My First ILS to minimums

[Rockie]

Never did the LOC reach more than half scale deflection.

Ok, I stand corrected.

[Rockie]

I don't think Rockie has spent much time in bugsmashers lately (I could be wrong) so he sees it from a large jet perspective and thinks OP should have missed.

You're not wrong. On airplanes I'm most familiar with that would be a go-around before reaching DH.

And anyway, he opposes everything you say just on principle.

Not at all, just the stuff he's wrong about.

Rockie: "I can see the runway, but it's over there to the right. I could slide over there, but rules are rules and we must never deviate from them, so I'm going around, and if I can't get in on the next attempt, well, who cares, I don't pay for the gas anyway."

Unstable approaches are the bane of the airline industry so yes, when the approach is unstable the proper thing to do is follow the rules and go-around. Bad things can happen if you don't.

[rookiepilot]

So there is room for improvement. I get it. But that has not been what has been beating me up over this approach.

What gets me is why I was there in the first place?

I am a private pilot. My own airplane. Very current (for a weekend warrior). I fly this plane close to 50 hrs/month. I have had my instrument rating for 22 months, and have had very conservative personal minimums... gradually getting lower as pages fill in my logbook.

I was feeling pressure to complete a flight in the most efficient manner, and the weather (and forecasts) were changing drastically throughout the morning. Pretty much everything within flying distance was as bad, or at risk of getting worse.

The best thing I could have done to make this approach better would have bee to wait a couple of hours before departing...

I haven't studied the video in detail as typing this on an iPhone.

Regardless of your future decisions the above I think is a very mature and thoughtful post analysis.

[justwork]

If he was a professional there would be an argument for "stabilized approach", as far as I can tell he is hand bombing his own private plane.

Since when does being a private pilot in your own aircraft defer the need for a stable approach?

C'mon. Don't be a dick. If I want to carve it in tight in my plane I will, in the companies I won't. If I want to shoot an approach a dot low in my plane I will, not in the companies. If I want to add bunch of speed to my approach because of gusty winds I will, in the company plane I add whatever I'm allowed. If I want to touch down midway on a long runway in my plane I will, not in the companies.

The airlines I've worked at all set hard limits, and I adhere to them. When I'm flying personally, for pleasure, I set whatever is applicable for the day.

[Cat Driver]

justwork, there are a lot of us who have been flying long enough to know that flying is more than following SOP's written to fit the lowest common denominator in aviation and also know that there is no black and white in aviation when it comes to what is safe.

For some SOP's are what keeps them from crashing.

For some of us we have the experience to know not only our own safe limits but the safe limits of a given airplane.

Your post sums it up perfectly.

I would like to add to my other comments.

If a pilot thinks that you should not land from an unstabalized approach we should not try and change their minds because we do not want to maybe partly responsible for them exceeding their skills level and crashing.

[Maynard]

Rockie I gotta ask, do you avoid all airports that have a crooked NdB or vOR approach? God help you if you fly into one. You will be shocked when you break out and have to manipulate the controls to land the aircraft.

[Maynard]

justwork, there are a lot of us who have been flying long enough to know that flying is more than following SOP's written to fit the lowest common denominator in aviation and also know that there is no black and white in aviation when it comes to what is safe.

For some SOP's are what keeps them from crashing.

For some of us we have the experience to know not only our own safe limits but the safe limits of a given airplane.

Your post sums it up perfectly.

Exactly. For the inside the box, oh no what now the book is empty, type folk.

[Cat Driver]

I just gotta share this with all you good people out there.

My favourite stabilised approach was back when I was flying the water bombers.

Down wind was at three hundred feet as fast as I could make the sucker go and reduced power to be at zero thrust when abeam the point where I wanted to touch down I rolled it into a sixty degree bank turn to bleed the speed back and when I was at two hundred feet and lined up with my pick up run I closed the throttles and lowered the nose slightly and waited for flare height to touch down at exactly 72 knots for the pickup.

Sometimes I made the circuit shorter and there was no final approach, just a reduction in bank angle so I did not drag a wing in the water.

So there are different kinds of stabilised approaches.

[Orvlrite]

There is some room for improvement, not the most stable approach ever...that being said if you're not hand flying approaches to mins often you get rusty fast and if you've never done one to 200ft, it's quite something. Thanks for sharing the video, lord knows in my lifetime I have landed a plane with an approach to mins that was less than perfect after a full duty day.

keep current and practice, hand flying approaches can be good fun...just don't bust mins or you'll go to hell.

[JasonE]

Congrats on your first one, and thanks for sharing!

[Rockie]

Rockie I gotta ask, do you avoid all airports that have a crooked NdB or vOR approach? God help you if you fly into one. You will be shocked when you break out and have to manipulate the controls to land the aircraft.

Maynard I gotta ask, do you know the difference between a precision approach and a non-precision approach?

If a pilot thinks that you should not land from an unstabalized approach we should not try and change their minds because we do not want to maybe partly responsible for them exceeding their skills level and crashing.

