OB423: Navigating IFR Frequency Land, Part 2

people not doing training, they're just going from A to B, I far or VFR. And what defining a flight as a training flight or doing practice approaches allows us to do is prioritize them correctly. Where do they fit into this hierarchy of who has priority? Don't delay this practice approach guys so much. Welcome to opposing bases air traffic talk, an aviation podcast by two air traffic controllers and rated pilots who love to talk about flying, controlling and everything in between. The show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for your instructor, your supervisor, the FAA, the NTSB or your CAT. The show will give you a better understanding of how things work in the national airspace system and maybe even make you laugh along the way. Please welcome retired Army pilot Alpha Golf and first officer at Penguin Airlines Romeo Hotel. It's Wednesday, January 28th, 2026, episode 423. On today's show, we'll tackle the second half of our practice approach conversation, solve all of aviation's problems and share more of your feedback. What's up, AJ? Hello, hello everyone. Wow. I didn't know today's show was going to be this the last one. So monumental. The last show. We're going to solve every problem today. It might take a couple extra minutes at the end. Maybe one more show for just feedback about solving all the problems or that won't even be necessary. That's going to be a game time decision. I'm not sure. Speaking of aviation things and the news, which we never talked about on the show, but we got a lot of great feedback when we did our objective look at the DCA midair last year. We waited a couple weeks and talked about that from our perspectives. There have been recent updates and the NTSB put out quite a bit of new information, new to me at least information that I think would be a good opportunity for us to do a bonus audio on something that is all the things that we may have said to each other over the year and to friends and stuff, work through some of the things that we wouldn't get through on a normal show, but just an idea. Something to talk about. Lots of new stuff, which is eye-opening, scary, terrifying, all the things at one time. Doubleheader Wednesday. This is episode two. I am going to be in training next week. If I haven't said it a hundred times on the show, we have recurrent training at Penguin. I will be gone the entire week. Then I come back and I'm home for like 10 minutes, time to go back out again. This is our fill in for next week, the recording. Thank you for joining us in the chat for the second half. How have you been? Good. Imagine how this week went if you were talking about it next week. It went great. The snow, we got snowed on again. We didn't talk about the generator. Oh. That was a thing. Where should we start? I broke it. I needed you to help me fix it. I don't think you broke it. I think it was a common, from what I could tell, that was a common problem. Yeah, in fear of losing our power, which has happened in the past in this house for days at a time. A couple of years ago, I got a generator, got it going, got it on, no problems. I think we had to use it for like an hour. Nothing. There's nothing. Every responsible generator owner that has a small motor with a carburetor, I let it sit for two years. And when I went to restart it this week to do a test run, prepare for impending power loss due to the ice that we were supposed to get or thought we could get, I couldn't get it started. And I tried everything. I did everything. Before anybody sends me hate mail about the gas, it's ethanol free gas. There was no gum up. That wasn't the problem. But I thought it was the carburetor. So I was doing a bunch of stuff with the fire fluid, the carburetor cleaner, nothing. And then I brought it to AG and within a day, you fixed it. What did you do? So just from looking at stuff online, these generators have installed a bunch of safety systems to protect the user and to protect the machine. The one to protect the user seems completely I mean, clearly people must be doing, they're doing it. They're doing this. They're running their generator in the garage or in some enclosed space that eventually consumes all of the oxygen in that space, leading to the unfortunate deaths of people. So the manufacturers have installed carbon monoxide switches limiters on these devices that cut the thing off. They kill the spark if the CO2 gets to a certain level or it's not CO2, that's carbon dioxide. Carbon one, CO, monoxide. Right, monoxide. The one that can kill you. And there is a switch, no one cares about this, but there's a switch for the oil level. These switches on both accounts are notorious for just failing and preventing the spark from happening. Which is why I was pulling and pulling and pulling. And nothing was happening. Yes. And when you grounded it and were seeing a spark, it's almost like you were bypassing. I don't know exactly how. I don't either. I think it was a combination of just the speed at which I was pulling the magneto, the pull cord. And I could see something happening, but you're right. As soon as it got any sort of momentum and activated the other electronic components that are safety features that you somehow figured out how to go around, it was cutting the spark off. So I thought I had a spark, I had new gas, I had a clean carburetor, and I was, I'm out, I don't know what else to do. So you bypassed these. I turned all of them off. You need a special screwdriver bit to dismantle these systems. I had to go make a trip. While the ice was coming down. Mm-hmm. To the point where half of my windshield was frozen. Okay. Like, it was getting bad. I'm like, okay, this is happening. We are, you know, this thing needs to run. So I just unplugged all of that. And then so I unplugged it, and it still wouldn't start. And I'm like, what is happening? It was the ground for those systems still grounded. And when I unhooked the ground, the first pull instantly started. Mm. Yep. Crowd noise. You did it. You have the smell of gasoline permeating your garage for decades. Oh, man, I, so you spilled some and then I spilled a ton more. It was bad enough that it smelled like gas in my kitchen for a couple days. Yeah. Yeah, when I opened the door, because I had done the same thing, I spilled some in my efforts to fix this thing in my garage. It goes right to the kitchen. And the first time I opened the door, my wife thought we had to evacuate. She's like, that's now we're all going to blow up. No, we're not going to blow up. Okay, shall we begin? Let us begin. All right. Since OB422, 10 minutes ago, we have a new supporter on the iceberg, India Fox Shot. We have no new paypalors. If you're wondering what we're talking about, you