IR checkride -unpublished holds

luvflyin said:
Do you know why unpublished DME Arcs aren’t allowed during a checkride. I can’t think of a reason to bar them. Is there some history behind it?
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I don't know the official reason, sorry.
 
luvflyin said:
Do you know why unpublished DME Arcs aren’t allowed during a checkride. I can’t think of a reason to bar them. Is there some history behind it?
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My guess would be this - has anyone ever received, in the last (10? 20?) years, an ATC-directed unpublished arc?

I'd be curious to look in the 7110.65 and see if it's even an option for controllers anymore.
 
RussR said:
My guess would be this - has anyone ever received, in the last (10? 20?) years, an ATC-directed unpublished arc?

I'd be curious to look in the 7110.65 and see if it's even an option for controllers anymore.
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I was instructed to intercept a DME arc going into Grand Cayman 6 1/2 years ago. :)
 
RussR said:
My guess would be this - has anyone ever received, in the last (10? 20?) years, an ATC-directed unpublished arc?

I'd be curious to look in the 7110.65 and see if it's even an option for controllers anymore.
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I’ve looked. There is nothing that says don’t do it. There’s nothing that says only do it if published. That ATC doesn’t often do it doesn’t seem like a reason not to demonstrate the ability to fly an arc because there are still published ones out there and ya may get one. ATC whipping out an unpublished hold is pretty darn rare to.
 
luvflyin said:
I’ve looked. There is nothing that says don’t do it. There’s nothing that says only do it if published. That ATC doesn’t often do it doesn’t seem like a reason not to demonstrate the ability to fly an arc because there are still published ones out there and ya may get one. ATC whipping out an unpublished hold is pretty darn rare to.
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It's subjective, perhaps, but I wouldn't say it's "pretty darned rare" for a non-published hold to be assigned by ATC. Holds aren't exactly common to begin with for GA aircraft which aren't on arrivals to terminal airspace surrounding major US airports. Out of the random hold or two I receive per year from ATC in a work capacity I'd say it's maybe half-and-half for "hold as published" vs. non-published. I received a non-published holding instruction in my Twin Comanche two years ago returning on what was supposed to be a short flight from Atlantic City back to northern Jersey. I've never considered this to be an unusual event, though I've never attempted to mentally track the frequency of one vs. the other... probably because there's no significance to that information to my eye. So it's just a rough approximation from memory.

DME arcs, on the other hand, are legitimately rare at this point in the NAS. RussR's guess is a good one, but here's mine -- I think the ACS note has less to do with "barring" anyone from doing anything, rather than providing flexibility to evaluators during airman certification activities. It also allows the NAS to dictate how often this task must be demonstrated. Live in an area with approaches serviced by a DME arc? Maybe it would be appropriate for your evaluator to request demonstration of that skill. Live in an area without any available? Perhaps not.

Over time as the VORs are reduced, DME arcs will become even less frequently used. So perhaps the ACS is just allowing the requirement to demonstrate this skill to "gracefully degrade" just like the VOR network.
 
The best thing you can do is draw the hold. You might find the "unpublish hold" on a different approach, SIR/STAR, or low en route charts.
 
Ryan F. said:
It's subjective, perhaps, but I wouldn't say it's "pretty darned rare" for a non-published hold to be assigned by ATC. Holds aren't exactly common to begin with for GA aircraft which aren't on arrivals to terminal airspace surrounding major US airports. Out of the random hold or two I receive per year from ATC in a work capacity I'd say it's maybe half-and-half for "hold as published" vs. non-published.
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As a light GA weekend warrior I have received exactly two ATC-assigned holds in 28 years. One was on my instrument checkride (my examiner had nothing to do with it). The other was 15 years ago. Neither was published.
 
I was assigned an unpublished hold on my first real flight into solid IMC. Last summer I was given 3 in one flight. I guess it depends on what type of flying you do.
 
