ClarkGriswold
Non Nutritive Cereal Varnish Engineer
You guys gave us that this AM off the Torgy. Worked much better.
KMSP Approach and Center Controllers
- Thread starter Claskers
- Start date
Ozelot
Frozen Tundra TRACON
It was probably me, I trained on feeder today during all the arrival banks this morning. It is good to hear it works better for you too, I'm going to continue with the practice. It makes our lives easier.
queeno
Ward of the Guberment
C to A with 3 speeds is a great technique , but your right its hard to explain to someone with out showing them in the Sim or live traffic but it makes you as a controller very efficient airspace wise. that is no guessing on when to slow when to turn base etc, its all in counting the miles but it dose take time to really learn it!
Autothrust Blue
“If you jump on my shift, that’s just rude, man.”
This is otherwise known as basic airmanship.
High energy visuals are only sort of part of our program here, if I have anything to do with it, you'll do one on both LOFT days.
queeno
Ward of the Guberment
Thats correct in a nut shell when on down wind flying away from the airport you woud match speed with the traffic on final but usually never faster than 210kts, that was to keep the base leg at 10 to 15 miles. There are time when we would do 250 on down wind but that was only on simultaneous ILSs and normally in the front of a rush just to get the final filled up quick, on Simul ILSs your base leg was 20 to 25 miles out due to the glide slope intercept points from the high and low rwy.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Yes and no.
The idea of slowing to 140-160 knots and putting all the flaps/gear out spooks a lot of guys, and I'm sure would surprise the hell out of most controllers. It's certainly the quickest way to head downhill, and you've got the added bonus of being fully configured when you finally reach the glideslope, but I'm not sure it'd put it in the basic airmanship category. I call basic airman ship doing slips and stalls, not abnormal procedures that have no profile attached to them, as you've so properly pointed out.
Autothrust Blue
“If you jump on my shift, that’s just rude, man.”
"Abnormal procedure?" No, no, no. That has a very specific meaning, as you're aware. Just because I don't have a shiny profile page in the manual for it doesn't mean it's "abnormal." The geniuses who write my manuals are far smarter than I am, but even geniuses cannot be reasonably expected to foresee every situation.
I'm not sure I'd call it abnormal; I am regularly cut loose, especially in SFO or SLC, in a high energy state in VMC and "God bless, tower 120.50." I don't think knowing how to comfortably extract the desired performance out of your airplane is per se abnormal either. I would expect a new operator to feel more uncomfortable with this, but I still don't consider it "abnormal." When cut loose in a situation outside of the profiles and standard operating procedures pilots need to feel comfortable doing whatever is required (and safe, and comfortable for the passengers) to extract the desired performance from the aircraft. (If this means sucking the nose up and throwing every drag device you have out, so be it; as previously mentioned it is often the ONLY way that you will be stabilized by when you need to be stabilized.)
I like what a Brasilia guy told me once: "Let's be (expletive) pilots." Fly the airplane. I like my profiles, but not all situations are going to be covered in them, and it's important to be able to (1) recognize where the guidance provided by the standard operating procedures manual terminates and (2) rise to this occasion without it being a "big deal." (It's not a big deal, as long as you recognize it and start fixing it right away. What IS a big deal is that less than 2% of unstable approaches, industry wide, result in a go-around. I don't like admitting that I goofed, but the first go-around is always free.)
SJI has "solved" the problem, as @Derg points out, by saying "this is how you do this, in case you could not fill in the blanks on your own" during their long-term training. We haven't precisely done that, but we are exposed to it once in sim (it's left as an exercise to the pilot flying to figure out), and you see it all the time on line (including IOE). I would like to see us do high energy visual approaches as a designated part of the original training footprint, as 70% (or more) of the arrivals I do will be visual approaches, and a good quarter of those at major hubs may well wind up being "high energy."