can support the show on Supercast. Supercast subscribers get episodes with no delays. Our entire back catalog, depending on what tier you're in, you get our live stream recording every week, bonus audio like AJ Chinook or RHS Atlantic Smoke Story, which was released before this show comes out, comes out in two days for those in the live chat right now. And you get a direct line to us, to us through our supporter only email. Check out opposingbases.supercast.com to find out more. And thank you for signing up to support the show. Yes, thank you. Review and announcements. Review and announcements. This is the size of review that I can do. Okay. You get the announcements. Yes, this review is fitting today. I feel like given our discussion at the beginning. Title Dancing with Penguins, five stars by Rooster Crows and Don. Opposing Bases works, aviation miracles. If they can get a washing machine to fly, these two could land it. End of review. That's it. What else do you need to know? Well, hold on. This is something worth bragging about. And the reason we spent any time talking about it is because we were doing what we could to prepare for this ice. And you fix something that otherwise people would just go and replace. Like I did on the way to your house. You eventually would have got it. It just, I gave up. You gave up. And on the way to, I stopped to get parts for this. I'm like, I'm going to have a small supply of things that we can try. So when I get to AGs, we can fix this thing. Right. I go into the store that I had just been in the day before and they had no generators because there was a run on generators. I mean, this was like apocalyptic lines for anything that was electricity. That would produce power at all. So when I was at the store the day before, they were out of them. I walk in and they got this whole line of people and a huge stack of generators. I said, I want one. I don't take my money. I want one. And I got one. So when I got to you, I left you the unworking model. The broken one. Yeah. And I took the working one. Okay. Anyway, announcements. Oh, I guess you did that review, which was really good. Really good job. Thank you. Thank you. I'll do, I'll do the announcements. Number one, Sierra Romeo Delta is a commercial single engine C rated pilot now. Congrats. Awesome. Congrats. Recently, they left a note recently, the CEO for Penguin Airlines hinted at the acquisition of a new aircraft type. I recently earned my commercial multi engine C rating. So when he surprises everyone by acquiring flying flying boats, I'll be ahead of the game. You know, pretty smart, right? Excellent. Congrats. And cutting edge, just on the cutting edge. Number two, Alpha Mike helicopter training update. For those of you that don't know, we've been following Alpha Mike through the commercial helicopter process. Yes. Yeah. Skipping private. Already, already commercial instrument rated airplane. Yeah. Multi. Good question. Don't think so. But perhaps. Yeah. Okay. All right. Alpha Mike says I passed the commercial helicopter written exam last week. I got a 96. Yeah, me. Congrats. Congrats. Also finished my PIC hours requirement. And the check write is tentatively scheduled for the last weekend of January, which we are in now. So my instructor and I are in full cram mode to get the final simulated instrument hours and check right prep in before then. Cool. Well, congrats on your written and let us know how the check write goes. Yeah, I'm curious if one of the myths I've heard is that some DPs will not sit with you during your auto rotation. They will watch you do it from a safe place. What? I want to know if that's true in real life. Okay. Wow. Well, the show does know a helicopter DPE. Oh, okay. I can find out. Okay. Maybe it's just legend. I don't know. Huh. Congrats and keep us posted. All right, moving on. Time to be back. All right, you look exhausted. I'll get number one. Very tired. From Supercaster Mike Juliet, replying to the Supercast bonus audio about RHS Sims training and check write at Penguin. I finally worked my way through this episode. That's in quotes because it was rather lengthy. It was a compilation. Can I pause there for a second and explain what I did? Yes. So when we moved to Supercast, I took a ton of bonus audio that had only been on Patreon in the past, but was pretty much buried on there as well. And when we moved it to Supercast, it got buried in the order that we put, you know, almost 400 episodes onto that platform at one time, including the bonus. So the only way for you to really find it would be to go scroll through and just there was, there's no playlist that this doesn't really honor that. So I thought to resurface some of this stuff that many of you never heard because it was buried in the first place. Definitely didn't hear it when it moved to Supercast. And the feedback has been really good on that. So if you missed it, when we do a normal episode, it's titled OB in a three digit show number. That's a normal episode. I'm getting news from the family over here about grades. Good stuff. They're having a little quiet party over there. Yay. So anyway, the episode about Sims training and checkerheads was multiple bonus audios pulled into one playable. It's at the top. It was recent. It's, it's inside of the 420 range. So you can find it in your normal feed for the Supercast subscribers. That's it. And you just released one. I did. And I have another one coming out on Friday. We're going to try to have a schedule of this or something for supporters only comes out on Fridays. We're not making a promise, well, that's 100% all the time. But there's enough in there where we can kind of rotate in some new stuff and some compilations of previous bonus audio. Yeah, yeah, I can't promise this was mine was like what 2324 minutes. I cannot promise like something like that every week. But because it took me out Yeah, they take hours to get ready, you know, to prepare that. So, but I could probably do it would be much easier for me to do a story off the top of my head. Oh, yeah. That I didn't have to prep for. I could just tell a story and, and, and have it be the thing. So anyway, yeah, my first, my first try at it. It was fun. It was excellent. Yeah, excellent. So, all right. Anyway, back to what Mike Juliet said, it really takes me back to my airline training. It's interesting to hear the way things are done differently at my airline and the way you do it at Penguin. Your discussion about the reasons you may reject the takeoff in the high speed regime. The airline uses 80 knots, we use 100 knots at Penguin. I've shortened his brief. So this is part of our pre flight. We say this every flight the captain says this part, I've shortened it to fire, failure, fear or sheer for reasons to stop