Does ATC care how you enter a hold?

If you're flying with automation in the flight levels, the only time I've heard of ATC yelling at people is if your airplane is in 1/2 bank mode.... you'll end up way less than standard rate and that'll totally botch the entry. Also, completely blowing passed the holding fix because you "can't find" the published hold on the STAR. Happened to a crew at my previous airline, so make sure you can find your published holds!
 
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Matt James said:
If you're flying with automation in the flight levels, the only time I've heard of ATC yelling at people is if your airplane is in 1/2 bank mode.... you'll end up way less than standard rate and that'll totally botch the entry. Also, completely blowing passed the holding fix because you "can't find" the published hold on the STAR. Happened to a crew at my previous airline, so make sure you can find your published holds!
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If you can't find a charted hold, you are in the wrong business.
 
Maybe it's luck of the draw for me but in about a year and half of conducting practical tests, and God only knows how many instrument checkrides, I have yet to see an applicant fly a "homebrewed" hold entry or attempt to explain a nonstandard hold entry method.

The ACS does not require the demonstration of the FAA-recommended hold entries, but my question would be "why wouldn't you?" It's the simplest and most efficient way to enter the hold. And Task B's singular knowledge element (IR.III.B.K1) states: "The applicant demonstrates understanding of: Elements related to holding procedures, including reporting criteria, appropriate speeds, and recommended entry procedures for standard, nonstandard, published, and nonpublished holding patterns." So at the very least, the applicant must have an understanding of how these entries are supposed to be flown.

Skill element IR.III.B.S1 gives considerable leeway in the flight portion of the practical test, however. "Explain and use an entry procedure that ensures the airplane remains within the holding pattern airspace for a standard, nonstandard, published, or non-published holding pattern."

So insofar as the practical test flight portion is concerned, "remain within the holding pattern airspace."
 
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aterpster said:
Does that negate the requirement to do the proper entry? :rolleyes:
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Well, according to the FAA guys that sit on the jumpseat and regularly see it happen, yes. So you can direct your eye-rolling toward them, and the FAA-approved training that has line pilots follow that FMS-generated entry.
 
Ryan F. said:
The ACS does not require the demonstration of the FAA-recommended hold entries, but my question would be "why wouldn't you?"
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I would also wonder what the maximum airspeed and tailwind component their non-standard entry can handle. And which of the 31 pattern templates they're basing it on. :)
 
Ryan F. said:
Maybe it's luck of the draw for me but in about a year and half of conducting practical tests, and God only knows how many instrument checkrides, I have yet to see an applicant fly a "homebrewed" hold entry or attempt to explain a nonstandard hold entry method.

The ACS does not require the demonstration of the FAA-recommended hold entries, but my question would be "why wouldn't you?" It's the simplest and most efficient way to enter the hold. And Task B's singular knowledge element (IR.III.B.K1) states: "The applicant demonstrates understanding of: Elements related to holding procedures, including reporting criteria, appropriate speeds, and recommended entry procedures for standard, nonstandard, published, and nonpublished holding patterns." So at the very least, the applicant must have an understanding of how these entries are supposed to be flown.

Skill element IR.III.B.S1 gives considerable leeway in the flight portion of the practical test, however. "Explain and use an entry procedure that ensures the airplane remains within the holding pattern airspace for a standard, nonstandard, published, or non-published holding pattern."

So insofar as the practical test flight portion is concerned, "remain within the holding pattern airspace."
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It's easy enough to do the standard entries so long as one is not anal about them.

I guess a question might be what one considers a "home brew." I suspect there aren't folks (intentionally) making things up on the fly, but I have heard of flight schools which teach only two of the AIM entries, foregoing either parallel or teardrop, I forget which. I suspect schools which do that have experience with the DPEs they recommend,
 
Ryan F. said:
Maybe it's luck of the draw for me but in about a year and half of conducting practical tests, and God only knows how many instrument checkrides, I have yet to see an applicant fly a "homebrewed" hold entry or attempt to explain a nonstandard hold entry method.

The ACS does not require the demonstration of the FAA-recommended hold entries, but my question would be "why wouldn't you?" It's the simplest and most efficient way to enter the hold. And Task B's singular knowledge element (IR.III.B.K1) states: "The applicant demonstrates understanding of: Elements related to holding procedures, including reporting criteria, appropriate speeds, and recommended entry procedures for standard, nonstandard, published, and nonpublished holding patterns." So at the very least, the applicant must have an understanding of how these entries are supposed to be flown.

Skill element IR.III.B.S1 gives considerable leeway in the flight portion of the practical test, however. "Explain and use an entry procedure that ensures the airplane remains within the holding pattern airspace for a standard, nonstandard, published, or non-published holding pattern."

So insofar as the practical test flight portion is concerned, "remain within the holding pattern airspace."
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Most instrument applicants (barring those who are actually taught only two, as @midlifeflyer indicated) aren’t going to be brave enough to make that argument.

