IFR Departures and Arrivals: Tips, Tricks, and Avoiding Common Errors

1. IFR Departures and Arrivals: • Tips, Tricks, and Avoiding Common Errors

2. IFR DEPARTURES AND ARRIVALS: TIPS, TRICKS, AND AVOIDING COMMON ERRORS

3. Advantages And Disadvantages of Obtaining Your Instrument Clearance In The Air After Departing VFR.

4. Departure Procedure Climb Gradient And Calculating Your Rate Of Climb

5. Alternate Filing With A WAAS Certified GPS

6. What Weather Forecasts Should I Use For My Destination And Alternate?

7. should i declare minimum fuel if i have an alternate?

8. what is a descend via clearance

9. star standard terminal arrival procedures: altitudes explained

10. Can I Use My GPS When An Arrival Requires DME?

11. IFR DEPARTURE AND ARRIVAL PROCEDURES : TIPS, TRICKS, AND AVOIDING COMMON ERRORS

12. Advantages And Disadvantages of Obtaining Your Instrument Clearance In The Air After Departing VFR.

13. Advantages of obtaining Your clearance in the air • Saves time. • No waiting for a release. • More efficient use of the airspace.

14. release time • ATC uses an IFR release time in conjunction with traffic management procedures to separate departing aircraft from other traffic. • A release time is a departure restriction issued to a pilot by ATC, specifying the earliest and latest time an aircraft may depart.

15. release time • Once an aircraft is airborne and radar identified the following aircraft may be released for departure. • Must meet the approved radar separation (3 miles laterally or 1,000 feet vertically) when the second aircraft comes airborne.

16. DisAdvantage of obtaining Your clearance in the air • Flying out of busy airspace you may wait a long time before obtaining your clearance. • Risk encountering instrument conditions before obtaining your clearance.

17. DisAdvantage of obtaining Your clearance in the air • If you depart VFR and EDCT times are being issued you may run out of fuel before receiving a clearance. • EDCT = Expect Departure Clearance Time.

18. Expect Departure Clearance Time During Ground Delay Programs into busy airports all aircraft are impacted even General Aviation aircraft. EDCT - is a 10 minute window, and aircraft are required to depart within 5 minutes before or after their assigned EDCT.

19. Expect Departure Clearance Time You might be returning to the airport if you depart VFR and EDCT times are issued.

20. Departure Procedure Climb Gradient And Calculating Your Rate Of Climb

21. It is always important to determine if you can climb above all obstacles in your departure path. • Climbing in Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) • Night VFR or IMC

22. Two types of Departure Procedures (DP) • Obstacle Departure Procedures (ODP) • Standard Instrument Departures (SID)

23. Departure Design Criteria • Two standards currently exist for designing departure procedures with the OLD design pictured here.

24. Departure Design Criteria • Two standards currently exist for designing departure procedures with the NEW design pictured here.

25. Old New

26. You will not know which design criteria is used. • In both cases obstacle clearance is based on the assumption that the aircraft will cross the departure end of the runway at 35 feet. • Make no turns until 400 feet above the departure end of the runway. and climb at 200 feet per nautical.

27. When obstacles penetrate the Obstacle Clearance Surface (OCS) a higher climb gradient is required. • Think of the obstacle clearance surface as the ground since this is the slope where the top of obstructions may be present.

28. In designated non-mountainous areas the climb gradient will typically give you one thousand feet of obstacle clearance at 25 nautical miles from the departure end of the runway. • In mountainous areas the obstacle clearance of two thousand feet will typically be obtained at 46 nautical miles from the departure end of the runway.

29. Both the old and new departure criteria will normally allow for Positive Course Guidance(PCG) within 10NM (Nautical Miles) for straight out departures • Within 5NM for those departures requiring a turn. • Both criteria have a Required Obstacle Clearance (ROC) which is the distance between the required climb gradient and the Obstacle Clearance Surface (OCS).

30. Calculating Rate Of Climb Required • As general aviation pilots we must do the analysis on our own by referencing the Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) to determine the rate of climb and ground speed for the current conditions.

31. To make our calculations easier there is a rate of climb table in the terminal procedures publication. • The table normally begins with the standard climb gradient of 200 feet per nautical mile. • Cross reference your ground speed and the required climb gradient and you will get the minimum required rate of climb.

