At many airports, ATC speed controls are
rigorously followed for expeditious handling of traffic. At times the controllers fail to take into
consideration presence of significant headwind or tailwind conditions present
at altitude and give speed control instructions that are incompatible with the
required vertical profile below FL100 and distance to go to land.
This places an unusually high workload on the
pilot to achieve the desired flight path and affects the crew’s ability
maintain situational awareness.
With modern aircraft designed to have efficient aerodynamic
characteristic which needs longer distances for descent and deceleration there
is an increased risk of an unstabilised approach developing, which may be difficult
to correct and culminate in either a go around or a poorly handled landing with
increased risk of runway excursions.
The sanctity of stabilization by 1000ft aal needs to be adhered to at all times and in significant tailwinds still can be achieved by anticipating and configuring the aircraft into landing configuration early.
ReplyDeleteWith the current speed control of 16o Kts to 4 miles followed by many ATC, we need to consider the 1000 ft point as a should gate and 500 ft point asa must gate for a stabilised approach. When tailwind conditions previal aloft,this probably is a more realistic approach and will lead to reduced go arounds / company policy violations.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree that 1000ft could be considered a should gate and 500ft a hard gate which is not to be breached and involves executing a go-around.
ReplyDeleteSome airlines adopt the hard gate as noted above at 500ft.