Last edited:
I guess the good part of airplanes with FOQA is that the company sees trends and "lessons learned" get mixed into CQ (recurrent). We had a nasty unstabilized approach problem at certain airports so they started blending the dirty-up and descent technique into training.
You can't fly a lot of newer jets the way you would a turboprop or a DC-9 and hopefully ATC and pilots can find some sort of compromise on performance expectations.
MSP brought me in high and asked me for 210 to the marker in a 330 once and there's absolutely no way in hell that would work. Mad dog? All day. Beech 1900? Oh hell, challenge accepted, but the idea of bringing in a modern jet high and fast and cutting him off for the visual is begging for an unstabilized approach.
You can't fly a lot of newer jets the way you would a turboprop or a DC-9 and hopefully ATC and pilots can find some sort of compromise on performance expectations.
MSP brought me in high and asked me for 210 to the marker in a 330 once and there's absolutely no way in hell that would work. Mad dog? All day. Beech 1900? Oh hell, challenge accepted, but the idea of bringing in a modern jet high and fast and cutting him off for the visual is begging for an unstabilized approach.
Ozelot
Frozen Tundra TRACON
Dang, that seems unnecessary. From my standpoint slamming a 330 (or any other heavy) seems...dumb. I'd prefer to keep you behind people rather than worry about staying far enough behind your wake.
The 330 does not slow.
Granted, I only flew the thing for about seven months, but I thought of it more like a 3.5:1 descent profile.
It really shined in the ICAO/European theater with the STAR->Approach Transition->ILS world with SLP (slow down points) and vertical profiles because the airplane knew it's performance pretty well, but once you're vectored in like a DC-9 or an RJ, all sorts of madness occurs when you try to make it do something it can't. Think of it like a grumpy 320.
Autothrust Blue
“If you jump on my shift, that’s just rude, man.”
@Ozelot
Almost everything modern is "slow down exclusive or go down." I appreciate getting instructions that are "slow to this speed first then descend and maintain" vs. "Speed so and so, maintain so and so." (It's much easier, and much more predictable, to just get to whatever knots, then descend, than it is to try to do both.)
Ozelot
Frozen Tundra TRACON
These are coming here at MSP, we have them already but aren't published. They go online at the end of this month actually. RNAV Y approaches I think they are called. If you're the first guy in line I'll clear you for the RNAV Y 12L when your 17k feet 30 miles east of the airport and watch your plane fly you to the runway. the BLUEM STAR ties into the ILS 35 approach already so when someone checks on with the ATIS on that particular STAR, I've said, cleared converging ILS 35 approach, it is awesome when it's slow enough to let it happen.
My Trainers are training me this way, you can't do both and I understand that. I prefer it that way. I issue the instruction in the order I need..if i need a speed sooner I issue that than the descent. If I need you down first, i'll use the descend then slow clearance.
I'll piggy back onto that as well... The last two of my four medical emergencies this past year have been in MSP, and y'all (center and approach) have been most helpful in those situations (including allowing us to do 340 to final intercept)
So thank you.
On the high energy visual approaches, our airline developed a specific profile from FOQA data for the situations where the controller will keep you high (300-600ft above the glideslope) at the OM, and won't clear you for the visual until inside the marker. You get a chance to fly it a few times during training, but mostly the first time you see it real-world you find out it works nicely.
They're going back to number two this year...
surreal1221
Well-Known Member
You won't miss EWR when you place those 4 stripes on your shoulder driving that semi-legit airliner.
Quit your complainin'
somewhereupthere
Well-Known Member
I will say this, and it's hardly a gripe because you guys run an incredibly smooth operation (until it goes 12s in IMC anyway 
), but when my company operates mostly piston twins in/out of MSP, being one of the 2 or 3 flying a turboprop that can do up to 210 if you need it, it gets somewhat frustrating when I just about always get made number last in the sequence. It's like there's an automatic assumption being made that my callsign equals Queen Air .
