How do IFR flights to non-towered airports work?

pburger said:
WHAT??!!

I've never been 'cleared for the option' when IFR. I've been asked what approach I want, but never, EVER, have I been told I'm cleared to the airport, and to just fly any approach I want. You have to be cleared for a particular approach before flying it. At least that's my experience.
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luvflyin said:
Just because it’s your experience, that don’t make it the way it it is. Don’t really mean that as harsh and personal as it sounds. It would likely be the experience of most. Most controllers will give a ‘specific’ Approach Clearance even when it’s not necessary. It’s ingrained in their experience. Often it matters which Approach is flown. But there are times and places where it doesn’t matter. If the approach course, the fix from which the Approach begins and the Missed Approach Procedure are all the same it don’t make no anyhow whether you’re RNAV’n, VOR’n, NDB’n or ILS’n as far as separation is concerned.
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LOL. I recall once being asked, "which approach do you want?" My answer, "the only one to that airport."
 
midlifeflyer said:
LOL. I recall once being asked, "which approach do you want?" My answer, "the only one to that airport."
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Hahaha. What do you bet there were a couple more that were “private” for airlines or cargo operators, like there were for all the mountain airports here long ago...

Rocky Mtn had a whole mess of unpublished approaches for multiple airports.

The controllers had to know about them, but you’d never find them in your old paper Jepps you bought as a civvy.

Poor controller probably slapped their head when they realized you couldn’t fly any of them that they knew about. :) Oops.
 
Palmpilot said:
If the controller says "cleared approach" without specifying which one, then the pilot gets to choose which one to fly. From the Pilot/Controller Glossary:

CLEARED APPROACH− ATC authorization for an
aircraft to execute any standard or special instrument
approach procedure for that airport.​
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Good stuff!! Never knew this, and certainly never heard it from ATC. I’m sure there would have been an awkward pause before I said, “uh.... which one?” Now I know!

Bob’s statement made it sound like this was the norm, hence my incredulity in my former comment. Although not the norm, it can happen!
 
pburger said:
Good stuff!! Never knew this, and certainly never heard it from ATC. I’m sure there would have been an awkward pause before I said, “uh.... which one?” Now I know!

Bob’s statement made it sound like this was the norm, hence my incredulity in my former comment. Although not the norm, it can happen!
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It doesn’t happen often because controllers are required to tell the pilot which approach to expect under “Approach Information” if two or more IAPs are published. That and usually the pilot will check in with a specific approach request anyway.
 
midlifeflyer said:
LOL. I recall once being asked, "which approach do you want?" My answer, "the only one to that airport."
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Well, ya coulda asked for a Contact Approach. Maybe he was trying to con you into that. Most likely just spitting out the usual rote phraseology though
 
luvflyin said:
Well, ya coulda asked for a Contact Approach. Maybe he was trying to con you into that. Most likely just spitting out the usual rote phraseology though
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I could also have said the visual would be fine if conditions permitted.
 
denverpilot said:
The important point in this thread for VFR only pilots is that those cloud clearance requirements for BELOW the clouds in controlled airspace on a MVFR day are there for everyone’s safety, and they’re barely adequate.

If someone IFR pops out of the clouds right in front of you, and you’re at the legal cloud distances, you and maybe they (if either one of you see each other) have seconds to react.

Cheat on those and you’re just setting yourself up for no time to react at all.

Where this usually gets pushed is in the worst possible place for it to be squeezed. In the pattern at some podunk airport. Someone wants so badly to do laps around the airport in scuds weather they rationalize away or don’t even think about the distance they are from cloud base.

They turn base and watch an IFR go screaming past their nose.

Yeah, we all hope everyone’s tuned to the correct CTAF and making calls, but sometimes the radio isn’t set right.

Give yourself at least a tiny bit of a chance of seeing the inbound as it comes screaming down out of the cloud. Don’t crowd right up against the cloud restrictions below an overcast.

The VFR cloud clearance requirements are your last defense against a whole bunch of other things going wrong. Things that can happen and can go unnoticed.
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No argument there, but IIRC the original post was asking something different and it went way beyond anything a student pilot should have to worry about. Did I miss something?
 
