Unusable missed approaches

The ramblings of our community of aviators.

Moderators: Rick, Lance Murray

Post Reply
User avatar
Rich
5 Diamonds Member
5 Diamonds Member
Posts: 4592
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 12:40 pm
First Name: Rich
Aircraft Type: DA40
Aircraft Registration: N40XE
Airports: S39 Prineville OR
Has thanked: 145 times
Been thanked: 1180 times

Unusable missed approaches

Post by Rich »

Much is made of newer avionics that will "fly the missed" for you. But I have encountered quite a few approaches where the published missed is not really usable in most cases.

For a time at one airport I used to use (PAE) it was absolutely guaranteed that the tower would give you a different missed on all approaches to I6R, because they all sent you flying right back up the approach path and hold at the IAF :shock: . Totally unusable except if there was literally no one else inbound IFR. I note that all these have since been fixed, routing you off to a dedicated intersection/waypoint off to the West over Puget Sound.

My latest pet peeve is right here at Prineville and the neighboring airports of Redmond and Bend. The missed approach fix for almost all the approaches for these 3 airports is the Deschutes VOR (DSD), at identical or nearly the same altitude. Moreover, this VOR is a defining fix for a number of intersecting Victor airways and T-routes that have minimum altitudes at or below the holding altitudes. The RDM/DSD/BDN area is very busy VFR and IFR practice airspace, BTW, so when practicing approaches in the area there will almost always be ad-hoc MAP fixes involved. And on an actual busy IFR traffic day I can see ATC rolling you up in a different spot.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
Post Reply