Not to backseat control, because I obviously don't have the big picture, but I can also get out of your way VERY quickly (like...inside of a 2 mile final if you need it). I don't want to be "that guy" and request a short approach explicitly, but believe me I'm overjoyed when you're able to provide one!
), but when my company operates mostly piston twins in/out of MSP, being one of the 2 or 3 flying a turboprop that can do up to 210 if you need it, it gets somewhat frustrating when I just about always get made number last in the sequence. It's like there's an automatic assumption being made that my callsign equals Queen Air .Not to backseat control, because I obviously don't have the big picture, but I can also get out of your way VERY quickly (like...inside of a 2 mile final if you need it). I don't want to be "that guy" and request a short approach explicitly, but believe me I'm overjoyed when you're able to provide one!
gotWXdagain
Polished Member
Another question I have about the evening hours. My typical flight plan coming of STP is filed as /G with KBREW7.FAR dct KGFK. Sometimes when I call ground for clearance I get "Cleared to KGFK via Radar Vectors BRD direct" only to have the departure controller reissue "Direct HOMUR join the KBREW7 departure."
In a PC12 going STP to GFK, would it be easiest to file A: the KBREW7 or B: Direct? I feel like filing the departure since that's typically what we get until you give us Direct somewhere near HOMUR, unless it's the wee hours of the morning when I'll just file direct. Thoughts? The vectors to BRD then direct GFK, and then changing to the departure in-flight, creates higher workload on my end.
In a PC12 going STP to GFK, would it be easiest to file A: the KBREW7 or B: Direct? I feel like filing the departure since that's typically what we get until you give us Direct somewhere near HOMUR, unless it's the wee hours of the morning when I'll just file direct. Thoughts? The vectors to BRD then direct GFK, and then changing to the departure in-flight, creates higher workload on my end.
Ozelot
Frozen Tundra TRACON
If you filed the KBREW it should stay on there. If you file direct the computer will give you one or the other of those routes (KBREW or RV to BRD) to avoid the MSP BAINY STAR Ingress route. I don't know why the controller would change you back to the KBREW after STP issued the radar vectors to BRD clearance. I can only speculate on why that was done to you. Personally, If there is little or no traffic coming in the BAINY I'll take the effort to coordinate direct to GFK, why not?
I do it with the Marvin windows guys all the time, they will file direct RRT off MSP and the computer puts them out the BRD way so technically per the LOA with the center I have to vector them out on a track that puts them northboundish east of the BAINY STAR. I think its dumb when they come off 30s so I'll just coordinate a heading out the west side of the star since it goes to the same center sector, rather than vector those guys east to go north.
gotWXdagain
Polished Member
Direct is always appreciated, It just seems it's easiest to file KBREW and then once we check on with Center they give us direct. Usually we never arrive even at HOMUR before that happens, and when it works out like that the total distance your radar vectors to the departure corridor, following the corridor until given direct, the total distance added to what the "as the crow flies (before it gets sucked through the turbine)" distance is probably like one or two miles. I can happily load the departure in the box on the ground, then in the air highlight waypoints and hit the D button (giggity), but on the ground loading the flight plan as filed (with the SID), then clearing it to load D-> BRD D-> Dest only to have to clear that out while airborne and reload the SID gets a little bit time consuming.
The other question I now have as it relates to coming into STP from the northwest on those busy days, it's common to get the "Cross 45nm Northwest of STP at 5,000" altitude restriction. That I can understand, but sometimes it happens so late that it takes a 2500 fpm descent to do, which in the pilatus gives us a fairly low deck angle and makes it kinda difficult for the medics to do their jobs in the back. From an aviation standpoint, we can make it happen, but if I can keep them comfortable I do what I can. Center is who is actually giving us the restriction but I think it comes from Approach workload, and I guess Center is coordinating that with you guys so I'm just curious if there's a way to make that a little more streamlined so we can get that descent a little earlier?