June 2005-
Brothers and Sisters, can we all come together for this article on peace and harmony between and betwixt our little airplane and big airplane families? Must we always have the Capulets of General Aviation at war with the Montagues of the airline world?
To take the Shakespeare analogy a little further down the airway, will it take the secret marriage of a MD-88 with a PA-28-151—a midair—to finally bring about a dialog between our two prominent aviation families and also bring peace to Verona International?
Nobody wants to see a marriage of metal against even bigger metal in the skies over small town America.
Big airliners that fly in the airports that are for the most part dominated by General Aviation Spam cans have to alter their way of doing things just a little. By the same token, there is no peace and understanding to be had between our two families if you insist on flying a 10-mile final at 65 knots when I’m trying to get 200 smelly tourists on the ground and can only slow to 140 knots before I fall out of the sky.
Okay, will the congregation please open their approach plate hymnals to Baton Rouge, La.? We can start with the 10-9 page. I picked BTR because it is mostly a General Aviation airport, it has very short runways for an airliner and it is the last place I ever had to actually fly an NDB approach for real in the weather.
You non-airline types may not know this, but an NDB approach in an airliner is a little something we call an “emergency.”
Common Sense/Common Courtesy Pilots have been arguing since the beginning of aviation history about who has the right of way over whom. Basically, aviation adopted the rules of the sea when it came to establish the rules of flight. In other words, if it works in your boat it’ll probably work in your airplane.
That is even true to a certain degree with wakes, except in the case of airports there is no way to establish a “no wake” zone. If anything, the wake behind my 767 is much more deadly in the pattern than it is in cruise.
If you want a quick review of the connection between your boat and your plane, just check out the color of their running lights (boat) and nav lights (plane). In today’s lecture, we’ll discuss, along with Elizabethan playwrights, the things that big airlines do when approaching predominately small airplane airports and some survival tips for you in your aircraft when you find yourself three and a half miles in trail on the ILS to your home airport behind a 727.
To stick for just one more moment on my “Romeo and Juliet” metaphor, let’s agree that even though we all love flying there is no need to put ourselves into a deep sleep and end up dead at the end of the day. A little common sense combined with a little common courtesy will help us all get out into the lobby and on our way home safe.
The Pattern
When we are operating in an IFR environment, none of us use a traffic pattern other than the one set up by either your friendly neighborhood controller or by the IFR rules of engagement, or standard operating procedures like procedure turns.
We in the airline world simply don’t operate much at airports where we have to shoot a non-precision approach. We also almost never operate in an area where we aren’t getting vectored somewhere. To paraphrase the great Bard himself, “Fye on non-precision approaches and non-radar environments! A pox on both of their houses!”
Except for a few places in the mountains out west, if we are a’comin to your town we’re doing it via vectors—we are just doing it at a really high rate of speed. It is this speed that you the smaller airplane driver might need to think about a little. We generally come smoking in at 250 knots until we get in the area of your home ‘drome where we are required to slow to 200 knots.
Here’s an important distinction that many pilots, including airline pilots, miss: that slowdown is only required within four nautical miles of the primary airport and only if it is in Class C or Class D airspace. (FAR part 91.117).
We can forget worrying about Class A airspace, because most airports aren’t above Flight Level 180 through Flight Level 600. Also, since most Class B airspace airports are the biggies like KSFO and KDCA we can discount those too, but remember the speed rule is for the “primary” airport in the Class B airspace. If there is a smaller General Aviation airport in that airspace that isn’t the primary we jet jocks can do 250 knots to the marker and start throwing flaps and gear out so we can land.
The point I’m trying to make here is that jets, especially airliners are always going to be faster and bigger than you. And by the way, an airliner can do 250 knots to the marker and still make the landing—I’ve done it. A safety problem? Maybe, but sometimes speed is your friend when a line of severe thunderstorms is racing you to the field.
Nowadays, you can look for the airline pilots to be at or near their final approach speed a few miles outside of the marker. New operating and safety rules for us, combined with a few unfortunate “sliding off of the end of the runway” accidents have changed the landscape a little.
