the sky while maneuvering to final.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Reminds me of one of the biggest circle to land gong shows I've been a part of. Think it was either a boat fly off, or coming back from Fallon, but we had all 10-11 of our squadron jets in a conga line coming back into Oceana. It was night by then, and the weather was really bad. PAR was down, so they could give us an ASR to RWY 05, however winds were favoring the seldom used RWY 14 parallels (which doesn't support an instrument approach due to proximity to Norfolk airspace). I think I was one of the first couple jets to come down, and we were given ASR 05 circle NE to land 14R. Stormy, but we break out a bit above mins. But this whole gameplan is so F'd up, because you basically can't go around without potentially hitting someone else incoming on the ASR. In the process of trying to clarify what approach wanted us to do (typically a lot of junior controllers), I neglect to notice that the pattern altitude winds are strong from the E-NE and would create a significant overshoot on the circle to 14. So I start my turn about where I normally would, putting myself at the standard 1.4 ish NM abeam position. As I'm turning through about the 135 (midway between downwind and base), I very quickly realize the error of my ways. I think I will always remember looking down to my left and seeing the Trader Joes going directly underneath me as I'm in full afterburner at a few hundred feet in a wrapped up turn trying to save this. Those people got a real show! I do, and it ultimately gets back to some semblance of stable and on speed before I touch down, and then I find out there is a ton of standing water on the runway and I start hydroplaning. Gritted my teeth, did my best to not overcorrect, and hoped this wouldn't be my night to run off the runway and find out. Fortunately I was able to get it slowed quickly enough with speed brakes and using the giant stabilators as additional speed brakes (full aft stick), and the nose started to go the direction I wanted it to. Pretty well pooped myself that night 
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I accelerated to wrap up the turn (like well above a full fast AoA), which while probably counter-productive, does result in not being anywhere close to departing the aircraft (we don't really have a true accelerated stall mode). The main problem was that we were left with pretty much no way to safely go missed, since all the other jets were crossing midfield at 600 feet or so in front of us (from right to left), at night in low IMC. Could have been done, but I think I had some pressure to not put us in that situation. Didn't help that the controllers didn't know what was going on, or why this wasn't a good arrangement.
Anyway, like you said, lucky, and a lesson learned. Also nothing that would have ended well in another type of aircraft, without a ton of excess thrust and dirty maneuverability/maneuver margins.
KLB
Well-Known Member
Oh most definitely. Seat swapping is common place in our world. It's why we mostly use PIC and SIC rather that Captain and FO. I really don't see the problem with it since both pilots are "trained" to ""PIC" standards. I just think that the standards should be more stringent for Part 91. The FAA actually has been cracking down on it a bit from what I understand.
Talk about a square corner being placed into, with no go around ability or at least a very risky one due to cross landing traffic.
Sucks because (and this is common with these) wrapping up around the turn requires us to jam on the power so we don’t initiate, and get caught in, the insidious descent rate into the ground; yet at the same time that jam-on of power and resultant acceleration is also widening our turn radius and reducing our turn rate, when we’re trying to get the jet around that base-final corner. Sucky situation all around.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Less so in the Lear but definitely when I was on the pilatus, practically every time I would go to sim I would fly a perfectly average checkride-not bad, but usually one thing somewhere that a really anal examiner could have busted me on-and I would often get comments from the check airman “wow, that was one of the better recurrent rides I’ve seen lately! You obviously really know the airplane and have some solid time in it”
Makes one wonder what level of standard of performance that check airman has been seeing on a regular basis with examinees.
Roger Roger
Bottom of the list
Oh, after reading most of the recent PC12 accident reports there is no wondering about it.
Be interesting to know how many of those examinees actually passed. The barely-made-it on the acceptable side of the scale types; or even how many had to be busted.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
I agree. We have company-specific RNP approaches. I ain’t doing no circle to land. RNP all the way. Thanks!
Delta is going to take them from you….