rolling down the runway once you're past 100 knots. Before 100 knots is pretty benign at the airline 80 knots, you can stop for really anything. Someone's stomach hurts. All right, or aborting. Right. Right. But after 100 knots, it's, it's, it's a, I'm trying to word this in a way that doesn't scare people. It's much riskier to stop flying at 100 plus knots and stopping is the important part. So it has to be for a good reason and that's part of his brief. Any fire, failure, fear or sheer and the fear is part of our, in our brief, the extended version of fear is the perception for any reason that the airplane will not fly. And that may not present itself with a warning or something obvious. You could have rolled over something, a tire could be blown. You get a bad feeling. Yep. Something's trying to come onto the runway. And we got time to stop, stop, that type of thing. And then wind shear. Nice and short. And it simplifies it down to the almost poetic mnemonic. Interesting listening while on my Brisbane, did I say that word right layover after 14 plus hour flight and waiting for the caffeine to wear off so I can take a nap. Look, it's another little pet peeve. Now it's really not a pet peeve. I'll be offered caffeine late into a flight. Yeah. Going east. No, I don't know. No, no, no, no, no. One, I don't want any reason to have to get up to go to the bathroom. So no more fluids halfway through the flight. We stop drinking. And I definitely don't want caffeine. Yeah. When I get to nap time, I want to take a nap. Right. Sorry. No. No. Thank you, Mike Juliet. Thank you for responding on that. And look for more. There'll be more audio coming out. And there's a lot left in there. And hopefully some new stuff. So cool. You get number two. Number two from guest Mike Sarah. Oh, this is for me. A.G. just want to say that I really enjoyed the Chinook bonus audio. I agree. It's a bit of a weird bird. But from an engineering standpoint, it's a marvel. It's always neat to hear about airline life. But it was super cool to hear about this too. No offense intended to R.H. for his updates, of course. Thanks for including me in the announcements this week. Week one of school successfully completed. Good luck with the weekend storms. Always shoot that approach. The A&P school announcement, I believe. A&P school. Oh, yes, yes. Right. Mechanic, airline, mechanic school. No offense taken. A.G. was way better than all of mine put together. And he did it once and showed me how smart he was. So cool. Thanks, A.G. I thought it was interesting angle that you took on that. I don't even know what the prompt was for what your original inspiration was. But the angle that it took is really interesting. Yeah. So I think my thesis, I wanted to have kind of a thesis of this 20 minute thing. And it really was trying to drill down on why is the Chinook, which is effectively Cold War era. Its first flight was in 61. Why is it still relevant? By the time, if, and I don't want to give like this whole episode away, but that's sort of the question that I try to answer. If the army has their way, the Chinook will, by the time it gets to the end of its service life, have been in service over a hundred years. They are planning to have it through the mid-2060s. And so I just am trying to answer why is how, one, how is that possible? And two, why is that has it lasted so long? And it's not something that I had thought about before. It was fun. It was fun to sort of dig into that. I loved it. So next prompt will give you will be a story about maybe something on that airplane. Okay. All right. Fancy jet music. All right. This week's show topic is a continuation of, this is the first time we've done this, two episodes for one feedback that went back and forth between a, uh, Arige and Papa November about Prax's approaches and the Coffee Bravo. So this segment is what the aim actually says about Prax's approaches. Cool. Uh, I'm going to start it off here. Related to the topic of VFR Prax approaches, I noticed this morning that the Coffee Traycon, this is a very important piece of this puzzle, everyone, still has a valid, unexpired letter to airmen specifying that as workload permits, they'll provide IFR separation to VFR Prax approaches. All right. I think it's worthy to read this, this letter. Yeah. Yeah. We talk about these all the time. We've never actually, we've never read one. We need to read this. All right. Subject, very far Prax approaches. This is a letter to airmen S46-29. It's dated August 30th, 2024. And it's issued by the Seattle Traycon. It is signed and I'll get to this. It is signed by the Seattle Traycon manager, the person responsible for the things that happen in this building. That is not on this page that I showed on here, but it's signed by the ATM. Where does a person go to find this? That is a really good question. Is it, does it pop up in four flight under? You can get it in four flight. I, we have evidence to suggest that happens. And I think there's a couple buttons you have to get to get there. Someone from four flight, we have four flight listeners. If you can send in a quick, how do I get to this letter to airmen? Or more importantly, how do I find it out if there's one from my facility? Please send us that order of buttons to push. Shout out to four flight. We're not sponsored by them, but they deserve a shout out. Right. All right. So the subject is VFR Prax approaches, cancellation of, or the cancellation of this letter is in 2026. So this needs to be renewed. We'll get to that. At the locations listed below and when workload permits, Seattle terminal radar approach control, otherwise known as Seattle approach, will provide IFR separation to the extent possible to VFR aircraft executing practice instrument approaches as described in the aim paragraph four dash three dash two one. When separation services are not provided, ATC will advise no separation services provided. IFR separation when available will commence at the point where the approach clearance becomes effective and terminates at the missed approach point. Pilots of VFR aircraft should be aware that approach clearance approval to make a practice approach does not relieve a pilot's responsibility to comply with the applicable parts of the CFR governing VFR flight, i.e. seen avoid, included in the approach clearance or approval will be instructions to maintain VFR. Pilots should be particularly alert for other VFR aircraft, which may be unknown to the controller. Controllers will ensure that practice approaches do not disrupt the flow of arriving or departing traffic. Therefore, it may be necessary at times to refuse delay or withdraw authorization for a practice approach. And then it goes on to list 11 airports that are not the main Bravo with frequencies. So