32. climb gradient manual calculation • Take your ground speed in nautical miles per hour. • Divide by 60 minutes per hour. • Multiply by the required climb gradient in feet per nautical mile. • The result will be the required rate of climb in feet per minute.

33. Departing Peter O. Knight Airport runway 18. • Non-standard takeoff minimums apply due to obstacles. • Let’s assume the weather is 200 foot ceiling and one mile visibility. • Since we cannot climb in visual conditions and the ceiling is less than 300 feet we will need to climb at 255 feet per nautical mile.

34. After reviewing the aircraft flight manual we determine our rate of climb for today’s conditions is 850 feet per minute. • Next we determine our ground speed is 70 knots. • Referencing the climb gradient table we will need to interpolate. • Notice the largest number we must interpolate between is 400 feet per minute. This is well under our ability to climb at 850 feet per minute and therefore we can safely depart.

35. If we wanted to calculate a more exact figure • Take the required 255 feet per nautical mile and our ground speed of 70 knots and plug it into our formula: • 70 nautical miles per hour divided by 60 minutes • Result 1.167 KTS per minute. • 1.167 KTS per minute times 255 feet per nautical mile. • Result is 298 feet per minute required rate of climb. • Well under our 850 feet per minute rate of climb.

36. Alternate Filing With A WAAS Certified GPS

37. Since the advent of WAAS the rules and acceptable use of the panel mounted WAAS certified GPS has been constantly evolving. The panel mounted WAAS certified GPS allows us to file an IFR flight plan with an alternate airport with only a GPS approach, provided you comply with the defined requirements for filing an alternate.

38. Weather at your destination is forecast to be 200 feet overcast and 2 miles visibility. Our aircraft has a panel mounted TSO-145c WAAS certified GPS, no DME, and no ADF.

39. Per 91.169 the weather forecast requires an alternate because the ceiling is forecast to be less than 2000 feet. We look for an alternate and decide to use an airport with one GPS approach and the weather forecast of 1000 feet and 2 miles visibility.

40. Reference AIM 1-1-20The RNAV approach in our example is authorized as an alternate. We may file the airport with only a GPS approach as an alternate provided the weather minimums meet the non precision alternate minimums of not less than a ceiling of 800 feet and visibility of 2 miles.

41. Lets plan an IFR flight from KORL to KLAL in an aircraft with a WAAS certified GPS, no ADF and no DME. The weather forecast for KLAL is ceiling 200 overcast with 1 mile visibility. We decide to use KTPF as our alternate because the weather forecast is 1000 overcast and 2 miles visibility. Since KTPF has a GPS approach and we have a WAAS GPS, we can use the alternate minimums of 800 foot ceiling and 2 miles visibility.

42. Instead of filing the alternate in Example 1 we decide to use KBOW as our alternate. Lets assume the weather at KBOW is forecast to be ceiling 800 and 2 miles visibility.

43. This is one case where we can file KBOW only if we have a WAAS GPS since if you look at the alternate minimums only the GPS approaches have minimums defined and the VOR Approach is not authorized as an alternate.

44. Using the same flight as above we decide to use KGIF as our alternate. Weather at KGIF Is forecast ceiling 800 visibility 2 miles. Again we can use this as an alternate because we have a WAAS GPS.If we did have a VOR and DME in the aircraft we could have used KGIF as an alternate if our GPS was inoperative, but since we don’t have DME we can only file as an alternate based on the published GPS approaches.

45. What Weather Forecasts Should I Use For My Destination And Alternate?

46. A review of the requirements for both weather reporting and when we should file an alternate.

47. As pilot in command for a flight under instrument flight rules we must become familiar with all available information concerning our flight which includes weather reports and forecasts (FAR 91.103 Preflight Action). While preparing for our flight all available information should include both commercial and government publications including TV weather forecasts.

48. destination weather • Larger airports normally have terminal aerodrome forecasts (TAF). • The TAF is a report established to include a five statute mile radius around an airport. • TAFs are issued by National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFO) four times a day, every six hours beginning at 0000 UTC and are valid for a specified period, normally 24 hours.

49. destination weather • If a TAF is unavailable for your destination you will need to use the aviation area forecast (FA). • The FA gives a forecast over a large area encompassing several states • Used as forecast data at smaller airports that do not have terminal forecasts. • Area forecasts are issued three times a day and are valid for 18 hours.

50. destination weather