Whatever happened to the principle that an applicant should be able to utilize all the installed equipment? If you have DME in your airplane, what kind of ethic says you shouldn't know how to use it? Honestly, what's this world coming to? Sheesh. :rolleyes:
 
Not being tested on ability to fly an unpublished DME arc does not equal the inability to do it, or use DME at all.

By the same token, shouldn't applicants be tested on ability to fly LOC BC approaches? Those are getting pretty rare too.
 
RussR said:
Not being tested on ability to fly an unpublished DME arc does not equal the inability to do it, or use DME at all.
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Then why test at all? You could say that about everything.
RussR said:
By the same token, shouldn't applicants be tested on ability to fly LOC BC approaches? Those are getting pretty rare too.
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If there's an LOM on an ILS with a procedure turn, going outbound for the PT successfully pretty much is the same thing, albeit a lot easier. Taking away an examiner's prerogative to toss it out there on occasion, though, will assure that applicants won't spend time being proficient at it. Here's the rule the ACS is supposed to fulfill. I'd think it carries more weight and makes anything the applicant's got onboard fair game. YMMV:

§61.65 Instrument rating requirements.
(a) ...
(8) Pass the required practical test on the areas of operation in paragraph (c) of this section ...
(c) Flight proficiency...
(5) Navigation systems;
 
During instrument training, as I was working on holds the CFII said that in real-world IFR, small GA planes almost never get one. The next lesson we were on an IFR clearance in IMC and I got a hold. So there ya go.
 
ateamer said:
During instrument training, as I was working on holds the CFII said that in real-world IFR, small GA planes almost never get one. The next lesson we were on an IFR clearance in IMC and I got a hold. So there ya go.
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I don't know if a flight instructor stating "GA holds are rare" does much good for the mindset of a new IFR student or pilot. Of course, a lot depends on what kind of flying you do, and where.

Holding tends to be assigned when there are weather/flow/traffic management issues. This usually happens a) when the weather drops for a fairly large area b) in or near busy terminal airspace. If you find yourself flying in this kind of environment your odds of a "real world hold" being assigned go up quite a bit.

If you fly locally around one particular neck of the woods which happens to be pretty quiet traffic-wise, you may rarely if ever see a hold. If you never fly in anything more than "vanilla" IFR conditions, you may rarely if ever be assigned a hold. If you fly longer flights in weather, the chances increase, obviously. I bounce up and down the eastern seaboard a lot when I'm doing my personal flying. I don't think a year has gone by without being assigned an actual hold when flying a GA aircraft, but that's my profile of flying - I'm exposed to a lot of those circumstances.

I was about to say I hadn't gotten a "real" ATC-assigned hold this year, but then I remembered I received one back in January! So I met my quota for this year.
 
dtuuri said:
Then why test at all? You could say that about everything.
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No argument here. Just pointing out that we train on lots of stuff that pilots have to know that isn't tested. For example, steep turns under the hood aren't tested, but I do them with instrument students. I expect them to be able to do them because it demonstrates a good scan and how to maintain control while ignoring your inner ear. But they're not on the checkride.

If there's an LOM on an ILS with a procedure turn, going outbound for the PT successfully pretty much is the same thing, albeit a lot easier.
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I do that, but wouldn't say it's comparable to that last few miles on a LOC BC final when that needle is really sensitive and you're more likely to lapse into "turn toward the needle" when you have less time to think. But, unfortunately, there are no LOC BC approaches at all in my state. The closest one I have found is 150 nm away. So I just can't realistically train on them, and trying to fly the back course on a regular Localizer has typically resulted in less than ideal training, since the unofficial BC usually has all kinds of interference and the signal wanders all over the place.
 
RussR said:
No argument here. Just pointing out that we train on lots of stuff that pilots have to know that isn't tested. For example, steep turns under the hood aren't tested, but I do them with instrument students. I expect them to be able to do them because it demonstrates a good scan and how to maintain control while ignoring your inner ear. But they're not on the checkride.
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Never done that. Something to do next Flight Review. Thx for the idea.
 
luvflyin said:
Never done that. Something to do next Flight Review. Thx for the idea.
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Wish I could say it was mine, but actually they were in the Jeppesen syllabus we used at the first flight school I taught at. I think they used to be in the Instrument PTS at some point, but were removed.
 
