Page 44 - Volume 20 Number 9

PERSPECTIVES
By Kevin R. Dingman
Hold That Thought
When you can’t land – Teardrop, Direct or Parallel
fix with a published pattern, then to a published fix with a follow-on description of the desired pattern at the fix. Very seldom is the pattern defined using an antique and inaccurate reference such as a VOR, NDB, marker beacon or Grandma Mollie’s clothes-line pole.
Sorry, but you have to memorize four components to get the holding problem right: speed, direction of turns in the hold, entry procedures, and timing (or leg lengths). In the U.S., the maximum speeds (you can hold slower if you want) are: 200 kts below 6k, 230 kts 6,001 to 14,000 and 265 kts from 14,001 and up. Timing is one minute inbound below 14k, and 1-1/2 minutes above 14k. If not issued a holding leg length they expect you to use time. I will always ask for a distance instead of a time because it’s easier. And be- cause holding isn’t confusing enough already, ICAO (Mexico uses ICAO), Canada, and military holding speeds are different from each other and the U.S. So, look them up before you leave the country and put a sticky note on your forehead. The big thing that will help with holding is to re- member there is a “protected” side which is on the holding side of the
Air Force instrument training was old-school: manual systems, old avionics and an all-in-one HSI/RMI. The entry position at my airline was as a Flight Engineer on the B-727. In those days, new-hire hazing – I mean, training--was administered by old- school flight engineers in an aircraft with exclusively antique systems and avionics. While the teaching etiquette of the MD-80 instructors was more politically correct, the focus remained on antique avionics. The need for an understanding, or at least an appreciation, of those antique navigational instruments is now fading away, but it’s not gone yet. We were recently given an old- school clearance from ATC and some of that old-school knowledge proved useful.
Snow plowing, extreme weather and incidents such as a blown tire or a VIP event are the most common reasons for a short-notice airport closure. But, I’ve also encountered unusual reasons like earthquakes, forest fires and social unrest. Closures due to extreme weather are not only common, but happen every day. ATC knows that we don’t like to hold (and we’re sometimes not very good at it) and it’s more work for them to construct multiple patterns, so they normally issue speed assignments and radar vectors to avoid holding. But, inevitably, a few aircraft will need to hold for a closure. During our arrival into RDU, a T-storm overhead closed the field. The rain shower and resultant low visibility were not necessarily a show stopper, but the announcement of microbursts was. We have corporate guidance relative to windshear and
42 • TWIN & TURBINE
microbursts at my carrier. At the captain’s discretion, windshear is a “proceed with caution” event, if the report is not referenced to the landing runway. A microburst alert at any location on the field requires an immediate go-around, hold or a diversion to an alternate.
Straight out of a simulator exercise
The holding clearance we received was old-school: Hold east, on the RDU 095 degree radial, 35 mile fix, left turns, ten mile legs, EFC 2140. The approach controller had used his picture of the weather and our location to build a pattern outside of the rain showers – he was doing us a favor and he got it right. But, the clearance to make this happen was straight out of a simulator exercise. Nowadays, holding is almost exclusively issued at a published fix that has a published holding pattern. “Cleared direct to OCRAP, hold as published, EFC 2140.” If not to a
SEPTEMBER 2016