Five Mile Final

[Guest pelorus32]

I'm with you on this Nev, a good summary.

 

As far as I'm concerned the 5 miles is a minimum. What I tend to do is to measure 5 miles on the WAC and then identify a ground feature in the vicinity that I will use both for rough alignment and for a distance gauge. It might be a road, a river, an irrigation channel, a small settlement, a hill etc. Then I just make the call when approaching that feature. Marking the chart can/should be done prior to departure.

 

Similarly when inbound from the training area at Shepparton the major irrigation channel is 5 miles out - you just make your inbound call crossing the channel.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest brentc]

I find it extremely difficult to align with the runway at 5 miles by sight. I have 20/20 vision and even with many hours from the local field, unless there's a landmark it's almost impossible to line up with it unless you have carefully followed the outbound track on a previous occasion.

 

What I do nowdays if I feel like being anal is to dial up the runway radial on the Garmin 296 and use the VOR intercept screen to align myself down the centreline. If I was in a bad weather situation for some reason and had to rely on an approach path I would probably do a variation of this to ensure that I am aligned and to give myself the best chance I can.

 

 

[Yenn]

You seem to have missed my point about judging distance. How can you have a distance out to be when turning base? in my opinion it has to be by judgement. The distance will vary with wind and even temperature and I know I cannot put a mileage on it and then go out and achieve that within 10% or even worse.

 

The judgement of 5 miles for a straight in final is a lot easier. You have most likely been on a similar heading for some time and will have an idea of ground speed so it becomes a time out question.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

G'day Ian,

 

I think you and I are in furious agreement. A distance out - by measure - is irrelevant for any of the positions in a standard circuit. I'm only interested in distance out when I'm on a five mile final.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Dieselten]

I've done a few 5-mile straight-in approaches in the microlight when on cross-country exercises and the heading of the duty runway was within 30 degrees of my approaching course. Followed all the required radio procedures etc.

 

Apart from making an interesting exercise in managing rate-of-descent and altitude against distance, they take forever. Interesting exercise though. I flew constant rate-of-descent to the runway, which was very satisfying but did require me to be juggling power somewhat whilst maintaining safety-speed throughout. I vividly recall one onto runway 35R at Benalla (from Mansfield) when I overflew a silver Toyota Landcruiser travelling along the road just outside the boundary fence, mere seconds before touchdown. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see the look on the driver's face!

 

 

[trevorp]

From reading AUF publications, Quite right with comment "great learning source, as im a none flyer." and the atc forums i read etc, i'd be with a the good airmanship ways for inless it was a private airstrip, or if you hold a un-res ppl, or a emergency, considering all the things i can think off that could be unsafe on performing straight in approach as rec flyer why would you bother. How's this, just the other day i read how a rec flyer tko from a country airport doing all right calls encounters front on a c182 charter operator on final to land, and then mentioned " something i did not know " how by not making radio call and airport operator not there , no landing $. I could also understand there times you could if instructed or given oppurtunty to by aircaft/s in area[as then you know field ok] as stated in casa's new rules ,'pending' why not,especialy on long flight ,detorating weather, and the cost's. That's why i think it's a rule option,for the rpt. And one thing i have learnt from watching aircraft in the air, a turning aircraft is easy to see than one that does'nt, cheers, TP