at those 11 airports and two of them are asterisks and I'm not sure why. Oh, full stop only. Yeah, so they're not going to protect for the mist that goes flying right into the Bravo's traffic pattern, basically. Yeah, and they even say it in the letter, terminates at the missed approach point, the IFR separation. But anyway, that was a very quick, this is the letter to Airman that I think some controllers think is actually a physical piece of paper that gets sent to every pilot who has an address west of Colorado. Thank you. You're welcome. Wow. I respect you, AG. Yeah, I feel so happy right now. If the pronunciation of that square state is not on the bingo boards, Peter, it needs to be added. Okay. All right, let's pause. I said to let's pause here and talk about what it says. What do you think of the letter? Is it too much, too little? What are your... I love it. I love how specific it is. I love that it defines where we are going to provide this service because the hangup for so many people at Triad about this was, oh, what about the mist? When do you... When does this terminate? When do you shut it off? How do you shut it off? You've already shipped them to advisory, so you can't talk to them anymore. Otherwise, you'd have to shut it off before you shipped them to advisory. No, you can just define where it terminates. You can define that the pilots are still responsible for seeing a void, for cloud clearance, et cetera. You're just explaining the whole thing out how it's going to go. I love it. I love this. Yes, it does include all of these details, but it's still not lengthy. It's easy to digest and it references a very specific paragraph in the aim, which I'm assuming we're going to get into. It's great. I hope they don't let it expire, but I would not be surprised if they did. Well, this one was just renewed in August of 25. I'm sorry, effective in 24. It got renewed in 25 to signature at the bottom signifies that it just got renewed again for another year. So, they're doing their thing. That's why I want to make sure we say this and don't forget. The pilots in that area, if you don't have one, you need to get one. Use this as an example. Hey, we want to set up a meeting. We want to sit down with your manager, your safety person for the union. This is what they do at a very busy airport. Is there a way we could do this here? So, we can memorialize some of this and you remove all the barriers there. This exists. This is a thing. It gets done. It's not fake. We took this for granted at Triad. It's gone and it probably won't ever come back. No. But our letter was very similar to this. It wasn't as specific on when separation starts and ends, but it listed the airports that we were expected to give IFR separation to. To me, this letter from this facility takes away almost every excuse that other facilities. Now, I'm not saying there are exceptions. There are exceptions. I'm sure there are. But this is not a slow, lazy approach control. They are busy. No, they're very busy. And it's complicated airspace. There are huge MVAs. You're talking from sea level contained within this airspace from sea level up to over 14,000 feet. Okay. It's a huge variation of traffic. It's everything. And they're still doing this. RH in the last episode said, training friendly. Man, that might even be an understatement. Agreed. This is like pro training. Training advocate. I don't... How could you be much more for training than this? Amen. 11 airports for the ones that are saying, there's no way we'll do that. Okay. Well, then find four or five of them that don't cause so much of inconvenience and confliction and use those. They won't above and beyond. I bet you this is every airport with an approach in the area. If I had to guess. Yeah. And one of these Boeing field is busy. Right. And it goes underneath, depending on which runway they're on. Yes. It goes right underneath the final to C-tec. At least under the departures if they're going the other way. So yeah. Yep. Yeah. Big deal. Okay. They continue. Note that the letter to airman references aim four dash three dash two one, but since that was written, the aim appears to have been updated and practice approaches are covered in aim four dash three dash two two. That sent me down the aim rabbit hole. I love the fact that you were curious enough to find this because I wasn't and I wouldn't have found it had it not been for this feedback. The paragraph jumped out at me, which states in the aim four dash three dash two two. I bolded this and highlighted it. All approach control facilities and centers are required to publish a letter to airmen depicting those airports where they provide standard separation to both VFR and IFR aircraft conducting practice instrument approaches. Put on your attorney hat because we're going to jump into the wording of this. Okay. Reading this like a lawyer since the letter is required, the absence of such a letter implies that the list of airports where they provide standard separation for VFR and IFR aircraft conducting practice approaches is empty. That could be argued. So think about it. You could read this both ways, I guess. If you're not willing to provide this service, the letter is optional. Now let me reread the sentence again. Think about it that way from both sides of it. All approach control facilities and centers are required to publish a letter to airmen depicting those airports where they provide standard separation to both VFR and IFR aircraft conducting practice instrument approaches. In my mind, if they're required to have a letter and it's to zero airports, the list should be no airports. We don't do it. Right. But I think this is at least a way to start a conversation. Hey, why don't we have one that has at least a airport on it? Right. It says here that you're supposed to do that. I can see it both ways, but you're right. It definitely could start a conversation and you could... I am an advocate for doing practice approaches. I have been, I think the new way that they're doing it is, was a knee-jerk reaction to Delta airports, you know, tower controllers doing practice approaches in approach controls airspace. I think that's where this whole new, we're not going to do this anymore, was born out of. Agreed. And I think it's completely unnecessary. I think there's no reason we can't do this. And something like this even prevents, for us, let's say Coat Factory, which is a really popular place to go and do a practice approach. And if you're having to call and with Duke and block the airspace for a practice approach every time, it's a barrier for controllers to doing it. No, I have to do this coordination. Well, if it's written the way that this letter is, you really don't. The separation terminates at the missed approach