OnCourse Software

Hi everyone!

I'm just looking to get some help on how best to get around this!

Last night I was flying in a mountain area, now i was being vectored to FAF from my last waypoint which was about 30 miles from the destination. I was on vectors as I said and was descended to fl030, this was fine, but then sent on a vector which took me directly towards a mountain range. I obviously altered course, but then was nagged to return to my assigned heading, I wasn't about to do that.

Anyway, how can I get past this nagging and continue with my approach, I tried using hotkey 1 and approach at pilots discretion. I was told it wasn't available at this phase of the flight, I was connected to approach.

So any help and advice would be welcome

Rob

I don't know exactly, but I think you can use hotkey 1 only before reaching the last waypoint. Dave, could this be changed?
But you could use hotkey 8 (Report airport in sight), which will let you contact Tower, and then either land VFR or declare a missed approach.

I always activate the STAR option of PF3 when flying into an airport in mountaineous terrain. So I won't be vectored and can follow my own routing, be it STAR or visual.

ThomasAH wrote:

I don't know exactly, but I think you can use hotkey 1 only before reaching the last waypoint. Dave, could this be changed?
But you could use hotkey 8 (Report airport in sight), which will let you contact Tower, and then either land VFR or declare a missed approach.

The problem with that Thomas is the distance of the actual last wypt in the fpl. Better to go with warmkey 8. And Ralph's solution works well.

Thanks for the advise guys

I had thought about selecting and using the star option, and I will be giving that a try on my next flight up to that airfield. And to be honest I don't use the star option really as I like the sense of vectors being more in keep with real life operations.

But no point being vectored in to a mountain lol

Many thanks Rob

helix1250 wrote:

Thanks for the advise guys

I had thought about selecting and using the star option, and I will be giving that a try on my next flight up to that airfield. And to be honest I don't use the star option really as I like the sense of vectors being more in keep with real life operations.

But no point being vectored in to a mountain lol

Many thanks Rob

That's the point. Only "real" ATC know that there's a mountain halfway down the approach! I would imagine it would be extremely complex for an ATC programme to know all the elevations within a 20nm radius of every airport. It might be theoretically possible. But would be far too much work in all reality. When the solution is to stick to a published approach anyway.

Also make sure your last waypoint has an altitude restriction high enough to comply with your published approach that you will fly once you are "cleared for finals"