PDK VOR/DME-D

troopernflight

Well-Known Member
Has anyone flown that approach? We got it assigned today and it threw us for a loop. I could not locate it in the FMS database and we ended up having to shoot the ILS 20L and then circle to land on 2R. I'm guessing it was not in the FMS because it's circling only, and not a runway based approach. We have to try to get back in there tonight. I'm guessing you just have to fly it raw data (VOR), and build the intersections for situational awareness?
 
I don't believe I have flown it since they changed it to a circling approach. Within the past year or so, they called it the VOR/DME 27.
 
Not familiar with all the raw data talk or the regulations/aircraft you are flying, but is your FMS database up to date? Do you have standalone DME? Seems like a pretty simple approach to me.
 
Not familiar with all the raw data talk or the regulations/aircraft you are flying, but is your FMS database up to date? Do you have standalone DME? Seems like a pretty simple approach to me.
Yes, updated it that morning, but that was not the issue that we later discovered. Using the Collins FMS-3000, the approach was listed as VDMD, which you had to select and then select the runway to circle to after that selection. I don't know why they didn't just list it as VOR/DME-D. We had never done that type of approach with this FMS, so it was more of an FMS unfamiliarity issue, rather than an approach issue. We were all ready and prepared for the approach when we came back, but by that time they were using the ILS for 20L. At least we'll be prepared for next time!
 
Some times it is easier to forget the FMS and just do the approach. The simulator that I do my recurrent in “Presto Sim/ SimCom Dallas” does not have an FMS or even an GPS in it. It makes me go back to things the old way. They even make me so an ADF approach sometimes. Easy for me since I have done hundreds of them,

Maybe it helps that I learned to fly IFR before all the new equipment.
 
Some times it is easier to forget the FMS and just do the approach. The simulator that I do my recurrent in “Presto Sim/ SimCom Dallas” does not have an FMS or even an GPS in it. It makes me go back to things the old way. They even make me so an ADF approach sometimes. Easy for me since I have done hundreds of them,

Maybe it helps that I learned to fly IFR before all the new equipment.
Yeah, sometimes it's easy to forget how things used be done, and rely on the FMS to handle everything for you. That day it was crazy busy, we got an approach we weren't expecting with little warning, and it just wasn't the time to be reviewing the chart haphazardly while shooting an unfamiliar approach. We decided to request what we had already reviewed and knew how to input into the FMS. It was a learning experience, and if you take something away from it without an incident, that's a good day in my book.
 
I used to fly it all the time when it was VOR/DME 27 and then circle to 2R. I was unaware it was circling only now. Nothing has changed though, just fly the radial and circle.

Looking at the chart, looks like they changed the runway designations very recently. I don't know if that's what is causing havoc in your FMS or something else.
 
I don't believe I have flown it since they changed it to a circling approach. ...........


I'm not 100% sure on this (others please chime in), but.......... I think I recall that some FMS's do not have circling approaches in their databases.... maybe that is why you could not find it in there?
 
I'm not 100% sure on this (others please chime in), but.......... I think I recall that some FMS's do not have circling approaches in their databases.... maybe that is why you could not find it in there?
That's correct. I was advised by an Option's pilot that the Honeywell FMS's do not have circling approaches in the database. We actually had it in there on the Collins FMS, just didn't recognize the abbreviation in the thick of the busyness.
 
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