Velocity173 said:
It doesn’t happen often because controllers are required to tell the pilot which approach to expect under “Approach Information” if two or more IAPs are published. That and usually the pilot will check in with a specific approach request anyway.
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Yeah. I still said it a lot though. Exactly because of that. Like the pilot, who already has the Approach briefed, plugged in, the Chart out and clipped to the yoke was going to go ‘cool, he said Cleared Approach and didn’t say which one, now I can do anything I want, I got a few seconds to load and brief a different one.
 
luvflyin said:
Yeah. I still said it a lot though. Exactly because of that. Like the pilot, who already has the Approach briefed, plugged in, the Chart out and clipped to the yoke was going to go ‘cool, he said Cleared Approach and didn’t say which one, now I can do anything I want, I got a few seconds to load and brief a different one.
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Yeah I guess if it were super slow you could just say “cleared approach” on first contact. I never did it. Just too much unknown with that clearance. It can happen but not many facilities are gonna do it.
 
pburger said:
WHAT??!!

I've never been 'cleared for the option' when IFR. I've been asked what approach I want, but never, EVER, have I been told I'm cleared to the airport, and to just fly any approach I want. You have to be cleared for a particular approach before flying it. At least that's my experience.
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BTW, though it's clear you were asking about "cleared approach" or maybe a cruise clearance, just so there is no confusion among the non-IR folks, "cleared for the option" means something else. It's usually given when flying an approach into a towered airport, and means you're cleared to either execute a low approach and then the missed, or to land.
 
Velocity173 said:
Yeah I guess if it were super slow you could just say “cleared approach” on first contact. I never did it. Just too much unknown with that clearance. It can happen but not many facilities are gonna do it.
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Not often on Initial contact. But when vectoring to final, yes. When it was busy, not adding in the full name of the Approach made a difference. Helped keep the ‘rhythm’ going
 
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azure said:
I actually assumed from what you said that that is what he was getting at. Do you want the IAP, or the visual?
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I thought that too, but I thought my response was funnier than "the GPS Runway one-zero." The controller seemed to like it.
 
azure said:
BTW, though it's clear you were asking about "cleared approach" or maybe a cruise clearance, just so there is no confusion among the non-IR folks, "cleared for the option" means something else. It's usually given when flying an approach into a towered airport, and means you're cleared to either execute a low approach and then the missed, or to land.
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I was taught that there were four "options": low approach, touch and go, stop and go, and taxiback.
 
Ghery said:
No argument there, but IIRC the original post was asking something different and it went way beyond anything a student pilot should have to worry about. Did I miss something?
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Nope and no disagreement here. Just stating that the OP can learn from the thread creep.

Palmpilot said:
I was taught that there were four "options": low approach, touch and go, stop and go, and taxiback.
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You forgot full stop/terminate. That’s an “option” when cleared for the option also.
 
5 things. Full stop, low approach, touch and go, stop and go, and missed approach.
 
Palmpilot said:
I was taught that there were four "options": low approach, touch and go, stop and go, and taxiback.
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I was taught: low approach, touch and go, stop and go, and full stop. I guess full stop and taxi back are the same thing. So yes, I agree. My list wasn't intended to be exhaustive, just to point out that "cleared for the option" involved a different kind of "option" than what @pburger was discussing.
 
azure said:
BTW, though it's clear you were asking about "cleared approach" or maybe a cruise clearance, just so there is no confusion among the non-IR folks, "cleared for the option" means something else. It's usually given when flying an approach into a towered airport, and means you're cleared to either execute a low approach and then the missed, or to land.
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I know what 'cleared for the option' means. I was using that phrase tongue-in-cheek to apply to the idea that I could pick my own approach, which seemed very strange to me (at the time of my post). That's why I put it single quotes around it.
 
I'm a bit confused about the need or a list of what "cleared for the option" allows :dunno:

Sure, the Pilot/Controller Glossary says it's "ATC authorization for an aircraft to make a touch-and-go, low approach, missed approach, stop and go, or full stop landing at the discretion of the pilot."

