Professional holds

NealRomeoGolf

NealRomeoGolf

Final Approach
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So are real holding patterns only for us bug smashers? I'm 12 hours into my instrument training and can hold way better than the professionals flying my plane the other day. Seems a bit sloppy. There is a published hold right there. I would guess they didn't just get a "gimme a 360."

Screenshot_20210402-073339_FlightAware.jpg
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Looks like the airplane was coupled and the FMS was in the process of entering the hold when they were cleared to exit the hold.
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I'm not following. This is the published hold at KOMMA on the BRDJE Three arrival to DFW. That right turn initiates at KOMMA. Why didn't we turn earlier to hit the inbound course again?
 
Impossible to know based on looking at the ground track. Could be strong west winds or significant changes in speed during the entry were more than the FMS could cope with or possibly they exited the hold during the initial right hand turn which would take the hold out of the flight plan. In that case KOMMA would not necessarily be overflown by the FMS as it rejoined the flight planned route.

My bet is they were cleared out of the hold very early in that entry and by the time they were turning back in-bound they were not holding anymore.

edit @kayoh190 is right. This is all at the very best a SWAG.
 
Unfortunately that section of Ft Worth Center is not on liveatc. Oh well.
 
Reminds me of a funny bit from back in the Stone Age, 30 years ago; I was in a C-310R hauling checks from Des Moines to Kansas City Downtown. MKC was fogged in as was fairly typical. Actually, the whole KC area was down... I had extra gas, so I’ll hold for a bit to see what the weather is gonna do. ATC tells me to hold at a (now deactivated) NDB somewhere to the northeast of KC. His clearance was “hold at Such n So NDB, EFC is xxxx”. Huh. So I asked “on what quadrant/bearing do you want me to hold?” His reply; “I don’t care, you’re the only one out there this morning.”

So, I put the ADF needle off my left wingtip and just flew in circles; after 30 minutes or so I ended up heading back to DSM. Oh well, I tried.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So are real holding patterns only for us bug smashers? I'm 12 hours into my instrument training and can hold way better than the professionals flying my plane the other day. Seems a bit sloppy. There is a published hold right there. I would guess they didn't just get a "gimme a 360."

View attachment 95265
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Coulda been a 360, that happens. Although ya don’t gotta reduce to holding speed for that. What’s the scale on that map? How does what we see relate to 15 mile legs.
 
luvflyin said:
Coulda been a 360, that happens. Although ya don’t gotta reduce to holding speed for that. What’s the scale on that map? How does what we see relate to 15 mile legs.
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My estimation is it was a 20 mile leg. A 15 mile leg wouldn’t have crossed back over the state line.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So are real holding patterns only for us bug smashers? I'm 12 hours into my instrument training and can hold way better than the professionals flying my plane the other day. Seems a bit sloppy. There is a published hold right there. I would guess they didn't just get a "gimme a 360."
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If I were your CFII I would say, "So what!"
 
It's unusual but not unheard of. I was coming into IAD one day in the Navion and they were sending the airlines into a hold. Turns out a t-storm was sitting square on the field.
 
luvflyin said:
Coulda been a 360, that happens. Although ya don’t gotta reduce to holding speed for that. What’s the scale on that map? How does what we see relate to 15 mile legs.
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The river was 26 miles.

13DD33B0-7BFA-4CE9-B952-2B684F9E6A74.png
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
My estimation is it was a 20 mile leg. A 15 mile leg wouldn’t have crossed back over the state line.
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Look at the speed a little before 10:00 AM. Betcha the wind was howlin’ out of the West

I give up, the pic won’t post. Look at the Track Log
 
Ok youse big iron guys, I count 4 of ya here. Way I understand it, planes only gonna bank so far irregardess of whether you get the rate of turn you want. Is that consistent with the track shown in the pic, assuming howlin’ winds outta the west. At FL340
 
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luvflyin said:
Ok youse big iron guys, I count 4 of ya here. Way I understand it, planes only gonna bank so far irregardess of whether you get the rate of turn you want. Is that consistent with the track shown in the pic, assuming howlin’ winds outta the west. At FL340
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Rate of Turn applies until 25 degrees of bank is reached.
 
luvflyin said:
Ok youse big iron guys, I count 4 of ya here. Way I understand it, planes only gonna bank so far irregardess of whether you get the rate of turn you want. Is that consistent with the track shown in the pic, assuming howlin’ winds outta the west. At FL340
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The FMS produces a magenta line representing the hold entry, then holding pattern. If flies that line. Since it knows the ground track it wants to fly, it can make those wind corrections to keep that ground track that we, using conventional holding methods, can not. We can mess it up by flying faster than it wants (IOW, we didn't tell it we were going to fly faster than it expects) which can leave it unable to maintain it's calculated ground track.

