Orbit for altitude loss

[Jaybird180]

A controller puts an airliner on the localizer but outside the Outer Marker with an altitude restriction in the clearance and gets busy and forgets about the airliner. The aircraft is traveling toward the runway at terrific speed and the Captain hears: "Cleared for the approach" or "Cleared to Land".

The aircraft is well above the glideslope. Can the Captain request to 'orbit to lose altitude' or words to the effect? A bit of quick math suggests that the airliner can lose 2,000fpm without compromising stability. A 360deg turn at standard rate, they can lose 4,000ft and in 2 mins be back on the localizer and on glide path. Assume that following traffic wouldn't bust separation criteria during the turn.

Anything regulatory preventing this? From an airmanship perspective, what would be a better choice than a 360 turn?

 

[midwestpa24]

Most outer markers have a published hold over them, so could request a turn in the hold to lose altitude. Or request vectors to re intercept the localizer.

 

[luvflyin]

A controller puts an airliner on the localizer but outside the Outer Marker with an altitude restriction in the clearance and gets busy and forgets about the airliner. The aircraft is traveling toward the runway at terrific speed and the Captain hears: "Cleared for the approach" or "Cleared to Land".

The aircraft is well above the glideslope. Can the Captain request to 'orbit to lose altitude' or words to the effect? A bit of quick math suggests that the airliner can lose 2,000fpm without compromising stability. A 360deg turn at standard rate, they can lose 4,000ft and in 2 mins be back on the localizer and on glide path. Assume that following traffic wouldn't bust separation criteria during the turn.

Anything regulatory preventing this? From an airmanship perspective, what would be a better choice than a 360 turn?

Yes. The captain can always ‘request’ anything. There are no limits on ‘requests.’ In this situation ‘request’ may not be the operative word. If the reason for the ‘request’ is that he is to close and high to safely complete the approach, then ‘request’ is out the window. Unable is now the ‘word.’ Unable, I need [tell them what you NEED]

 

[dmspilot]

Anything regulatory preventing this? From an airmanship perspective, what would be a better choice than a 360 turn?

Policy at my company prohibits descents of more than 1200 fpm below 3,000 AGL. My response to being cleared for an approach 4,000 too high would be "unable" and to let the controller issue a vector or hold.

 

[Larry in TN]

2,000fpm will be difficult at the slower speeds we must fly below 10,000'.

In any case, if they left us too high, we'd respond, "Unable, request vectors for the descent", or something along those lines. I'd only request the hold if in a non-radar environment as it is more difficult to program quickly than getting vectors. Prior to that point, however, we would have been trying to ask for clearance with calls such as, "Request approach clearance" or "Request further descent" as we saw us approaching the point were we'd be too high/fast to complet the approach.

Of course, if he's so busy that he didn't have time to descend and clear us in time, there's probably another airplane about 3nm behind us so doing a trun in holding wouldn't be an option.

Lastly, when a controller is very busy, he will prioritise to whom he talks so it's not very likely that it would be the flight nearing glideslope intercept that is neglected. He'd likely talk to us in time to descend and it would be an airplane farther back in the sequence that would get a late turn, descent, or extra vector.

 

[aterpster]

A controller puts an airliner on the localizer but outside the Outer Marker with an altitude restriction in the clearance and gets busy and forgets about the airliner. The aircraft is traveling toward the runway at terrific speed and the Captain hears: "Cleared for the approach" or "Cleared to Land".

The aircraft is well above the glideslope. Can the Captain request to 'orbit to lose altitude' or words to the effect? A bit of quick math suggests that the airliner can lose 2,000fpm without compromising stability. A 360deg turn at standard rate, they can lose 4,000ft and in 2 mins be back on the localizer and on glide path. Assume that following traffic wouldn't bust separation criteria during the turn.

Anything regulatory preventing this? From an airmanship perspective, what would be a better choice than a 360 turn?

At the busy times airplanes are spaced perhaps 5 miles apart on the localizer at places like LAX, ORD, SFO, etc. If you're too high, you go around for another try.