But I can't figure out anything "normal" I would want to do on a runway not covered by one of those. I do realize I'd need specific authorization to be "cleared to crash" or continue taxiing to the end of the runway, make a 360 and takeoff in the opposite direction (or is that a form of "stop & go" :D?, but neither of those strikes me as "normal." It can't be that important to memorize or their would be an incerdibly stupid mnemonic for it.
 
Here is a pneumonic:

Please stop touching my misses low back
 
luvflyin said:
Every approach should be a pre planned Go Around. If everything is going ok, then you land or opt or whatever.
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Lol, I understand your philosophy, and agree. Though let’s be real, if I’m intending on landing, then unless the unforeseen occurs I’m gonna land.

From a safety standpoint, go around do carry a level of risk. Usually the risk outweighs that of a landing so bad (whatever reason), that it’s the acceptable risk. But let’s not kid ourselves, there is a lot that can and often does go wrong on go arounds. Yes pre planning it helps but practice is the best. Hence low approach helps atc know what you are doing ( mitigation of another risk).
 
Brian Priest said:
Lol, I understand your philosophy, and agree. Though let’s be real, if I’m intending on landing, then unless the unforeseen occurs I’m gonna land.

From a safety standpoint, go around do carry a level of risk. Usually the risk outweighs that of a landing so bad (whatever reason), that it’s the acceptable risk. But let’s not kid ourselves, there is a lot that can and often does go wrong on go arounds. Yes pre planning it helps but practice is the best. Hence low approach helps atc know what you are doing ( mitigation of another risk).
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Gotcha. Agree. Practicing them is a good thing and is probably not done as often as it should be. As far as ‘the option’ is concerned, telling the the Tower you plan on going around after requesting and being ‘cleared for the option’ is just excess verbiage. Ain’t nuthin but a low approach to them as far as their sequence is concerned. I say this as an ex controller who has cleared planes for the option hundreds, maybe thousands of times. For a CFI to say it when training rather than just saying ‘go around’ to the student kinda defeats the purpose.
 
denverpilot said:
Hahaha. What do you bet there were a couple more that were “private” for airlines or cargo operators, like there were for all the mountain airports here long ago...

Rocky Mtn had a whole mess of unpublished approaches for multiple airports.

The controllers had to know about them, but you’d never find them in your old paper Jepps you bought as a civvy.

Poor controller probably slapped their head when they realized you couldn’t fly any of them that they knew about. :) Oops.
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Did many of them also have Standard IAP’s. First time I ever saw someone ‘buying’ a Special IAP at an airport already with a Public one was when RNAV came around and the Standard one just didn’t come from the direction they usually did.
 
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luvflyin said:
Did many of them also have Standard IAP’s. First time I ever saw someone ‘buying’ a Special IAP at an airport already with a Public one was when RNAV came around and the Standard one just didn’t come from the direction they usually did.
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They were approaches to mountain airports for airliner service that didn’t exist at all for anyone else. An example of some that nobody else had the gear for was their MLS system, but they had other procedures that used other navaids.
 
denverpilot said:
They were approaches to mountain airports for airliner service that didn’t exist at all for anyone else. An example of some that nobody else had the gear for was their MLS system, but they had other procedures that used other navaids.
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Dang, that should have cost them a few bucks. They would have been buying their own ground equipment for that I assume. Don’t know much about MLS, could they use conventional airborne avionics to fly it?
 
Brian Priest said:
Lol, I understand your philosophy, and agree. Though let’s be real, if I’m intending on landing, then unless the unforeseen occurs I’m gonna land.

From a safety standpoint, go around do carry a level of risk. Usually the risk outweighs that of a landing so bad (whatever reason), that it’s the acceptable risk. But let’s not kid ourselves, there is a lot that can and often does go wrong on go arounds. Yes pre planning it helps but practice is the best. Hence low approach helps atc know what you are doing ( mitigation of another risk).
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That's an interesting perspective. In the 25+ years I've been flying, I've considered go-arounds pretty much a normal part of the landing sequence with no risk greater than any other flight maneuver. Relatively speaking, a non-event.
 
midlifeflyer said:
That's an interesting perspective. In the 25+ years I've been flying, I've considered go-arounds pretty much a normal part of the landing sequence with no risk greater than any other flight maneuver. Relatively speaking, a non-event.
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Do you show your students what happens if they retract to much flap right away?
 
luvflyin said:
Glad to hear that. I learned it the hard way
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Ouch!

