Hi, today I had an unpleasant experience.

 

The ATC gave me instructions to descend to FL 110 and follow a specific heading. But after a while I realized that I am getting further away from the airport so I reported low fuel to get new instructions. Then I was cleared to fly direct to LICJ. After some time the ATC forgot about me again so I requested a visual approach so I could vector myself to the VOR approach 07 at LICJ. I was still way too high so I totally messed up my approach. Since I was flying a 737-200 I was relying on ATC instructions... I have never had any similar problem before (I already did 13 flights with RC4 without any issue like that)

 

Does anyone know what the reason could be to cause this problem, please? I recently updated my airport database so it is not caused by old data

 

Thanks in advance
Greetings 
Alex W.

Alex,

LICJ has high ground near it so that might be a factor. Did you select NOTAMS for that airport in the main interface after loading a plan?

Where were you flying from? A northerly approach I guess given your chart.

The final instruction enroute will be to “descend to FL110 in 30 miles or less”. You need to be at that FL 40 miles out.

Did you comply and if so, did you hear the instruction to contact Approach?

Hard to evaluate without a plan. Please post it so I can better understand your problem.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Alex,

LICJ has high ground near it so that might be a factor. Did you select NOTAMS for that airport in the main interface after loading a plan?

Where were you flying from? A northerly approach I guess given your chart.

The final instruction enroute will be to “descend to FL110 in 30 miles or less”. You need to be at that FL 40 miles out.

Did you comply and if so, did you hear the instruction to contact Approach?

Hard to evaluate without a plan. Please post it so I can better understand your problem.

Thanks for your quick response

I was coming from LATI. I did not know I had to check the NOTAMS settings, what exactly does this setting do if I may ask, please?
This was my route DIRES DCT PAPIZ DCT BUMOK DCT AMANO DCT ROSAS and I was flying the FlyJSim 737-200 in X Plane 11 with the RC4toXP plugin (but I think it does not matter if I use RC4 with this plugin in X Plane, right?)
Yes, the instruction was to reach FL 110 in 40 miles, so I descended immediately with IAS hold at 280 kts with my speedbrakes deployed but I still did not manage to achieve FL110 in 40 miels so I got a HDG and then nothing (as you can see, I got vectored far to the east with no further instructions) and I was not given the instruction to contact approach until I reported low fuel and I was vectored directly to the airport and after that I was sent to the approach but the APP also have me weird headings (which could be explained by the mountains with no NOTAMS enabled)

 

Thanks in advance

Edited August 1, 20223 yr by Alex Walker

38 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

I was coming from LATI. I did not know I had to check the NOTAMS settings, what exactly does this setting do if I may ask, please?

That’s Tirana, Albania so you’re coming in from N or NE as your routing shows. The NOTAMS option is to tell RC4 the airport has high ground around it so it will issue descent instructions ending with “if able”. You should ensure you maintain the MSA for the area you’re flying in. RC4 will not tell you off for not descending where it would be unsafe to do so. Use it for departures too where relevant.

42 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

but I still did not manage to achieve FL110 in 40 miels so I got a HDG and then nothing (as you can see, I got vectored far to the east with no further instructions)...

The altitude / FL you are cleared down to 40 miles out is mandatory. If you don’t achieve it you’ll be put into a hold with heading changes issued until you do.

You appear to know the difference between FL and altitude and I believe the TA at LICJ is around 6000ft so as long as your altimeter was on STD there should not have been a problem once you descended to FL110 and heading directly towards LICJ.

I’ll fly it in a day or two and check things out. I’m sure it’s not a RC issue even with you flying XP. Probably the NOTAMS not being set. RC will take you out a long way when there’s high ground. 20+ miles is usual. It knows there’s high ground but not the direction. Tenerife is a classic example of high ground near the airport. A 12,000ft mountain on one side and ocean on the other.

44 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

That’s Tirana, Albania so you’re coming in from N or NE as your routing shows. The NOTAMS option is to tell RC4 the airport has high ground around it so it will issue descent instructions ending with “if able”. You should ensure you maintain the MSA for the area you’re flying in. RC4 will not tell you off for not descending where it would be unsafe to do so. Use it for departures too where relevant.

Thanks for the info, would you recommend to always enable Notams even when there is no high terrain to avoid issues like that when I miss my descent path by 1NM?

45 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The altitude / FL you are cleared down to 40 miles out is mandatory. If you don’t achieve it you’ll be put into a hold with heading changes issued until you do.

I’ll fly it in a day or two and check things out. I’m sure it’s not a RC issue even with you flying XP. Probably the NOTAMS not being set. RC will take you out a long way when there’s high ground. 20+ miles is usual. It knows there’s high ground but not the direction. Tenerife is a classic example of high ground near the airport. A 12,000ft mountain on one side and ocean on the other.

Yes, I understand, thanks. Thanks for having a look at this by yourself, I'll also try the same route again this week but this time with Notams enabled

The only way to get his attention back was to declare a pan pan (low fuel). What would have happened if I did not declare any problem? I bet he would never have called me again, right? I called him after getting off course by 22NM, after 22NM I was worried about never getting called again, haha

 

30 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

Thanks for the info, would you recommend to always enable Notams even when there is no high terrain to avoid issues like that when I miss my descent path by 1NM?

No. Only for airports with high terrain in the vicinity. To avoid missing the altitude restriction I use the CDU of the PMDG737 to enter a fix for my arrival airport and then /40 which draws a circle centred on the airport on the NAV display. I’m sure XP 737 will have a similar feature.