I was probably 20 checkrides into my a flying career before I actually got in an argument with a check airman over it. But by the time we got to that, I was so frustrated by his training/checking event that I didn’t really care how it turned out.
 
Hacker said:
Well, according to the FAA guys that sit on the jumpseat and regularly see it happen, yes. So you can direct your eye-rolling toward them, and the FAA-approved training that has line pilots follow that FMS-generated entry.
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I'd be more interested in what your training department has to say. They understand the situation; the friendly on the jumpseat may not.
 
I'm really curious about this. Anybody here been a DPE and had someone intentionally do a nonstandard entry? I wonder what they actually do.

I've only seen or heard about four nonstandard entries: disregarding parallel, disregarding teardrop, disregarding he 70°/20° line, fudging the boundaries between entries, and "turn outbound the shortest number of degrees." Except, I guess, for the last one where, just looking at it, one can see a potential issue depending on the approach to the holding fix, I'm not sure where the protected airspace (large vs small) issue is at normal holding speeds.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I'm really curious about this. Anybody here been a DPE and had someone intentionally do a nonstandard entry? I wonder what they actually do.

I've only seen or heard about four nonstandard entries: disregarding parallel, disregarding teardrop, disregarding he 70°/20° line, fudging the boundaries between entries, and "turn outbound the shortest number of degrees." Except, I guess, for the last one where, just looking at it, one can see a potential issue depending on the approach to the holding fix, I'm not sure where the protected airspace (large vs small) issue is at normal holding speeds.
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Ive been on the applicant side of that, but most of the applicants I deal with would cry foul if I made them do an entry without the FMS figuring it out, and our FMSs follow the guidelines pretty well.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Ive been on the applicant side of that, but most of the applicants I deal with would cry foul if I made them do an entry without the FMS figuring it out, and our FMSs follow the guidelines pretty well.
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Sure. Even in the light GA world, when it comes to published holds, or even unpublished holds with the latest from Garmin and Avidyne, it's a no-brainier. It paints the hold and prompts the AIM-standard entry.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Anybody here been a DPE and had someone intentionally do a nonstandard entry?
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I had no anarchists when I was a DPE. If I had, I'd have given them a pink slip because the PTS said:

"Uses an FAA recommended entry procedure and holding pattern for a standard, non-standard, etc., etc..."​

To this day the AIM says this about entry standards:

"Pilot Action. The following actions are recommended to ensure that the aircraft remains within holding protected airspace when holding is performed using either conventional NAVAID guidance or when using RNAV lateral guidance.
...
(d) Determine entry turn from aircraft heading upon arrival at the holding fix; +/- 5 degrees in heading is considered to be within allowable good operating limits for determining entry. When using RNAV lateral guidance for holding, it is permissible to allow the system to compute the holding entry."​

Anybody serious about "good operating" can learn how to meet the +/- 5 degree tolerance in about five minutes if sufficiently motivated, say by a checkride and loss of employment, to learn the trick. I don't remember anybody having problems.
 
Is there an ifr gps that doesn't give entry guidance? If my gps is broken, I'm not holding.
 
Matt James said:
If you're flying with automation in the flight levels, the only time I've heard of ATC yelling at people is if your airplane is in 1/2 bank mode.... you'll end up way less than standard rate and that'll totally botch the entry. Also, completely blowing passed the holding fix because you "can't find" the published hold on the STAR. Happened to a crew at my previous airline, so make sure you can find your published holds!
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aterpster said:
If you can't find a charted hold, you are in the wrong business.
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I imagine they meant couldn't find it in the FMS. The 1990s-era FMS I have experience with can only store one hold per waypoint. If there is more than one, and the one stored is the wrong one, you can (have to) program it in yourself.
 
midlifeflyer said:
I'm really curious about this. Anybody here been a DPE and had someone intentionally do a nonstandard entry? I wonder what they actually do.

I've only seen or heard about four nonstandard entries: disregarding parallel, disregarding teardrop, disregarding he 70°/20° line, fudging the boundaries between entries, and "turn outbound the shortest number of degrees." Except, I guess, for the last one where, just looking at it, one can see a potential issue depending on the approach to the holding fix, I'm not sure where the protected airspace (large vs small) issue is at normal holding speeds.
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No, and in my experience most of these kinds of issues only make themselves known on message boards. In the real world, they rarely if ever come up. There are any number of "nuanced" subjects like these which seem to take on a virtual life of their own.
 