point. No blocking needed. No block. Yep. So, man, printing this out, I'm going to print this out. And I am going to take it to work. And I am going to ask for what is our excuse. They continue. Okay. This supports the interpretation you have mentioned on your show that some facilities are using, which is no letter, no separation services provided to VFR craft, which seems to be the argument right now, try it, and you're going to find the excuse. Okay. Yep. All right. So I am going to be very nice about the way I say this. Hmm. Okay. It's possible that due to the frequency of changes of managers, that the importance of this letter is lost in translation. Managers aren't invested in time, like they maybe were 15, 20 years ago. It's not uncommon to have a new manager every one to two years. Right. Is this the top of their list of priorities? Probably not. Second question, do most facilities even know that these type of letters exist? Or were they just doing it because it's the way they got trained? Which is why I got so upset when we first started having this conversation. I didn't care. And it seems like you didn't either. I think you said so much that the letter existed or not. This is what I do. You want to go here. I'm going to give you the approach clearance. I'm going to say goodbye to you. And I'm going to do all the things like your IFR because this is what my job is. And then when someone tells me, well, the letter isn't there, you don't have to do this anymore. I don't care. This is what I do. That's a piece of paper. Yeah, I don't care if it exists. I'm still doing it. Right. I went as far as to say that, and I've re-listened this episode where I said, I would be the one in an office with a supervisor saying, they would have to tell me to stop. Stop doing this. And that is exactly what they have done. Okay. That is exactly what is. By order. They've said stop doing this, unless this letter exists. Right. Which it doesn't. So stop. Which is really a shame. Okay. I'll get off my soapbox there. But do you think most controllers at or average facilities throughout the NAS, don't this one stands out? This is remarkable, training friendly, training advocate. Do you think that any of them care about the existence of a letter, know that they exist, know that pilots don't get them in the mail? What are your overall thoughts of the letter to Airman? Yeah. So the knowledge of this letter, it sort of is on the controller side, something that happened over time. It's sort of got little bits, oh, we don't have the letter anymore. You know, as a trainee, you might hear that, oh, we don't have, we used to have a letter, but we don't have it. When we were going through training, you knew that it existed. It was something that was discussed because you had to know which airports of our 17 airports were listed on this. Which is why we just did it everywhere. Exactly. I don't have to know the list if I just do it to every airport. Amen. Controllers knowledge of how do pilots figure out where this is, I think is zero because I just had to ask like where, how do pilots go find this? Yeah, I can find it at my facility because we keep a copy of it, you know, in the SOP or wherever it is. But how do pilots find it? I don't know that controllers are going to know that. All right, I'm going to continue. All right. Another bit that jumped out of me was the paragraph, practice instrument approaches are considered to be instrument approaches made by either a VFR aircraft, not an IFR flight plan, or an aircraft on an IFR flight plan. So even when I file an IFR flight, since my mission is training, and since I'm not itinerant, JJ's favorite word, my approaches are also considered practice approaches. This is an important distinction because it does give them the ability to say, hey, we're okay with playing a practice approach via for IFR game, but don't think that just because you file, you're not a practice approach. We know what you're doing. Okay. Yes. Since my approaches are considered practice approaches, sub paragraph B and applies, which states before practicing an instrument approach, pilots should inform the approach control facility or the tower of the type of practice approach they desire to make and how they intend to terminate a full stop, touch and go, missed or low approach. This information may be furnished progressively when conducting a series of approaches. Pilots on an IFR flight plan who have made a series of instrument approaches to a full stop planning should inform ATC when they make their final landing. The controller will control flights practicing instrument approaches as to ensure they do not disrupt the flow of arriving and departing itinerant IFR or VFR aircraft. The priority afforded itinerant aircraft over practice approaches is not intended to be so rigidly applied that it causes grossly inefficient application of the services. A minimum delay to itinerant traffic may be appropriate. I love that to allow an aircraft practicing approach to complete that approach. What do you think of that? Yeah, I mean it's just sort of, so when they say itinerant what they're talking about is people not doing training, they're just going from A to B, IFR or VFR. And what defining a flight as a training flight or doing practice approaches allows us to do is prioritize them correctly. Where do they fit into this hierarchy of who has priority? What this is saying is don't delay this practice approach guy so much that you're not allowing them to really do anything. I have seen that before. A practice approach, okay you're going to have to hold it the initial approach fix for like the next 15 minutes while I get all of these arrivals in or all these departures out or whatever it is. That is, what is the word that it uses here? Grossly inefficient application of services? Grossly inefficient, that is grossly inefficient. Now I get it if there, you know, some event, you're at a big tracon, there's an event in a race, let's say it's a NASCAR race, this happens for us and the race lets out and all the departures are coming out of this non-towered airport, all like 20 of them, all at the same time. You know what, I probably am not going to do a practice approach there. That might make sense, but for a couple planes, it's just basically, the way I read this is use some common sense and don't delay these practice approach guides so ridiculously long that it is grossly inefficient. I'll breeze over this next paragraph, we talked about this, if you want to do multiple approaches, you can put that in your remarks. If that facility that we spoke about on the last episode wants you to do A to B and then just tell them what's going on, try to communicate that as early as possible so they at least write it down on the