Author Topic: Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions  (Read 8156 times)

Offline Jonathan_tcu

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Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions
« on: September 25, 2005, 01:00:55 PM »
Good day folks.  Up here in northern Ontario, from just south of Moosonee CYMO to just north of Muskoka CYQA, with all 4 freq's wide open, it's awesome to finally hear aircraft arriving/departing from CYSB (Sudbury) in their horrible IFR conditions.  This post may lead to some questions that you can help me out with.  With an ILS straight-in approach, beit backcourse or standard ILS approach, I assume the aircraft in question must be 10 nm or closer on runway centreline to be handed off to the aeorodome/tower, correct? And is the ILS altitude limit supposed to 10 000 feet or lower to intercept ILS?  

I tell yah, it's much easier monitoring frequencies where aircraft are navigating and descending in well identified radar environments.  Now with this being said, for where I live non-radar environment, can any aircraft request to approach an airway fix to fly straight-in a runway ILS without radar vectors?



Offline stealth71

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Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2005, 01:51:46 PM »
There's probably others who can offer a better answer, but I'm not sure if there is a set altitude or distance that dictates when or where an arrival is handed off. I think a lot of it has to do with the individual approach and the surrounding terrain. Looking at our ILS runway 11 approach, it looks like they intercept the ILS at about 9000 feet MSL and about 12 miles from the threshold. I'm just not too sure, but I seem to recall here at MSO that they are handed off after they cross KONNA about 10.8 miles out. Probably a haphazard answer, but like I say, probably has a lot to do with the terrain surrounding each airport.

Offline Jonathan_tcu

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Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2005, 02:07:40 PM »
You could be right.  I reviewed the local approach plates for our aerodome, and there are varied msa's here, but hasn't been updated since Nov2004.  Just wondered if approach types varied between radar ad non-radar environments for ATC instructed vectors vs fixes.  Thanks!

Offline m50

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Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2005, 02:49:30 PM »
Hi Jonathan...I was very interested to hear you mention Moosonee.I subscribe to DX Tuners which gives me the chance to remotely tune a radio reciever in Moosonee.I hear a lot of interesting traffic on a vhf freq 118.975. getting  aircraft over a wide area..sometimes as far out as Goose Bay.. They.can be heard on to Montreal Centre..getting both the atc ground station as well as the aircraft. There must be a powerfuf relay vhf station up there. I was wondering do you know anything about the set up    Cheers M50 (Dublin Ireland)

Offline Jonathan_tcu

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Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2005, 02:59:03 PM »
Ahyes,  I often hear Montreal Ctr hand off aircraft to that sector 118.97, which is over Moosonee.  The 133.97 freq splits back and fourth during the day and night to where the controller switches from 133.97 or 120.72 to 118.97 on his radio, or is considered handed off to the next controller.  I can't keep track of the specific times.  A lot of high altitude aircraft are instructed to 'proceed direct Yankee Mike Oscar encourse' and I know they're flying direct Moose.  I don't feel lonely anymore! lol

Offline davolijj

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Tower handoffs
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2005, 04:00:52 PM »
With aircraft executing ILS approaches to the airport where the approach control facility is combined with the tower, generally aircraft must be handed off (frequency change effected) by the final approach fix.  An exception would be in the case of simultaneous parallel approaches where the aircraft would need an earlier frequency change for remedial action in the event a breakout is required.  In any case these specific procedures can usually be found in a facility directive or SOP (Standard operating procedure).

Procedures governing frequency changes for aircraft conducting approaches to sattelite airports are most likely specified in an Interfacility Letter of Agreement.

In a nutshell:  most often freqency changes are effected at or prior to the aircraft crossing the final approach fix unless otherwise directed.

Offline JetScan1

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Wonderful IFR day and ILS questions
« Reply #6 on: September 26, 2005, 09:29:26 AM »
Quote
With an ILS straight-in approach, beit backcourse or standard ILS approach, I assume the aircraft in question must be 10 nm or closer on runway centreline to be handed off to the aeorodome/tower, correct?


Generally in a radar environment, with approach control, they hand you off to Tower at or approaching the final approach fix (4 to 6 miles final). Operating in a non radar environment, Center will generally switch you to the aerodrome frequency (FSS/CARS) once you have been cleared for the approach or outside of controlled airspace, this could be quite a distance from the airport (25 to 35 miles).

Quote
And is the ILS altitude limit supposed to 10 000 feet or lower to intercept ILS?


I've never heard of any published maximum altitude limit here in Canada. Normal coverage of an ILS extends to 18 nautical miles, also typical glide path installations generate a side lobe that can produce a false glide path angle at 3 times the set angle. For this reason ATC and published procedures maintain aircraft at an altitude providing a normal rate of descent and suitable position to capture the glide path (according to the A.I.P., no actual limits are given).

In my experience you will normally be given vectors to capture the glide patch between 4000 and 2000 feet, normally around 3000 feet 10 miles final. The other day going into YYZ they cleared us to intercept the localizer at around 20 miles final and the glide path from 5000 feet (~ 4500 agl).

Quote
I subscribe to DX Tuners which gives me the chance to remotely tune a radio reciever in Moosonee.I hear a lot of interesting traffic on a vhf freq 118.975. getting aircraft over a wide area..sometimes as far out as Goose Bay.. They.can be heard on to Montreal Centre..getting both the atc ground station as well as the aircraft. There must be a powerfuf relay vhf station up there. I was wondering do you know anything about the set up Cheers M50


I'm a DX Tuner as well and have listened to Montreal at Moosonee on occasion, also fly through that airspace quite a bit. From what I can tell they split the sectors up depending on the traffic volume which is primarily influenced by the position of the daily NAT tracks. When the tracks are north the Montreal Northern sectors seem to be split up into about 4 or 5 individual sectors. When traffic is light, usually around after 0200 UTC, you can hear one controller working all the northern sectors (via relay) at once. This is a huge chunk of airspace extending all the way up to Iqaluit in Baffin Island. That late you can usually hear the eastbound NAT traffic from the west coast getting their oceanic clearances and being handed off to Gander on HF.

DJ

Offline KSYR-pjr

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Re: Tower handoffs
« Reply #7 on: September 26, 2005, 06:39:08 PM »
Quote from: davolijj
With aircraft executing ILS approaches to the airport where the approach control facility is combined with the tower, generally aircraft must be handed off (frequency change effected) by the final approach fix.  


"The approach to tower handoff will always occur during the moment of highest workload for the pilot" - Murphy's IFR Law #125    ;-)

... which is typically moments before reaching the final approach fix.