In short, LA’s airspace was (and still is) very busy. Collectively, there were something like 18 airports crammed into a fairly small area. The last three were predominately reserved for light aircraft, though Long Beach did have some airline operation. Then, as now, LA was one of the world’s busiest areas for air traffic, especially general aviation.Īt one time in those questionably halcyon days, the LA Basin was home to four of the 10 busiest airports in America: LAX, Van Nuys, Long Beach, and Torrance. I learned to fly in the Los Angeles Basin, good news and bad news depending upon your point of view. Learn more here.įor better or worse, I had a back-course approach in my backyard when I was working on my instrument rating in the ’70s. It’s almost impossible to practice back-course approaches because you’re most often flying directly into the flow of traffic coming off the most active runway.īill Cox Book “My Sky” chronicles his lifetime of flying. The implications for instrument students should be obvious. Similarly, the prevailing ILS is typically oriented to the longest runway. Geographic and political features sometimes make that impractical, but most of the time, runways are oriented to allow pilots to benefit from some slight headwind on landing. Whenever possible (barring complaints from the neighbors under the proposed approach path), airports lay out their runways into the wind. You fly right to correct left and versa vice - totally counterintuitive to pilots who’ve been taught that you always fly into the needle.įortunately for those pilots who use the airspace regularly for business and pleasure, back-course approaches are rare, and that’s understandable. Pound that message into a pilot’s head a few thousand times during private, commercial, and instrument training and then see what happens when sensing becomes reversed.īack-course localizer approaches subject a pilot to reverse needle indications on the OBS. Even on a non-directional beacon (NDB) approach (assuming the station is still in front of the aircraft), the pilot flies the head of the needle and corrects left for left and vice versa. It’s so simple and logical to fly into the needle that pilots are nonplused at the thought of flying the needle “backwards.” In every other variety of instrument procedure, the pilot corrects into a diverging needle - needle left, correct left needle right, correct right. Still, they’re a nuisance we’re sometimes forced to deal with. There aren’t many of those procedures in use, and even when they are available, controllers are more likely to issue a circle-to-land clearance on the standard localizer/ILS. They’re the words every instrument pilot dreads: “Cleared for the back-course approach.”
0 kommentar(er)