strip, not a ton to go over on that. Second phrase that jumped out, pilots on IFR flight plans who have made a series of instrument approaches to full stop planning should inform ATC when they make their final landing. It implies that it's okay to make full stop landings. This isn't something we've done on a single flight plan. If we're going to stop in taxi back, we file a second flight plan and pick up our new clearance on the ground. This is super important, if AG was working you to coat factory and your intent was to get this IFR separation services, full stop taxi back, you would be locking up that airport. Yeah. We're not doing that. And for you to reactivate that tag when it came back off, would mean you'd have to suspend it. Remember the key commands for reactivating, like taking out of suspend mode, which I always screwed up. I couldn't do it. I would broadcast the room. I'm about to mess this up. Someone help me. I don't know what I don't like being limited by technology stuff that I use once a year or once a month maybe. Yeah. Well, the problem is even when you do this correctly, I've had it where it doesn't work anymore. Right. They sat on the ground. If I'm trying to automate this out of the building, it just doesn't work. It never works. So I think that's a good practice. One we should endorse. If you're planning on not going missed or low approach and dropping off the scope, we're done. We're going to file another flight plan and it resets the board. Yeah. Otherwise we're talking about a through clearance. Don't do it. It is so... Yeah, no. Controllers are not going to want to do that. No. They don't want to block up the airport for an indefinite amount of time. Because what am I going to do? Give you a void time. I'm going to force you now to... If you don't make it off for whatever reason, hey, maybe you land and you're taxing back and there's three other planes waiting to go down there. And now, now what? What if they're IFR? Right. Now we're in a bad way. All right. Why don't you pick up a third? The paragraph that starts with third. Right. Third, the phrase, the controller will control flights practicing instrument approaches. So as to ensure that they do not disrupt the flow of arriving and departing, itinerant IFR or VFR aircraft implies that some amount of priority is being afforded to non-practice aircraft, even though we're on a real IFR flight plan. I have experienced this firsthand at least once when our approach clearance was canceled in favor of a jet coming in on the ILS while we were slowly plotting our way through the DME arc of a VOR approach in our Skyhawk. I had zero problem with this. In fact, I thought it was an excellent scenario to encounter during training and was pleased to have the learning opportunity. Yeah. I mean, it is an opportunity to do something different that's real world realistic. Because very infrequently, am I going to have a jet who could very easily be number one with a short delay for the Skyhawk versus a long delay for the jet just because the Skyhawk started their approach first? Even if that Skyhawk isn't a practice approach. Exactly. That's my point. Right. So that is going to happen to you on an IMC itinerant day. Right. So it's just real world stuff. Practice it like it would actually happen. Be prepared for something like that. Hey, we're going to get broken off of this arc. And I have to figure out how to rejoin it. How, you know, where do we go after this? What's going to happen? So yeah, totally. I think that's totally okay. That is correct prioritization because now you're talking for this Skyhawk to fly all the way on the arc, then join final and come back in and wait for them to go missed or whatever has to happen before you can clear this jet is a gross inefficiency for the jet. Try to think about it in dollars costs. So you're holding a jet for 10 or 15 minutes waiting for this approach to happen. Okay, the cost of that versus I'm holding a Skyhawk for five. Right. It's not even close. Right. I'm going to say something that's semi philosophical on this too. The fact that the school didn't use that as an excuse to stop doing this says a lot about their emotional responsibility and intelligence at that school. Hey, we got delayed once or we got delayed a couple times. We're doing what they told us to do. Fine, stop it. Because some schools might say stop, just go out VFR, go do it by yourself. If they're going to delay us, we're not going to play. The fact that you didn't do that and you still continue doing this, we're going to keep playing by the rules that they've given us. They've given us this awesome letter. They've given us the methodology to file these flight plans until it walked us through the way they would like it, albeit AG and RH think it's super weird. It works for them. Right. And you didn't run from it. That says a lot about what you guys are trying to accomplish. You want to learn, you want to be a part of the system and you want to be good users of the NAS. Good on you. Let's look, let's think about in this scenario of the Skyhawk and the jet. Okay. In, now you've in the Skyhawk, you're VFR, you're not talking to anybody. You're just out there doing this approach on your own. When you were IFR, you were in the way of a jet. You being VFR doesn't change that at all. Right. But now you're not talking to anyone. You're still in the way and now I don't even know what you're doing. You're not being a, you're not playing nice with the NAS. You're not being a good user. Steward of the airspace. I love it. By doing that. You want to finish the one final thought? The one final thought. Where were we? I've all, I've probably read all these words in the aim before at some time in the past, but lack the context to really understand them. That is super important. Context for anything is now we've gone into the phase of learning that is correlation. Right. You're fully understanding why it is worded and why it says the things that it says. It's very important to close that loop on, it's not just wrote, I didn't just memorize paragraph four dash whatever. I get it. I get what it's saying. I'm also pretty sure I'd seen the practice approach letter to airmen in my EFB. Okay. There we go. Before, I'd seen it before during flight planning, but again, didn't really understand it properly. The combination of practical experience gained through my IFR training and the opportunity to reflect on those experiences as I listened to your show provided me the motivation to pull on this thread and understand better how my operation fits into the NAS. That is so important. How do I fit into this system? And being VFR talking to no one does not do anything to understand that. You're asking the system to fit into your needs, the system to