Ryan F. said:
I don't know if a flight instructor stating "GA holds are rare" does much good for the mindset of a new IFR student or pilot. .
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He followed that by saying that you still have to be good at them, and practice them often enough to stay proficient.
 
RussR said:
I think they used to be in the Instrument PTS at some point, but were removed.
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They were at one time when I was an examiner. Perhaps the thinking was, "We shouldn't be sending the message that steep banking is an acceptable way to fly airplanes when IMC." When you think about it, tilting your wings any more than absolutely necessary is the first step in loss of control. Not that it always results in it. I would begin the "training" in steep banks with an admonition that it is strictly a rudiment, a proficiency exercise, not a technique that has any place during IFR flight, same as side-slipping all the way down final. Good for student practice, not for anything else.
 
RussR said:
Wish I could say it was mine, but actually they were in the Jeppesen syllabus we used at the first flight school I taught at. I think they used to be in the Instrument PTS at some point, but were removed.
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Yes, steep turns were once in the Instrument Rating - Airplane PTS and were removed with the introduction of the ACS.

They remain in the current Flight Instructor - Instrument Airplane PTS. This is a lack of harmonization which has been addressed in the forthcoming Flight Instructor - Instrument Airplane ACS, which has been "finished" for some time now but not available yet due to issues being hashed out between the DOT and FAA. In short, the DOT issued this memo in December of 2018 which expands the internal processes necessary for the FAA to issue new guidance documents, including review by the FAA Chief Counsel and (now) the DOT’s Office of the General Counsel. If deemed "significant" as a guidance document it may also require review by the DOT's Office of the General Counsel’s Office of Regulation and even the DOT Secretary him/herself. This has significantly slowed the progress of the ACS rollout and affects revisions to the ACS as well.

So, you're probably going to see steep turns wink out of existence as soon as the FI-IA ACS rolls out, and we don't know quite when that will happen.
 
dtuuri said:
... same as side-slipping all the way down final. Good for student practice, not for anything else.
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Slips on final are:

* Good for seeing the runway in biplane with limited to no visibility over the nose.

* Good for losing altitude/glide path control in a no-flaps plane.
 
Ryan F. said:
Yes, steep turns were once in the Instrument Rating - Airplane PTS and were removed with the introduction of the ACS.

They remain in the current Flight Instructor - Instrument Airplane PTS. This is a lack of harmonization which has been addressed in the forthcoming Flight Instructor - Instrument Airplane ACS, which has been "finished" for some time now but not available yet due to issues being hashed out between the DOT and FAA. In short, the DOT issued this memo in December of 2018 which expands the internal processes necessary for the FAA to issue new guidance documents, including review by the FAA Chief Counsel and (now) the DOT’s Office of the General Counsel. If deemed "significant" as a guidance document it may also require review by the DOT's Office of the General Counsel’s Office of Regulation and even the DOT Secretary him/herself. This has significantly slowed the progress of the ACS rollout and affects revisions to the ACS as well.

So, you're probably going to see steep turns wink out of existence as soon as the FI-IA ACS rolls out, and we don't know quite when that will happen.
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But the good news is, you’ll still be able to do ‘em for the ATP.
 
I just passed my instrument check ride on Thursday. I got issued a hold at the IAF on the first approach. I can’t prove it and my examiner would not admit it but I think he called them ahead of time and had them give me the hold. There wasn’t any traffic around the airport and not much activity on the frequency. Another strange thing happened. On final they handed me off to the tower and I couldn’t get a response from the tower. I switch back to approach and let them know and they told me to contact ground. I got ground and they cleared me to land. I landed, taxi back and tell ground I’m holding short and ready to depart. They tell me contact tower. Lol. I switch to tower and all was fine. I believe the examiner set all that up!
 
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