Unstabilized approaches in these airplanes are an automatic go-around...period. It is a hard policy. The entire industry has been beating that into our heads for years because of incidents and accidents caused by not being stabilized. Use it as a cheap shot if you like Cat, but next time you're on a transport category aircraft you can think happy thoughts that the crew is trained the way they are.

[North Shore]

I just gotta share this with all you good people out there.

My favourite stabilised approach was back when I was flying the water bombers.

Down wind was at three hundred feet as fast as I could make the sucker go and reduced power to be at zero thrust when abeam the point where I wanted to touch down I rolled it into a sixty degree bank turn to bleed the speed back and when I was at two hundred feet and lined up with my pick up run I closed the throttles and lowered the nose slightly and waited for flare height to touch down at exactly 72 knots for the pickup.

Sometimes I made the circuit shorter and there was no final approach, just a reduction in bank angle so I did not drag a wing in the water.

So there are different kinds of stabilised approaches.

No flaps needed for a Canso? (I assume that is what you were bombing in..)

[Cat Driver]

No, the PBY does not have flaps.

It has such high drag it does not need flaps and of course you can slip it if you need to increase rate of descent.

Of course the secret is not having to lose height if you plan it right and after thousands of times it becomes second nature.

Bleeding speed is real efficient if you increase angle of attack the wing is really high drag so it bleeds speed real fast.

The one thing the PBY beat the 215 at was cross wind pickups, we often picked up in cross winds the 215 could not. Another difference was we left the wing floats up during pickps which allowed for better X/wind pickups.

And the Super Cat had considerably better performance than a straight Cat.

[mbav8r]

dirtdr,
Regarding your comment on this being your filed alternate, you seem to be implying that you filed a "destination" with YEG as your alternate but intended to land at YEG in the first place, is this the case?
From your post you seem to respect flying and take currency seriously, I hope this is not what you did, that is very risky and I've seen YEG go below approach ban limits when nothing was forecast.
Obviously 200 and 1/2 was not forecast when you filed this as your alternate, pucker factor definitely in play on this approach. How much fuel did you have on landing, hopefully enough for a few more approaches.
Rockie, what specific criteria was exceeded here? The only criteria I can find on stable approach regarding localizer deviation is for catII/III, 1/3 dot, other than that no mention. Does AC have specific criteria for cat I ILS approaches?

[dirtdr]

dirtdr,
Regarding your comment on this being your filed alternate, you seem to be implying that you filed a "destination" with YEG as your alternate but intended to land at YEG in the first place, is this the case?
From your post you seem to respect flying and take currency seriously, I hope this is not what you did, that is very risky and I've seen YEG go below approach ban limits when nothing was forecast.
Obviously 200 and 1/2 was not forecast when you filed this as your alternate, pucker factor definitely in play on this approach. How much fuel did you have on landing, hopefully enough for a few more approaches.
Rockie, what specific criteria was exceeded here? The only criteria I can find on stable approach regarding localizer deviation is for catII/III, 1/3 dot, other than that no mention. Does AC have specific criteria for cat I ILS approaches?

YEG was not my intended landing point. Much cheaper gas, and no landing fee at CZVL. CZVL was 1/8 mile in fog when I was 50 miles out. I slowed up the plane to start looking at options at that point. CYZU was socked in behind me. CYEG was getting worse by the minute. CYQF was OK, but I didnt know if it would be OK by the time I got there. If the approach didnt work at CYEG, then I was going south to red deer. Draton valley and Rocky were also options as they seemed to be outside the fog bank... but not as good approaches or weather reporting....

On landing I had 220liters of fuel left. Thats easily 2 hours at high power settings.

Here is the flightaware link for the flight:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/CGKF ... /CYCQ/CZVL

[Rockie]

In my world this would be a go-around at DH if not before. Not in this world apparently which I admit I am not familiar with. If people who are familiar say this is normal and safe then who am I to argue? I would point out however that an ILS is a precision approach providing highly accurate lateral and vertical guidance to the correct touchdown spot on the runway. Unlike a non-precision approach when DH is reached the aircraft should be on the correct trajectory and maneuvering shouldn't be required. That's why the visibility limits are so low.

Being in this position in the first place though is causing the OP to do some soul searching which is a good thing. Turn it into a learning experience.

[BTD]

Does AC have specific criteria for cat I ILS approaches?

Yes. Generally half scale.

[dirtdr]

... soul searching ....

Not sure if that is the right term.

Analyzing

[dirtdr]

In case anyone is interest, here is the ATC audio of my landing. Trimmed

https://youtu.be/-EF7F_08Vx8

[mbav8r]

Does AC have specific criteria for cat I ILS approaches?

Yes. Generally half scale.

Generally half scale is not an SOP, I was asking for specific, ie; 1/3 dot loc and 1/2 dot G\S on CAT II/III.
We do have specific language, like no turns below 500' except to line up with the runway which would apply in this case. I can't find anything specific in the regs or COM that prevent a landing from this approach and I'm sorry if this offends but I don't believe for one second, Rockie et al have not landed from 1/2 scale deflection on an ILS in their career and again, I find nothing that says you must go around.
Correct me if I'm wrong!