Pilot’s Perspective: FMS Guided Visual Approaches Reduce Guesswork

Today’s Pilots Don’t Often Fly Visual Approaches

One of the problems, McIntyre added, is that pilots don’t fly unaided visual approaches very often these days so their proficiency may be lacking.“ Add additional challenges like night operations at unfamiliar airports with terrain or other obstacles and it’s clear why these approaches are difficult and potentially hazardous, even for highly trained pilots. Hand-flying a visual traffic pattern with a 180-degree turn, without positive track guidance, is anything but easy, especially at night.”  

Studies have shown that operators enrolled in a Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) program have frequent FOQA events during Visual Approaches that include a Downwind or a Base Leg entry. They repeatedly encountered high sink rates and/or over-banking in the Base to Final turn.

“We fly into Jackie Cochrane Airport at Thermal, California, which is just southeast of Palm Springs,” McIntyre said. “There is very high terrain to the South and West. At night, we encounter a black hole approach to Runway 35 and a 180-degree left turn when arriving from the Northwest. We have seen periodic FOQA events for this approach, primarily unstabilized approaches.”

To counter, McIntyre’s organization developed what he calls a “pseudo guided visual. We developed waypoints to guide us on the left downwind leg and turn us on to the final approach,” he said. “But the aircraft would provide varying degrees of bank as it was trying to figure out where we were in relation to the final track. It gave us some help, but we didn’t have a high level of confidence in it.” 

Turning to Honeywell for the Latest in FGV Approaches

McIntyre thinks Flight Management System Guided Visual (FGV) approaches are the answer. “FGV approaches allow you to fly a stable visual approach by providing a precise, repeatable flight path,” he said. “The procedure can be coupled with the Autopilot or hand-flown, benefiting from the precise radius-to-fix (RF) Legs provided by the FMS database.”

Honeywell is the first avionics company to deliver on the enormous potential of FGV approaches to enhance safety and efficiency for pilots landing at challenging airports. Honeywell has incorporated FGV approaches for about a dozen challenging airports into its extensive FMS data base, with more on the way.

“I spoke with the Honeywell Flight Technical Services team at an operators’ conference where Honeywell was presenting, and we discussed FMS Guided Visual approaches and how my operation would love to have one at Thermal airport,” McIntyre said.

The Honeywell FTS team jumped onboard and before long McIntyre’s team had access to a new FGV approach for Runway 35 at the airport.

“At Thermal, we now fly a fully stabilized visual approach from downwind to short final. The radius-fo-fix leg capability allows the aircraft to fly a descending arc from downwind to the threshold at a very comfortable bank angle. The automation does a great job of maintaining ground track and constant descent rate regardless of wind. Since this airport is uncontrolled, our SOP is to fly the procedure with autopilot on, allowing both pilots to monitor aircraft trajectory and scan for traffic,” he said.

“Honeywell has literally taken all the variability out of the visual approach,” McIntyre said “It allows us to fly visual approaches with the same precision and passenger comfort we experience using Instrument approach procedures. So, it’s a fantastic improvement to our safety profile and helps us deliver a safe, comfortable visual approach for our passengers.”

“Unaided visual approaches are really the last element of a flight profile that doesn’t allow us to directly benefit from the incredible precision of today’s auto flight systems. The availability of FGVs fills that gap and allows us to leverage that precision to ensure safe, accurately flown, and comfortable visual approaches.”  

“Honeywell is generously offering the FGV procedure data to other avionics OEMs for inclusion in their navigation databases and is pricing the inclusion of the FGVs into operators’ Honeywell databases at a very low cost. Given the low cost, easy implementation of the FGV procedures, and significant contribution to safety, there really is no reason not to use an FGV whenever it’s available,” McIntyre concluded.

For more information or to request development of an FGV, contact Honeywell Flight Technical Services at FTS@honeywell.com