Looking at the track in post #1, I'm not sure what they were doing. Doesn't really look like a holding pattern, at least not a full entry. I think their clearance changed mid-entry. Typical for ATC to give direct to a fix when they bring you out of the hold so not intercepting a particular course. i.e. Direct to the next downrange fix on the arrival.

We need to know their ATC clearances to know for sure what they were doing and if they did it correctly.
 
flyingron said:
It's unusual but not unheard of. I was coming into IAD one day in the Navion and they were sending the airlines into a hold. Turns out a t-storm was sitting square on the field.
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Agreed. I was a passenger on an airline flight which held. I literally said "wow! We're in a holding pattern!" out loud when I realized it.
 
Larry in TN said:
The FMS produces a magenta line representing the hold entry, then holding pattern. If flies that line. Since it knows the ground track it wants to fly, it can make those wind corrections to keep that ground track that we, using conventional holding methods, can not. We can mess it up by flying faster than it wants (IOW, we didn't tell it we were going to fly faster than it expects) which can leave it unable to maintain it's calculated ground track.

Looking at the track in post #1, I'm not sure what they were doing. Doesn't really look like a holding pattern, at least not a full entry. I think their clearance changed mid-entry. Typical for ATC to give direct to a fix when they bring you out of the hold so not intercepting a particular course. i.e. Direct to the next downrange fix on the arrival.

We need to know their ATC clearances to know for sure what they were doing and if they did it correctly.
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Yeah. They may have told him one turn in holding or gave him holding and bailed before he got around one time and gave him direct RRNET. He went into it with Groundspeed of about 320 after having been holding around 360 for awhile. Then it starts increasing. Up to 535 by the time he’s passing through a track of 072.
 
My buddy who used to fly the CRJ9 says the FMS flies the first lap around the hold like garbage and then figures out the 2nd lap.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
My buddy who used to fly the CRJ9 says the FMS flies the first lap around the hold like garbage and then figures out the 2nd lap.
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It only flies it crappy if ATC gives us a last minute hold and the fix is like right in front of us from my experience. Every hold I’ve done, the AP did a pretty good job.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
My buddy who used to fly the CRJ9 says the FMS flies the first lap around the hold like garbage and then figures out the 2nd lap.
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I thought that was just the Garmin stuff in our bugsmashers that did that. If the winds are strong enough, and the crab going into the hold is large enough, I've seen the 650 actually try to command a wrong-way turn on teardrop hold entry that'd take out some wind correction instead of turning more into the wind for the 30 degree outbound turn, probably putting the aircraft on the unprotected side of the hold if you let it. Seems to take one to two laps for it to figure that out, you can see it adjusting each time around as you near the fix. :rolleyes:
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So are real holding patterns only for us bug smashers? I'm 12 hours into my instrument training and can hold way better than the professionals flying my plane the other day. Seems a bit sloppy. There is a published hold right there. I would guess they didn't just get a "gimme a 360."

View attachment 95265
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Looks to me like the aircraft reduced speed entered the hold, was released from the hold and they increased speed and proceeded on course. That’s why the 1st 180 is smaller than the second.
 
Also dispatch very rarely gives you enough fuel to even enter a hold. If I ever got told by ATC to expect to hold I was asking to divert.
 
My field HZL sits right in between the western approach corridors EWR LGA and JFK When a nice system passes us and heads east usually the bigger guys will Get stuck In these stacked holds which from a distance are super cool to watch-seeing layered lights moving toward us sitting at the hangar chilling. When we check flight aware those holds usually are pretty sweet.
 
ARFlyer said:
Also dispatch very rarely gives you enough fuel to even enter a hold. If I ever got told by ATC to expect to hold I was asking to divert.
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That’s airline specific. We generally have plenty of fuel to hold for at least 30 minutes. Longest I think I’ve done is 1:30 waiting for visibility to come up above mins in Guadalajara.
 
