ATC do sometimes get you to intercept the LOC above the platform
Quite common really (and already discussed many times here 
), the more so in Spain 
It was all flown on autopilot in HDG mode i.e. “manual LNAV”. You can see my AP doesn’t quite do Rate 1 turns; it would do them at low speed e.g. 100kt.
Peter wrote:
What I wonder about more is which way one would be expected to turn at OKPEM (left or right) to get to OLMAV. I turned right. But a left turn would have been better because it positions you better for the track to TUKVI.
From my armchair, I say I would have done the parallel entry into the hold and when reaching OKPEM, just continue towards OLMAV instead of holding.
Sure, but if he got the DCT BEFORE actually reaching OKPEM, then the clearance was just an ordinary enroute DCT to OLMAV in which case the left turn would have been the shorter one, and stuff like „holding side“ etc. wouldn‘t have come into play at all.
Correct @boscomantico, but generally speaking, the more so when unclear, turns are to be performed towards the protected area, e.g. airfield, so the right turn was more correct
As a VFR only pilot, I’m always fascinated by these conversations. I’d always thought that IFR flight had a set of rules that was cut and dry. Very clear with little left open for interpretation and everyone understood them.
Yet when these questions come up here, it takes a lot of back and forth before an answer is finally settled upon. And obviously settling on an answer is a lot easier to do here, while you’ve time to consider the answer, instead of while filing in IMC with just a few seconds to decide what it is that you’ve been asked to do.
In reality, you probably think at the time, that you’ve understood what was asked, and then later start to question yourself if you perhaps misinterpreted.
My illusions of the precision of IFR flight has been slowly dismantled by EuroGA into a more real world nuanced realisation of a world that can probably be improved and simplified
Yes; this is really a Q on an ambiguous point in procedural IFR. Mostly, in Europe, an ILS is vectored in “real” flying (as opposed to training). Very few can’t be vectored e.g. Rijeka LDRI, and some AFIS ones in France or Spain. Vectoring removes ambiguity.
There was also a fair bit of VFR traffic, including some very close (on TCAS) when I was inbound on the LOC, and I suspect some of it non-TXP. ATC was busy.
lionel wrote:
Peter wrote: What I wonder about more is which way one would be expected to turn at OKPEM (left or right) to get to OLMAV. I turned right. But a left turn would have been better because it positions you better for the track to TUKVI.From my armchair, I say I would have done the parallel entry into the hold and when reaching OKPEM, just continue towards OLMAV instead of holding.
Same here, but again, “hindsight is 20-20” as they say here – I don’t know what I would have been doing while airborne.
What happens if you plug that in a modern WAAS GPS? I would like to see the programming logic e.g GTN, by you guys who have that fancy equipment, I am still old school. I also think that a parallel entry with overfly of OPKEM is required after you have passed it initially. The hold is designed to remain within the protected area. Controller could be more clear with enter the hold over OPKEM and call you back for the ILS after you passed OPKEM. But basically you had a hold clearance first….
I don’t know what I would have been doing while airborne.
Having got the hold at a very short notice, I was still trying to work out the proper hold entry
What happens if you plug that in a modern WAAS GPS? I would like to see the programming logic e.g GTN, by you guys who have that fancy equipment, I am still old school. I also think that a parallel entry with overfly of OPKEM is required after you have passed it initially. The hold is designed to remain within the protected area. Controller could be more clear with enter the hold over OPKEM and call you back for the ILS.
I suppose the Q would be what happens if you send it to a hold and cancel that before you get there. More specifically: which way will it turn if you are just past the holding fix (“entering the hold”) and then you tell it to fly the ILS with OLMAV as the IAF.
EDIT: I looked at the track closely and I was already turning before OKPEM, so (especially with thinking time) I was told to proceed to the ILS before OKPEM. So while I was under instruction to take up the hold, this was rescinded before reaching the holding fix.
It’s an interesting point whether, so close to the holding fix, you should take up the hold, go around it once, and argue what to do only after that. That should be the “safe” option. I wonder what hold-capable avionics (which I don’t have) would do. I reckon that after the holding fix, the box would make you fly the hold once. But a DCT OKPEM would probably cancel that immediately, although then you wonder which way it would turn.