work around you. Not how do I work within the system that's best for everyone? Man, this is such a good feedback. Thank you again for putting out your show week after week. I'm up to OB5. Hold on. You have to say it right. OB005. In the way backlog and had to laugh when I heard you say something like, we're using three digits in the episode names, like there's a chance we will actually get to 100. Wow, we got to 100 four times. Awesome. Pop in November, great feedback. I love this discussion. All right, I'll throw out a question for you. Kind of get your post, reading all this feedback. If you and I rolled the world, would you make the letter mandatory, even if it only had one or zero airports on it? Would you force the conversation at every facility? Yeah, I, if it's going to have zero, I want in the letter the explanation for why that is happening. I like that. These are the circumstances that we have determined prevent us from providing this service. What are they? Why can't you do that? Why can't you do the things that they're doing at this busy coffee bravo? Exactly. So well, by the way, you have zero excuses. Listen, we have a busy non-tower at airport. Coat factory is super busy. It's busier than our towered airport. It's busier than both the towered airports that we work in the airspace for IFR traffic. I could understand, Hey, we're not going to do this. We're going to do this traffic permitting at co-factory, but if we were not ever going to delay an itinerant IFR aircraft, fine. Which we never do. We never do that anyway. We don't do it anyway. Exactly. Put it in the letter like that then. But I'm afraid that the excuse that we would have to put on here for zero would be embarrassing. It would be embarrassing because it would be a big fat nothing. Well, I'll defend that. I'll defend that for, you know, if one of the reasons was they just, some of the controllers don't want to do it if they don't have to. And we're creating work. I'm biting my tongue. Okay. We don't live in a vacuum. These are normal human beings that are working traffic. And you work for the government and you work for an FAA that has questionable and intermittent funding that creates all sorts of stress. Why are you finding more ways for us to do things for other people when they can't do the basics for us like pay us on time? All right. That's certainly something that you can voice, but that's not a constant. That's a temporary state. This letter is there. It's embedded in this facility and how they do work. And if it were part of triad again, it would become part of the culture. It would become normalized again. Right now, it's normalized to say, no, because we don't have to. There's no letter. The letter's gone. If you were able to get the letter back overnight, that culture changes back to the way it was. We just do it because why? Well, regulatory wise, this letter says we do. But otherwise, it's how we do our job here. It's how we conduct business. It's how we fit into this system. Yes. It's why during the shutdown in 19, we had Duke sending us literally every single airplane that wanted to do an approach to us. Their culture wouldn't do them. They sent them all to us. Right. Where should we send them? West. Over that line over there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I put a little closing remark on here about popping November's feedback. This facility and these pilots and instructors have stopped asking what they're entitled to and started asking, how does this system actually work? And that's why you guys are doing it the right way. Absolutely. Let me, a couple of things that come up that come to mind about this whole topic. So you're providing IFR separation to a VFR practice approach. That's what this is really comes down to. The hang up, I'm just trying to summarize the problem. The hang up controllers have is that at non-towered airports, this is a burden because you can only do one in, one out. Okay. And you're also having to separate now. Once you say cleared, you're now having to separate from overflight traffic. So let's say the approach starts at four, you have an overflight at four or whatever. Now you're having to separate from that traffic as well. Which you would also have to do with an IFR aircraft anyway, right? Right. I guess what I'm trying to say for that is in favor of providing these approaches is that it is traffic and workload permitting. There are ways to delay giving that clearance that still allow everyone to get what they want or with a minimal sort of delay. And that for us, going back into the primary airport, that service is still provided. We are still doing that. The busiest one in the puzzle. Right. That one doesn't get to go away. Right. That one you have to do. I'm going to put your focus on the second paragraph of the letter. I think this would be a huge win if this could be conveyed in the facility. IFR separation when available will commence at the point where the approach clearance becomes effective. We've said that before. When they say the words cleared for and the approach, that's when you become magical IFR. Right. And terminates at the missed approach point. No ambiguity. Your blocking phenomenon gone. Right. As soon as they get to the missed approach point, which is seconds away, they're VFR again. You don't have to worry about blocking one in, one out. They were the in. Now they're gone. We're back to square one. Right. So that would remove that obstacle. I don't think our old letter was that specific. No, it wasn't. And that was always one of the hangups people had. How do I end this relationship? And I answered that when I told you the way I ended it. I'd give them all the things. P-Tech, watch them join final. Hey, no traffic observed between you and the airport. Radar service terminated. Squawk VFR. Frequency change approved. I have ended the relationship three different ways. Right. Yeah, right. I'm done with you. And you got everything you needed from me. Right. So one of the arguments is, is controllers will say, you know, they don't need IFR separation. And, and you can't separate them from other VFRs out there because you're not talking to them, right? So other people just out flying around or doing their own practice approaches without talking to us, you can't separate them from that. You know, so what, what really is the point? And I'm, I guess my response to that is, well, that happens for a real IFR, just A to B full stop landing anyway. Especially once I turn them over to advisory, like the difference is nothing. It's nothing in terms of between those two planes. If I'm not delaying itinerant IFR aircraft, then what difference does it make? And here, what it allows the training aircraft to do is at least, at least be able to do this