30 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

The only way to get his attention back was to declare a pan pan (low fuel). What would have happened if I did not declare any problem? I bet he would never have called me again, right? I called him after getting off course by 22NM, after 22NM I was worried about never getting called again, haha

Until you descend to FL110 or are within 40 miles of the airport you won’t trigger the Approach code. Do one of those two things and you should be handed over to APP. You’ll then be given further instructions.

Most airports have an approach frequency but some don’t. You’ll get a different set of options in those circumstances but not at LICJ.

Looking at your path on that chart it looks like you turned left before hitting the 40nm distance. In those circumstances I’m not surprised RC didn’t respond. At 40nm out always make sure you’re heading towards the airport. You’ll then get handed over and given further instructions by Approach.

50 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Looking at your path on that chart it looks like you turned left before hitting the 40nm distance. In those circumstances I’m not surprised RC didn’t respond. At 40nm out always make sure you’re heading towards the airport. You’ll then get handed over and given further instructions by Approach.

Yes, but I was just following the instruction of the ATC, the ATC told me to fly this specific heading and then he did not call me again so that's the reason why I was so far away from the airport. He told me to turn left heading (i can't remember the exact heading, but I was doing as I was told to) and then this scenario got triggered. I guess this was just unfortunately bad luck and no Notams selected in the menu. I'll enable Notams next time

52 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No. Only for airports with high terrain in the vicinity. To avoid missing the altitude restriction I use the CDU of the PMDG737 to enter a fix for my arrival airport and then /40 which draws a circle centred on the airport on the NAV display. I’m sure XP 737 will have a similar feature.

This is a great tip, thank you, but unfortunately most of the airplanes I fly don't have any ND, I almost fly classics with compass only. I could tune in the airport VOR but not all VORs have a range over 40 NM. The only trick I could do is to open my X Plane map where I have my compass rose with a few NM marks

 

Thanks again for all your time and efforts to help and answer all my questions, I really appreciate it

10 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

Yes, but I was just following the instruction of the ATC, the ATC told me to fly this specific heading and then he did not call me again so that's the reason why I was so far away from the airport. He told me to turn left heading (i can't remember the exact heading, but I was doing as I was told to) and then this scenario got triggered. I guess this was just unfortunately bad luck and no Notams selected in the menu. I'll enable Notams next time

Ah so you did contact Approach. The left turn would have been the downwind leg. 070 for Rwy 25. It was because of the high ground at LICJ with no NOTAMS you weren’t given any further course changes. If you get to around 25nm from the airport I think it’s triggered then. I’ve had the same problem at GCTS when I didn’t select NOTAMS.

10 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

This is a great tip, thank you, but unfortunately most of the airplanes I fly don't have any ND, I almost fly classics with compass only. I could tune in the airport VOR but not all VORs have a range over 40 NM. The only trick I could do is to open my X Plane map where I have my compass rose with a few NM marks

I use Aivlasoft EFB which has the facility to draw a circle of x miles radius around any point. That allows me to draw a 40nm circle around the arrival airport irrespective of what aircraft I’m flying.

Free 30 day demo. It’s a great program. https://www.aivlasoft.com

Alternatively Little Navmap may help.

Hi Alex,

I've just flown this route using NOTAMs at LICJ. My Lear25 was cleared to FL350 and the flight was uneventful until I started my descent. At 75nm out of LICJ I was cleared down to FL110, 250kts but with NOTAMS enabled the instruction included "remain not less than 1000ft from terrain".

At 40nm out I was given a heading of 155 and cleared to FL70. Shortly after cleared down to 5000ft.

After that I was given a heading of 215 and cleared down to 4000ft for the intercept to Rwy 25.

That was followed by "Contact Tower" and at 4nm out "Cleared to Land".

Entirely uneventful. Hope it's the same for you.

The attached screenshot shows a 40nm circle around LICJ and the green banana (as it's called) shows the point where I will reach the altitude set in the autopilot. Very helpful to ensure you meet the crossing restriction.

On 8/2/2022 at 12:34 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

Hi Alex,

I've just flown this route using NOTAMs at LICJ. My Lear25 was cleared to FL350 and the flight was uneventful until I started my descent. At 75nm out of LICJ I was cleared down to FL110, 250kts but with NOTAMS enabled the instruction included "remain not less than 1000ft from terrain".

At 40nm out I was given a heading of 155 and cleared to FL70. Shortly after cleared down to 5000ft.

After that I was given a heading of 215 and cleared down to 4000ft for the intercept to Rwy 25.

That was followed by "Contact Tower" and at 4nm out "Cleared to Land".

Entirely uneventful. Hope it's the same for you.

The attached screenshot shows a 40nm circle around LICJ and the green banana (as it's called) shows the point where I will reach the altitude set in the autopilot. Very helpful to ensure you meet the crossing restriction.

Thank you very much for having a look, I guess you are right, it must have been the unchecked NOTAM

43 minutes ago, Alex Walker said:

Thank you very much for having a look, I guess you are right, it must have been the unchecked NOTAM

In all probability, yes.

On 8/3/2022 at 2:12 PM, Ray Proudfoot said:

In all probability, yes.

I have one more question, please.

So when exactly does something count as high terrain? I am not certain what hills already count as high mountains (example: LIPR Rimini) In my opinion, those are not mountains but the ATC sent me far away again and did not call me anymore

2 hours ago, Alex Walker said:

So when exactly does something count as high terrain?

I don’t really know. Have a look in the manual. That might give a clue. Manchester has high ground (Pennines) to the east of the airport but arrivals aren’t affected by it as they’re not high enough.

As a general guide any terrain that prevents a 3° descent from any direction might be a starter. If in doubt check it. It does no harm and may prevent situations such as the Rimini approach.