Ryan F. said:
No, and in my experience most of these kinds of issues only make themselves known on message boards. In the real world, they rarely if ever come up. There are any number of "nuanced" subjects like these which seem to take on a virtual life of their own.
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Kind of what I expected. The conversation often involves someone who pictures something like flying 45 miles away to make a reverse inverse rolling entry rather than something which is so obviously in protected airspace as to be inconsequential.
 
gbanker said:
For example , if you enter a hold via a teardrop when you were supposed to do a parallel entry will you get yelled at?
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You could. It shouldn't happen, but it does. Some controllers don't have a clue about entry procedures.
 
dtuuri said:
I had no anarchists when I was a DPE. If I had, I'd have given them a pink slip because the PTS said:

"Uses an FAA recommended entry procedure and holding pattern for a standard, non-standard, etc., etc..."​

To this day the AIM says this about entry standards:

"Pilot Action. The following actions are recommended to ensure that the aircraft remains within holding protected airspace when holding is performed using either conventional NAVAID guidance or when using RNAV lateral guidance.
...
(d) Determine entry turn from aircraft heading upon arrival at the holding fix; +/- 5 degrees in heading is considered to be within allowable good operating limits for determining entry. When using RNAV lateral guidance for holding, it is permissible to allow the system to compute the holding entry."​

Anybody serious about "good operating" can learn how to meet the +/- 5 degree tolerance in about five minutes if sufficiently motivated, say by a checkride and loss of employment, to learn the trick. I don't remember anybody having problems.
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I have no problem figuring out which entry the FAA recommends. I’m just fundamentally opposed to flying a parallel entry when something else will easily keep me in protected airspace.
 
I think of the parallel entry as a teardrop in reverse, except you do need to make sure you intercept the inbound course by the time you get back to the holding fix. I don't see why all the angst about it.
 
Palmpilot said:
I think of the parallel entry as a teardrop in reverse, except you do need to make sure you intercept the inbound course by the time you get back to the holding fix. I don't see why all the angst about it.
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It’s also perfectly acceptable to track directly to the fix rather than intercepting the course before you get there. From the AIM:
  1. Parallel Procedure. When approaching the holding fix from anywhere in sector (a), the parallel entry procedure would be to turn to a heading to parallel the holding course outbound on the nonholding side for one minute, turn in the direction of the holding pattern through more than 180 degrees, and return to the holding fix or intercept the holding course inbound.
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dmspilot said:
I imagine they meant couldn't find it in the FMS. The 1990s-era FMS I have experience with can only store one hold per waypoint. If there is more than one, and the one stored is the wrong one, you can (have to) program it in yourself.
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Believe it or not they couldn’t find the course on the chart. On the Jepp plates the published hold on the STAR wasn’t on the STAR TRACK. The published hold was tucked up in the corner, and I guess the crew had a high workload and ended up flying right over the holding Fix and kept trucking along looking for the published procedure.
 
MauleSkinner said:
It’s also perfectly acceptable to track directly to the fix rather than intercepting the course before you get there. From the AIM:
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When I wrote "by" the time you get back to the holding fix, I meant "at or before" it. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
 
Palmpilot said:
I think of the parallel entry as a teardrop in reverse, except you do need to make sure you intercept the inbound course by the time you get back to the holding fix. I don't see why all the angst about it.
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I think the "angst" (such as it is) is over two things. One is the opposite direction turn. If you know people who have problems knowing their left from their right, you understand. All turns in the same direction is just simpler.

The other is that a standard rate turn with no wind puts you at or pretty close to the fix. Yes you can roll out at the fix but some folks prefer to be sure to intercept and be directionally stabilized on the segment well before that point and not be concerned about the effect of mistiming outbound or even a small tailwind inbound.
 
MauleSkinner said:
What if the hold is charted on an instrument procedure at a nearby airport that’s not part of your flight?
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That's not a charted hold for you if it is not your destination or alternate airport.
 
aterpster said:
Individual controllers are often wrong. What are the particulars?
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It’s been a while, but it was something to the effect of being issued a “hold as published” at a fix on our approach, but the hold for that fix was published on the approach to a nearby airport.
 
aterpster said:
I'd be more interested in what your training department has to say. They understand the situation; the friendly on the jumpseat may not.
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You mean the FAA guys who are type-rated in the aircraft and are the FAA liaisons to the company training department? Yeah, I think they understand the situation okay.
 
aterpster said:
Individual controllers are often wrong. What are the particulars?
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Real events like it have periodically come up in discussions here and elsewhere. As I recall, it takes two forms One is, you are enroute and told to proceed to some fix and hold as published. Problem is there's no published hold on the enroute chart. It's on one of the approach charts for a nearby airport. The other is, it is on a different approach chart that the one you are using.

There are other variations. Not being assigned a SID, but instructed to fly to a waypoint on the SID which is not on the enroute chart is a bit simpler but still an annoyance.
 
dtuuri said:
Therein lies the seed of your anarchy and need to whittle on holding patterns:

"I am drawn, married or perhaps addicted to the things that allow me to coax wood into new shapes."
​
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That, and my aversion to projectile vomit.
 
Hacker said:
You mean the FAA guys who are type-rated in the aircraft and are the FAA liaisons to the company training department? Yeah, I think they understand the situation okay.
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I agree. That wasn't stated previously. I had feds on the jump seat that were assigned to other carriers and not typed on the airplane I was flying.
 
Ravioli said:
The only one who cares about what entry you use is the DPE on your checkride. After that, do what works.

[Note: or so I've been told]
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Actually, DPE's usually don't care as long as you remain on the protected side.
 
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