KMSP Approach and Center Controllers

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?

"Center, Medevac ###AB request lower"?
 
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.


Like I tell Anthony and Alex.....IT's always No if you dont ask...... ;-)

Anyways....There is alot of training going on in their airspace and I have never had any trouble with Minneapolis Approach/Center...They are always helpful. Except for the one day some guy left in a hold for 20+ minutes over Airlake...Kept telling him we were ready to leave the hold back to KFCM and he always seemed to answer after I started another lap around the track.....
 
it's common to get the "Cross 45nm Northwest of STP at 5,000" altitude restriction
It is in the LOA between us and the center to have satellite traffic enter our airspace @050 from that sector, we don't have any factor on how they decide to accomplish that. Some center guys will coordinate a higher or descending altitude and some won't and force you down. Them descending you to late and making you go at a higher descent rate is on them, If you don't like it just tell them you need a slow descent for operational reasons. I would think they would accommodate that and push a green button and ask to get the approval from us for a discretion descent I believe it's our job to accommodate yous guys as much as possible (keeping safety and flow in chec)...ESPECIALLY when you're medevac.

while airborne and reload the SID gets a little bit time consuming.

I totally understand that, I don't know why they did that to you to be honest. I don't know why the automation would put you on the BRD route when you already filed a "approved" routing. That leads me to believe someone, STP or us, messed up somewhere. For me, if you're flying from STP to GFK i'd rather just have you north out of STP, you'll most likely get your climb to requested altitude sooner and it is easy ;-)
 
It is in the LOA between us and the center to have satellite traffic enter our airspace @050 from that sector, we don't have any factor on how they decide to accomplish that. Some center guys will coordinate a higher or descending altitude and some won't and force you down. Them descending you to late and making you go at a higher descent rate is on them, If you don't like it just tell them you need a slow descent for operational reasons. I would think they would accommodate that and push a green button and ask to get the approval from us for a discretion descent I believe it's our job to accommodate yous guys as much as possible (keeping safety and flow in chec)...ESPECIALLY when you're medevac.
Makes sense :)


I totally understand that, I don't know why they did that to you to be honest. I don't know why the automation would put you on the BRD route when you already filed a "approved" routing. That leads me to believe someone, STP or us, messed up somewhere. For me, if you're flying from STP to GFK i'd rather just have you north out of STP, you'll most likely get your climb to requested altitude sooner and it is easy ;-)

Just to make sure I wasn't talking out my butt, I did just lookup the flight plan I filed that night as it was the last one I flew before I went into the off week. I had filed KBREW7.FAR so there must have been an automation glitch somewhere I suppose. Usually we get vectored north of STP to around the shoreview towers before we get turned direct HOMUR, on most days our assigned altitudes off STP are 3,000, 12,000, FL170, and then cruise, in that sequence, but it typically happens quickly enough that we never actually level off until cruise except for maybe 5% of the time when it's busy.
 
"MEDEVAC ##AB Pilot's Discretion FL240" is what they always gave me so I stopped asking.

If they give you this crossing too late more than half the time, start being more specific with center. Tell them if they need you to make 45 out at 5,000 you need to get the crossing clearance XX miles out.
 
I'm more of a fan of the mid....."cleared direct Minneapolis, cross 40 N/S/EW of the field at and maintain 10k"

Derek
 
I was actually training on the 35 final controller, hope i kept you in tight enough.
Worked just fine for me. The Queen Airs obviously run a bit slower, and I can't really speak for "typical" profile, but I tend to try and hold 170-180 (unless assigned something different) to the FAF/5 out, and then 130-140 until about a mile out just so I don't screw compression for the jet that invariably ends up behind me. The 99 slows pretty easy in that last mile with the final flap extension and company visual approach profile requires us to be configured/stabilized by 500 AGL (1000 AGL on an instrument approach), so anywhere between 1-2 out is where I have to pull it back to around 110-ish Vref.
 
Good, I'm looking forward to annoying the crap out of them a couple thousand feet above the Bravo for a few hours at a time :p
They are the BEST with survey work. We would send them the maps and actually just tell them the number of the flight plan we were going to do. They were the only facility I worked with where the controller actually had the map in front of them.

They would even let us stay in the area provided we timed our runway crossings with the departurs/arrivals and got them in sight. I'm thinking pictometry received a lot of out of focus pictures of airplane rivets. haha
 
They are the BEST with survey work. We would send them the maps and actually just tell them the number of the flight plan we were going to do. They were the only facility I worked with where the controller actually had the map in front of them.

They would even let us stay in the area provided we timed our runway crossings with the departurs/arrivals and got them in sight. I'm thinking pictometry received a lot of out of focus pictures of airplane rivets. haha
Haha I can do one better. I had a project over sacramento and the guy goes "so you're probably on line... 21 now?"
"Oh you're good."
 
We just picked up 15 people if I remember correctly. We all have prior ATC experience, so technically not new hires. We have three departure trainees, a satellite trainee, and me who is training on the finals and feeder. The rest trickle in over the next year or two. I'm not included in that number, I scored a swap about 13 months ago.

Ozelot....can you ask your dept controllers to extend departures off Rwy 17 another mile or so over the MN River valley before turning East? They are flying over my condo which btw was built 22 years before the runway. I could literally see if I left my lights on during early morning departures.:)

I have always thought the MSP controllers were some of the best in the US contributing to the high arrival rates with minimum go arounds. NWA always appreciated it and had a great working relationship local ATC.
 
Just FYI, there's one problem when you ask for the speed increase once we've already been slowed down; max flap speeds. Once the flaps come down on approach, they're not going back up, and there comes a limit with how fast we can go. At that point you get what you get, but those speeds are different for every aircraft.
Potomac did that to us once going into DCA. While I don't remember the speeds exactly, on the 175, it warranted flaps 2, then back to flaps 1.
 
Potomac did that to us once going into DCA. While I don't remember the speeds exactly, on the 175, it warranted flaps 2, then back to flaps 1.
Ergh.

(230, 215, 200, 180, 165, if you guys on the other side of the scope were curious, although "normal" flap extension speeds are not necessarily close to Vfe for that particular flap position.)
 
Ozelot....can you ask your dept controllers to extend departures off Rwy 17 another mile or so over the MN River valley before turning East? They are flying over my condo which btw was built 22 years before the runway. I could literally see if I left my lights on during early morning departures

You're kidding, right?
 
Ergh.

(230, 215, 200, 180, 165, if you guys on the other side of the scope were curious, although "normal" flap extension speeds are not necessarily close to Vfe for that particular flap position.)

Reduce speed to 170... sigh ... can you increase back to 190, no, wait slowest practical. Can you do 160? You're following a special snow flake / I'm sharing a final with the D team.
 
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