Today I landed at Colmar coming in IFR. As the weather was CAVOK and the IAP is from the opposite side of my flight path I was asking for a visual approach.
The controller kept me quite high within CAS. I was allowed to descend to FL070 but not any further. Once I was OCAS I had to do the dogleg as shown in the picture to dive down and join the base leg. Colmar has radar.
In retrospect I wonder how the visual approach is supposed to happen. I feel what we (the controller and me) did isn’t exactly the best / right way.
Did the controller have other traffic in your way? Why did he say the dogleg was needed?
She said she will call me very late. I was not aware of other traffic in that area. I flew the dogleg to loose altitude.
Initially I was sent to HO, which sits on the field and is also the IAF. There is a procedure turn to the North to position you onto the localizer.
Upon changing frequency to Colmar Tower he said “… identified. Call me left downwind 19”.
Stephan_Schwab wrote:
Colmar has radar.
Are you sure about that? I was quite a few times at Colmar, but everytime below 4700’ it was procedural. Basel though has Radar.
Who kept you high? Must have been Basel, and not Colmar. Normally, they would keep you ~6000ft or above until HO, probably because of terrain in the vicinity. Then it’s normally either the procedure turn or the RNAV triangle.
Don’t know about the dogleg though. Maybe he didn’t want you to overfly Colmar city, so asked you to turn to the east, but then forgot to tell you to turn back towards the north? If you look at the french VAC chart, you’ll see blue circles around Colmar and Houssen.
Stephen, didn’t you think of cancelling IFR? This usually allows you descent as you wish.
If you look at the radar minimum altitudes for Basel, they seem to be 7200 feet in the sector you came from, so that may be the explanation.
@Michal Yes, I did cancel IFR when I saw this is not going to work as expected. So I canceled, asked to leave frequency and flew that dogleg to loose excess altitude.
But then my question is really how it SHOULD work.
My expectation was to be let down sufficiently in time so that I can join the downwind in a more orderly fashion. I would have been ok with “descend xxx into uncontrolled airspace”
@Aviathor yes, she did talk about “radar service terminated” but I believe that was due to leaving CAS at that point.
Did you ask for the descent?
Stephan_Schwab wrote:
I did cancel IFR
ok, above you mention you asked for visual approach so my understanding was you ask for visual approach only, not cancelled IFR entirely.
Stephan_Schwab wrote:
My expectation was to be let down sufficiently in time so that I can join the downwind in a more orderly fashion
Well yes unless there’s terrain. And there is terrain close to Colmar.
So Basel cannot clear you below their MRVA, because you’re still expecting them to keep you away from other IFR traffic, and they cannot do that if you’re below their MRVA.
If you wanted to keep yourself separated from other traffic, you should have cancelled IFR earlier…
If you do a standard IFR approach, it’s no problem if you arrive at 6000’ or so overhead HO, you’ll have enough time during outbound and the Pturn to loose that altitude.