It's one of those things which is actually there early in every flight training progression. Unfortunately, many CFIs see slow flight and stall entry and recovery as maneuvers we do just because the the regs and ACS require them. My primary CFI made the connection to "normal" maneuvers, particularly landing, and it stuck with me. I don't have to demonstrate it by touching back down on the runway or be anywhere near one to have a student safely demonstrate to herself what happens if we don't retract flaps incrementally. It then becomes a talking point for the go-around.
 
midlifeflyer said:
That's an interesting perspective. In the 25+ years I've been flying, I've considered go-arounds pretty much a normal part of the landing sequence with no risk greater than any other flight maneuver. Relatively speaking, a non-event.
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Should be a non event for the most part. But let’s consider some risks.

1st is the configuration change. As already been mentioned, this can cause issues if not properly done.

2nd is other aircraft, unless requesting the option, the other aircraft are expecting you to land. Suddenly seeing you haven’t can be a little alarming, especially if your not maintaining a safe course.

Leading to 3rd: missed or go around profile. Where do you go when you do imitate that go around? How are the winds affecting your ground track?

These are just some of the risks. Again often it is better to go missed than have a landing that results in damage. I’m not quite in line with the idea that a go around is always ok. Is it usually better? Yes. Without risk, no. So go arounds need to be practiced and taught correctly.

Just my opinion though
 
@Brian Priest, absolutely. I did not say there are no risks in a go-around. Just that they are no worse than most of the other risks associated with flying in general, and landing in particular.
 
luvflyin said:
Dang, that should have cost them a few bucks. They would have been buying their own ground equipment for that I assume. Don’t know much about MLS, could they use conventional airborne avionics to fly it?
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They had to buy all of it. Was probably well after the twin otter days so they probably only ever installed them in the Dash 7s. I could ask some old timers if I remember.
 
midlifeflyer said:
That's an interesting perspective. In the 25+ years I've been flying, I've considered go-arounds pretty much a normal part of the landing sequence with no risk greater than any other flight maneuver. Relatively speaking, a non-event.
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Yes. If not practiced regularly, I can see how a go-around could be a fairly risky procedure, particularly when you really have to because of some unexpected, attention-grabbing event (e.g. deer on the runway). But that is why we practice them, so that the sequence of actions becomes second nature. During my primary training, my CFI said "go around" well over 50% of the time.
 
midlifeflyer said:
@Brian Priest, absolutely. I did not say there are no risks in a go-around. Just that they are no worse than most of the other risks associated with flying in general, and landing in particular.
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You are absolutely correct of course. I didn’t mean to sound like I’m arguing. And yes landing has its own set of risks. Interesting that’s also true for takeoff. Less accidents on takeoff, but when they occurs more catastrophic.

In general I’m coming from the view of airline operations. It’s extremely rare to do go arounds in the real world. Many times I’ve only done them in the recurrent sims. Honestly though, I’m real world I’ve never seen a missed or go around excecuted perfectly. That includes call outs, configuration and of course getting turned the correct direction. I’ve seen all get botched at one time or another. So it can be risky. The six Ps come to mind though
 
midlifeflyer said:
Ouch!

It's one of those things which is actually there early in every flight training progression. Unfortunately, many CFIs see slow flight and stall entry and recovery as maneuvers we do just because the the regs and ACS require them. My primary CFI made the connection to "normal" maneuvers, particularly landing, and it stuck with me. I don't have to demonstrate it by touching back down on the runway or be anywhere near one to have a student safely demonstrate to herself what happens if we don't retract flaps incrementally. It then becomes a talking point for the go-around.
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Wasn’t an ouch, didn’t touch down but I was wondering for a few seconds.
 
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