IFR oral .. help get me ready?

[av8sean]

(More of a practical versus oral..)

One of our examiners loves to do a straight-in ILS, with a circle to land on the same runway. In this case, (and in any circle-to-land), remember to use the circle-to-land mins instead of the straight-in, even though the first part of the approach is straight-in.

 

[EatSleepFly]

I fail to see how my attitude would get in the way of anything...except maybe a conversation with you about stupid examiner tricks. And what do you mean "is this how you fly"? I hardly think you can sit there and judge how I fly, having never even met me, let alone flown with me. So I have an attitude toward an examiner that asks stupid questions. Big deal...they're not royalty or anything.

[ QUOTE ]
I would like to sit there and watch [you] take a deep breath, swallow an then struggle for the answer.

[/ QUOTE ]

I bet you would. Unfortunately for you, I wouldn't have to struggle. Sorry.

So, back to the question at hand. Who says a missed approach can only be commenced at the DH? Thats also a rediculous statement. If mountains are going to be such a factor that you can't go missed, you shouldnt be flying a low-performance airplane into there in the first place...at least not IFR. Landing on a taxiway is legal now? Wow, tell that to a former acquaintance of mine who just got his ticket yanked for it. Like Ed said, you might want to declare an emergency first. Pilot602 created this thread for help with his IFR oral- why don't you quit throwing crap out there like this? Its not helping anyone. "SIGMET Sierra?" Give me a break. No examiner would ask that unless they were delibritely trying to trip someone up.

Oh yeah, and, while I'd love to fly with The Great Lynn French as well, I won't be needing to. And, I'll make sure my students never have to either. There's nothing wrong with thinking outside the box, but how about doing so with some realisitic scenarios and questions that actually make sense?

 

[SaabFO]

I'm going to have to agree with ESF on this. There's nothing that says that you can't fly a missed approach after you pass your DH or MAP. If you lose sight of the runway below DA or MDA, you have to go missed. It is true that the missed approach, and the obstacle clearance that comes with it, begins at the MAP, but it does not mean that you cannot join the missed approach after passing the MAP.

Take for instance a circling approach. If you lose sight of the runway while circling, you're supposed to make your initial climbing turn towards the landing runway and continue until you're established on the missed approach.

Now Gunnison is definitely a unique situation. The DA is abnormally high, and the missed approach begins a couple miles from the runway. I personally would circle over the airport, which I know for sure is protected airspace, and head outbound on the LOC until I reach the MAP, and then fly the missed as published. Flying the departure procedure would work as well, but unless you are familiar with that airport and have the departure procedure memorized, you most likely are not going to have it out in front of you. The last thing that you want to be doing is flipping through charts looking for a procedure and going missed at the same time with mountains around you.

That's my checkride answer. In real life, since the DH is more than 800 feet above the ground, and I'm assuming since I'm past the MAP that the weather is at least that, I'm just going to go around and fly a normal pattern. It seems much more practical and safer than trying to go missed. In regards to declaring an emergency and landing on a taxiway, I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. First of all, you better be darn sure that there is nobody on the taxiway, because if there is you're are going to have a really bad day. Also, even though there's sigmets out, you have to keep in mind that these are just advisories. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's severe weather at your location right now. Now if tower said that there are level 5 t-storms that just developed all around the airport, that's a different story. But if you declare an emergency just because of a sigmet, you're probably going to have some explaining to do to the FAA when you get on the ground.

This is definitely an obscure question, but it does a good job of making you think. It also shows the importance of preflight planning and maintaining situational awareness. And just as a side note, anyone who flies a low performance airplane into an airport with a elevation of 7673 feet, with mountains all around it, on an IFR day is just asking for trouble.