San Francisco Rwy 28R - LDA approach (offset track)

[Hardy Heinlin]

Good evening,

is there anybody on board who has flown this approach in real life?

Are there individual airline specific "accents" regarding bank angle and start of turn? E.g. does Cathay fly the turn later and steeper, -- in traditional Kai Tak style? :-)


Cheers,

|-|ardy


Edit: Old subject was:
San Francisco Rwy 28L - ILSDME approach (offset loc)

[Hardy Heinlin]

When DH is 300 the turn obviously must be started immediately at DH. No time for a coffee.


...


With wind from 200 at 10kt and ceiling 300 ft, I need to bank to 20 for a short moment. Pretty delicious at that height. -- Edit: 15 deg bank works, too :-)

[Hardy Heinlin]

I just noticed this is for 28R, not 28L :-)

And it's not an ILS, it's an LDA with glideslope.

IFNP 110.75

But that won't make it much easier ...

[Hardy Heinlin]

[size=8](Should probably read "... below 10000 ft" instead of "... below FL100".)[/size]






|-|

[Will]

Nice, Hardy.  Are you putting all this data in manually, or is there a giant database you're accessing automatically?  That looks like a huge amount of information for each airport.   I guess the Gates section has Lat/Long for each gate?  Have you reached any decision yet about updating airport and nav data after the product is finalized?

[Hardy Heinlin]

It's an automatically processed database derived from a standard ARINC 424 file. I won't work manually anymore -- except for the occassional typo correction here and there (in the original data source).

I have a contract with an airline supplier, the database is updated once per year. But at this early stage I can't tell as to how and when (or if at all?) the database updates will be marketed to the PSX users.

Yes, a gate database is included as well. However, there are not many of them published for US airports, don't expect too much in that region :-) The data sources are almost always from the respective governments from all over the world.


|-|


P.S.: Gates are displayed in the PSX scenery as blue dots.

[Holger Wende]

Hi Hardy,

Will PSX offer the oppertunity to update e.g. these gate databases manually?
I am just asking, because many sector files have gate information included. So it might be possible to convert at least some into a PSX readable format.
This might help the community to "maintain" PSX specific add-on databases.

Regards, Holger

[Hardy Heinlin]

Hi Holger,

sorry, that's not on the plan (extremely low priority).

In PSX, gates have two purposes: 1. Serve as scenery dots (non-important cosmetical stuff). 2. Serve on the FMC POS INIT page in the GATE line. -- The latter feature is rarely used on US airports, that's why they don't consider their publication important.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

[Hardy Heinlin]

I'm still interested on how you guys fly that LDA approach on Rwy 28R. If not in real life, how do you do it in the simulator? (Any simulator).

Following the glideslope, the final turn is at a very low height, I would say too low for a wide body, unless the DH is set a bit higher and an early opposite turn (I call it Cathay-style) to the right is done prior to the final runway heading interception to the left.


Cheers,

|-|ardy

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Cathay-style, does this suggest that CPA actually flew intentionally left of the IGS at old Kai Tak to get themselves more straight final approach distance?


Jeroen

[Hardy Heinlin]

To which word is your question mark referring? :-)

Did they do this intentionally? -- I don't think they did it unintentionally. They were very good pilots :-)

Did they want to get more distance? -- I think so, yes. Probably to be better prepared for the typical crosswind gusts over the threshold.


|-|

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

It referred to "Cathay-style" as I wasn't at all aware of both the term and the practice.

[Hardy Heinlin]

I see. Yes, that special nuance on Kai Tak 13 is what I meant by "Cathay-style".

[Joe Clark]

Hardy, how did the Cathay pilots "learn" this different method of approach? Were they taught in sim training, did they have a modified chart they used?

[Hardy Heinlin]

I don't know.

[Shiv Mathur]

tried to delete this post ... didn't work

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Modified chart is highly unlikely.

This particular approach procedure was unsuitable for bad visibility anyway, you really had to see the approach lights way before the turn as far as I know. Under reasonable visibility conditions, and with good situational awareness and practice, lateral deviation from the IGS would not be much different from flying a standard visual approach to any runway with ILS as handy backup. Or the typical sidestep, ILS to one runway, visual late sidestep to the parallel.


Jeroen

[OKD]

Guys...

As far as I know, spoken to a current CX pilot,and an SE Asian Airlines Captain, once they started to turn to the heading of the "checkerboard", was all visual. Their training was based on low visibility and slight crosswind....

In the end of the day, based on the day's wind and visibility that dictate their aproach path.....

[Hardy Heinlin]

If I remember correctly, Cathay used to turn left not before the middle marker.

I think Lufthansa, for example, did rather the opposite and made the right turn even a bit earlier and at a smaller bank angle ("after the stadium: turn right").

Standing on the checkerboard hill, the difference was very apparent (to eyes and ears).


/-/

[Zinger]

Not based on real life at SFO, but I think the answer is simple. I'll add later when more time is available.