Sometimes, in order to expedite traffic and keep you from getting a 200,000 pound aluminum enema, the controller will break you out and let an airliner go in front of you. This isn’t because of some huge conspiracy (that I know of, anyway), it is simply because the airliner is coming at the speed of heat and you are probably going at least a hundred knots slower and it all just works out better if you go away for a while.
So just what is our final approach speed? Figure the slowest we can safely go, especially in weather, is 140 knots.
VFR patterns? We don’t do them. When we call the field in sight at smaller airports the controller will usually clear us for the visual. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are going to do the basic 45-degree turn onto the downwind. As a matter of fact, it never means that. We’ll just schlep around and make sure we roll out about five or six miles from the runway.
We will also usually be dropping like Bush’s approval ratings. Normally, in a visual pattern we are in a hurry. We are throwing out spoilers, landing gear and when we can get the speed back enough, flaps to get down.
Combine that with the other fact that we can’t see very well from our cockpits in the direction of down, and I think you can see a conflict here. We simply don’t have the best vision out of our cockpits and when you combine that with a high workload, it can lead to danger.
It isn’t all bad news on the traffic avoidance subject, though. All airliners have TCAS onboard now, and if your transponder is transponding, the old “fish finder” ought to show you to us.
Two more quick points on the visual and we’ll move on to Act II. First, since we are descending like a legacy airline stock, this means that we are probably above you when we are ahead of you on final. Does that ring any bells? Sure: wake turbulence. It is a perfect setup for you to get slammed. You are closer to us because it is VFR and we are dropping from above you to below you.
On departure, it doesn’t make you less of a pilot to wait a few extra minutes longer than the controller wants you to in order to avoid my wake. I fly the 767 and I occasionally still ask for an extra minute and a few more miles behind that 777.
If you are ahead of us on short final, we would sure appreciate it if you shag your butt off the runway as soon as you can. Go-arounds are fun in a Piper Cub but they cost the airlines money and we don’t have any. We leave the runway as soon as we can, so please, do your after-landing critique after you get off of the active.
Tommy, Can You See Me?
From Flight Level 180 all the way to the ground we turn on every exterior light we have to help you see us. We do this in both daytime and nighttime conditions because it really helps. Admittedly, an airline has a buttload of lights. You have some too, sunshine… how about having them on so we can see you easier?
The only time I don’t have all the lights ‘a blinking is occasionally in heavy clouds on approach; I leave them off to avoid vertigo. I’ve dodged a smaller aircraft more than once in my career just because they were showing lights letting me see them in time to avoid them.
Tommy, Can You Hear Me?
Most midsized to smaller airports, like Baton Rouge, have the tower people go home for a couple of hours late at night and they close the place. This is a very good time to follow the com rules and talk on the radio—a lot.
On the airliner the pilot not flying does all the talking, but in your single-pilot surly slipper, you should be giving your position and intentions too.
We have a “green sheet” for every airport with a non-operating control tower and we follow those rules very closely because we like getting that paycheck every few weeks. You might want to review those rules as well so we’re both on the same page.
I’d hate to break out of the crap on the LOC Back Course to Runway 4L at KBTR late some night and find you, unannounced, right in front of me, going 110 knots slower, practicing night landings.
Review your basic physics—if we meet in the air, the law of inertia says I’ll win, but we’ll both actually lose.
Arrival Procedures/Departure Procedures? These are usually separated by “turbojet” and “non-turbojet” courses, speeds and altitudes—so there really isn’t a problem between us there.
My Final Soliloquy
When we airline guys fly in to an airport that is predominately populated by smaller and more numerous airplanes, the parts of our bodies that pucker begin to do just that a little more. Not because we think you are inept, or that we are way cool. The reason is that we are used to 20-mile, 180-knot finals at places like KATL and KDFW and going to a place like KBTR is different. We fear things that are different.
It is that pucker factor that keeps both you and I a little safer. Please, when you hear that my 757 is in the pattern, perk up a little and look out for me. I’ll sure as hell be looking out for you.
Kevin Garrison’s aviation career began at age 15 as a lineboy in Lakeland, Fla. He came up through general aviation and is currently a senior 767 captain. When not frightening passengers, Kevin plays tennis and lives on a horse farm in Kentucky, where he writes unsold humor projects and believes professional wrestling is real and all else is bogus.