Busflyer said:
That’s airline specific. We generally have plenty of fuel to hold for at least 30 minutes. Longest I think I’ve done is 1:30 waiting for visibility to come up above mins in Guadalajara.
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Ours was that if you didn’t fly the Econ Speed you’ll be diverting for fuel. Also if you want to be a Line Check Captain or a Training Captain then your Fuel Score better be good. The airline kept a “secret” list of all the pilots ranked on how much fuel they could save or arrive with the least amount of extra fuel. If you requested additional fuel then your chances of ever being promoted was none existent for a set amount of time.
 
ARFlyer said:
Ours was that if you didn’t fly the Econ Speed you’ll be diverting for fuel. Also if you want to be a Line Check Captain or a Training Captain then your Fuel Score better be good. The airline kept a “secret” list of all the pilots ranked on how much fuel they could save or arrive with the least amount of extra fuel. If you requested additional fuel then your chances of ever being promoted was none existent for a set amount of time.
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Wow, that's terrible.
 
ARFlyer said:
Ours was that if you didn’t fly the Econ Speed you’ll be diverting for fuel. Also if you want to be a Line Check Captain or a Training Captain then your Fuel Score better be good. The airline kept a “secret” list of all the pilots ranked on how much fuel they could save or arrive with the least amount of extra fuel. If you requested additional fuel then your chances of ever being promoted was none existent for a set amount of time.
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Sounds pretty dangerous. I got a call from a duty pilot saying I didn’t hold long enough and landed with too much gas. Endeavor was pretty good about giving us extra gas, no questions asked. The phone call was really weird. I told him, in the nicest way, he really shouldn’t be calling me about this and it’s inappropriate. The ALPA rep agreed. Overall, dispatch was very liberal with giving us extra gas and always added some if I wanted more. Thanks Delta! Apparently Delta isn’t giving much gas nowadays either according to one of the Facebook groups I belong to.
 
Busflyer said:
That’s airline specific. We generally have plenty of fuel to hold for at least 30 minutes. Longest I think I’ve done is 1:30 waiting for visibility to come up above mins in Guadalajara.
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And aircraft specific. Having enough fuel to hold for 30 minutes would turn our 50-seat aircraft into more of a 40-seat one for most flights.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
So are real holding patterns only for us bug smashers? I'm 12 hours into my instrument training and can hold way better than the professionals flying my plane the other day. Seems a bit sloppy. There is a published hold right there. I would guess they didn't just get a "gimme a 360."
Click to expand...

kayoh190 said:
If you don't have the ATC audio there's no way to know what they were told to do.
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I wouldn't guess they didn't just get a "gimme a 360", but if they were instructed to enter the hold, I would guess they were given "Direct SEEVR" before the end of the hold.

Additionally, a 112-knot wind (as implied by the groundspeed delta) does not make for the greatest looking holds.
 
jordane93 said:
Sounds pretty dangerous. I got a call from a duty pilot saying I didn’t hold long enough and landed with too much gas. Endeavor was pretty good about giving us extra gas, no questions asked. The phone call was really weird. I told him, in the nicest way, he really shouldn’t be calling me about this and it’s inappropriate. The ALPA rep agreed. Overall, dispatch was very liberal with giving us extra gas and always added some if I wanted more. Thanks Delta! Apparently Delta isn’t giving much gas nowadays either according to one of the Facebook groups I belong to.
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My last straw was that they also like witch hunts.

The fleet CA and I called the CPs and DO out on a major safety issue after they tried to make me ferry a very broke 200. The next two months I had CAs mysteriously replaced for exactly one turn. Towards the end I had a replacement CA that told me he was actually a LCA with instructions to write me up, on anything I did that was none standard, so they could fire me.
 
ARFlyer said:
My last straw was that they also like witch hunts.

The fleet CA and I called the CPs and DO out on a major safety issue after they tried to make me ferry a very broke 200. The next two months I had CAs mysteriously replaced for exactly one turn. Towards the end I had a replacement CA that told me he was actually a LCA with instructions to write me up, on anything I did that was none standard, so they could fire me.
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CA, CP, DO, LCA???
 
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