F-16 midair with small plane in SC

[Stinger]

I don't work my planes that low near satellite airports unless I have a really good reason.

Say you've got someone near a satellite airport at 5,000. MVA is 3,000. Flight path will take the airplane right over the satellite airport and the pilot asks to continue the descent. I'm just curious because if I don't see any traffic, I would descend the pilot to the MVA in that situation.
Everyone works a little different is all.

 

[genot]

No experience working C, and I understand most C's aren't crafted so carefully, but by and large good practice (and this is in my mind) is to contain arrivals inside the C or B. This doesn't always happen, but if everything goes according to rule it segregates arrivals from near in satellite VFR's. Controlled airspace, generally speaking, isn't drawn out on a bar napkin after a few pitchers. This is what I mean by protected airspace. It exists for pretty well though out reasons. I have an uncontrolled airport so close to the International an errant fart will blow them into the B, so I see this constantly.

Now running a 300 MPH jet at the MVA 30 plus miles out? Passing over an uncontrolled airport? Seriously? You're ignoring all the safety of the C, forgetting the F-16 can get down like crazy and working an F jet like its a Skyhawk. I hope you have traffic Stinger, because I've box 1A'd people for letting the pilot control them. I will continue to do that in the future. This may sound stupid, but at some point the controller knows more about the local area than the pilot. Lower? No, in 10 miles.

 

[FM_Weasel]

Say you've got someone near a satellite airport at 5,000. MVA is 3,000. Flight path will take the airplane right over the satellite airport and the pilot asks to continue the descent. I'm just curious because if I don't see any traffic, I would descend the pilot to the MVA in that situation.
Everyone works a little different is all.

For sure, everyone is a little different. I tell them to expect lower in X miles. Field elevations in my area are essentially 0, and my MVA is between 1,500 and 2,000. Practically speaking, I stop most arrivals at 4,000 or 3,000 until they are over, or nearly over, the satellite airports under their path to the final approach course. Then they go down to 2,000. Yes, that's still 2,000ft above field elevation. Should be plenty of room right? I just think it's unwise, and it is not how I was taught. We also, fortunately, have enough distance between those uncontrolled airports where holding an arrival that high up doesn't result in a slam dunk approach, but they're still well inside 30NM.

Sometimes that untagged traffic departing is a little Cessna climbing slowly, or planning to level off at 1,000 for pattern work and it would never be an issue. Sometimes it's a PC12 or a TBM850 or a Citation, then things can develop rapidly.

 

[SrFnFly227]

It's been interesting reading the last few posts by the controllers on the forum. Thanks for chiming in with your info. Comment and question. It seems like a few of you feel a need to get planes down pretty far out, but in practice, a normal 3 degree glideslope would allow for a 3000 ft descent in 10 miles. If you give me discretion, that's when I'll start down. That descent shouldn't give anybody trouble. Do you see pilots unable to get down with more distance than that?

 

[FM_Weasel]

It's been interesting reading the last few posts by the controllers on the forum. Thanks for chiming in with your info. Comment and question. It seems like a few of you feel a need to get planes down pretty far out, but in practice, a normal 3 degree glideslope would allow for a 3000 ft descent in 10 miles. If you give me discretion, that's when I'll start down. That descent shouldn't give anybody trouble. Do you see pilots unable to get down with more distance than that?

Occasionally yes, but I don't know why.

I expect my certain twin Cessnas (421s and 414s) to take extremely shallow descents, so I know to start them earlier than usual. Other than that, when I have a regional jet take a pilot's discretion descent to 2,000 and rush to get there 30NM from the final approach course, I raise an eyebrow. But, whatever, I gave them PD because there was room for PD

I've also seen plenty of rapid descents to approach that I didn't think would work out, but the flight crew made it happen. I'm not saying it has never been my fault. But it's usually not my fault.

 

[genot]

Anything with geared engines comes to mind.

Often its the pilot asking for lower when they just don't want to level.

 

[queeno]

Sorry i got to say this but running your traffic on what ifs is just plain stupid, maybe its because i worked at a place where the busy little class C air carrier airport was shoved up under a reallllly busy class B airport and we didnt have the luxury of having lots of protected airspace and altitudes to waste on unkown VFRs or if someone is gonna depart an uncontrolled airport that i have no choice but to vector over at the MVA because of said airspace constraints.Its impossible to seperate known traffic from unknown traffic when you dont know what you dont know.

 

[FM_Weasel]

Well that certainly was a sentence, hahaha

 

[RDoug]

It's been interesting reading the last few posts by the controllers on the forum. Thanks for chiming in with your info. Comment and question. It seems like a few of you feel a need to get planes down pretty far out, but in practice, a normal 3 degree glideslope would allow for a 3000 ft descent in 10 miles. If you give me discretion, that's when I'll start down. That descent shouldn't give anybody trouble. Do you see pilots unable to get down with more distance than that?

Unless needed for separation, I almost always gave discretionary descents. But try doing that with the more modern airline equipment and you wouldn't believe how badly some of the pilots screw it up. I'm talking crossing the boundary above FL240 just 25 miles from the airport screwed up (from center), or 10,000 and up rolling out on an eight-mile final at a 4,000 MSL airport on my end.

Sometimes it's not easy being nice.

 

[Stinger]

It's been interesting reading the last few posts by the controllers on the forum. Thanks for chiming in with your info. Comment and question. It seems like a few of you feel a need to get planes down pretty far out, but in practice, a normal 3 degree glideslope would allow for a 3000 ft descent in 10 miles. If you give me discretion, that's when I'll start down. That descent shouldn't give anybody trouble. Do you see pilots unable to get down with more distance than that?

Sometimes. If I think a pilot might have trouble making a descent, I'll ask them if they can make it down. Sometimes they say yes and then later ask for additional vectors or even a 360 on final. On a few occasions I've had Center give me an aircraft at FL340, 35 miles from the airport, and basically straight in to the runway. Pilot checks on and I give the descent and ask if he'll make the 30,000ft descent to the airport. He came back and said he'll make it, and sure enough he made it in with no turns. A couple other times in the same situation they check on at FL340 and say they have the airport in sight. Cleared visual approach and they make it in. Then other times there's the planes that check on at 16,000ft 40 miles out, have trouble seeing the airport, and then need a 360 on final to get stabilized from the descent. Some are just high maintenance to work.

I expect my certain twin Cessnas (421s and 414s) to take extremely shallow descents, so I know to start them earlier than usual. Other than that, when I have a regional jet take a pilot's discretion descent to 2,000 and rush to get there 30NM from the final approach course, I raise an eyebrow. But, whatever, I gave them PD because there was room for PD

The twin Cessnas can also descend in a hurry if you need them to, however, if they don't have spoilers installed then they need to level off to bleed off airspeed and have a little harder time descending quickly. We think the same on PD descents. When I see any jet get down low in a hurry with clear blue skies, I think to myself, "hey, what's the hurry, you've still got 25 miles to fly."