training, focus on doing this approach and not have to worry about at least IFR aircraft. I am taking care of that part. Agreed. And one more follow up to the answer to that question. Why do they need this? What are we actually doing if we give them the separation? Because it's the extreme end of the other side of it. When they stopped having to do it because the letter went away, they stopped giving them all the things. It wasn't even then they weren't providing separation. They were stopped with the vectors, they stopped with the cleared two, cleared for the approach, they stopped saying all of it. So you went from providing a standard normalized expected, and maybe someone to argue entitled to service to no separation service provided maintain VFR and cutting them loose. They get nothing. They went from awesome to zero service. Right. The in between fine, you don't want to provide them my IFR separation, at least get them onto an approach. Hey, maintain VFR, fly heading 360 maintain 3000 till established. I don't know. I don't want to suggest some alternate way to do this. Because I do believe that you guys can, there's legal and safe ways to do this. And this letter proves that. But they took all that away. So that's what you're giving them. You're giving them the service, the practice, the repetition, the understanding of how they actually fit into the system. Right. While they're learning required items on their syllabus, they can't get through instrument or commercial training without doing this stuff. Right. I really hope that you guys get it back. And I want to know what the response is when you show them, Hey, this is how easy this is, we can make this a plug and play, which leads to one of my last points. Outside the 7110, the FARs and the AIM, there's no national standard. That is the standard. Those three items are the way we conduct business in the FAA. And maybe there's an opportunity here to kind of focus on one of those. Look, here's the wording. This is what allows us to do this letter to airmen. Really, why aren't we doing this? What's our good, what's a good reason why we wouldn't do this? Yeah. You know what? It is really easy. Like you said, the funding, you know, okay, we didn't get paid, we had to shut down. It's really easy to go to fall into the trap of, well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do this. They can't even pay me for 40 something days. So no, I'm not doing it. It is easy to fall into that trap. But you know what? I would challenge controllers to rise above that mentality, to rise above that and say, you know what, we are here as public servants. We are here to provide a service to the flying public. That is, that is from Skyhawk Discovery Flight to commercial multi-training, you name it, it's the whole spectrum to the passenger flying in the back of an air carrier. And this is all part of that thing. Rise above the petty complaining and be a professional and provide a service because the country has decided that air traffic is a service that it is going to provide the public. You decided to do this job. Do it. Just do it. And you could stop and you can have your complaints about pay and you can fight that battle on it. But it could be on a different, in a different place. You don't have to fight it on frequency. Fight it somewhere else and do your job. I certainly could not have said that better. Thank you. Oh, okay. Pop in November. Thank you. That sat in there for a little bit. Appreciate your patience while I work through a content rich feedback for the show. And I hope somebody learned something. Take this episode and run with it. Let us know if you have any luck getting some type of letter for your facility or a renewal. Pilots have to fight for it. Stand up and say we want it. And this is why. Yep. Cool. Thank you. Moving on. Since you just ended that perfectly, I think I should get the longer one here. Okay. From Supercaster November Papa. I pulled back my subscription at the end of last year, but we're back. Cool. Welcome back. I felt really bad about doing it at the time, but to be honest, I was burned out on every level. I didn't know what you were going to say at the end of this topic that you just got done saying, but I think this fits in perfectly. Okay, good. I've always loved aviation, best summed up by my feedback for the very special OB-400. Ironically, just after that episode is when the whole thing started to drag on me. I found myself not engaging with anything aviation related outside of work, even as far as getting annoyed at the final to the Gator State Charlie I lived under. Normally my kids and I spend hours out there watching. They're always so amazed at how many planes there are. I haven't had the heart to explain the concept of pattern work to my oldest yet, LOL. I'd written to R.H. earlier last year about his career transition while I explored if that was even an option for me and if it was, what I even want to pursue it. Well, I went the opposite direction and my love of the game is back in full force. I've always been a center controller. Let's pause there and give him a moment of silence. I went straight to a center from the academy, but now I get the chance to be a real boy after all. I'm going to Big Boy Treycon in the heart of America. This isn't for the show and honestly, it's just a little personal. Well, too bad I'm reading it on the show, but your guy's show has been so important to me. So I wanted to say thank you again for all the extra time and effort you put into the show. Now I better go practice that truly god-awful keyboard and learn how to use the hand switch instead of the foot pedal. No. No, no, no, no. You can still use the foot pedal. Don't do that. Use the foot pedal. That's what professionals do. I resent those remarks. Just because I wasn't capable of telling my brain to push my foot down to talk. I'm important too, AG. And while I'm doing that, I'm going to catch up on all the episodes I missed. See you in the funny papers. Hey, I get it. And AG kind of alluded to it. Everybody's got that time. Aviation is like, they know you love it and they love planes and you love the thrill of working traffic or flying a plane. And aviation just finds a way to just crush your soul sometimes. It can be a lot. It can be a lot. And you're just ready to say, I'm done. I've had it. I'm done. And now you're back. And you're going to get a big boy Traycon job. Anonymize these facilities per your requests as to not reveal your true identity. That's also why I read this feedback. So openly, it's important that you share these type of things and where they have a new to share it with our audience. And I couldn't be happier to have you back. Not only listening to the show as a supporter, but just back into the love of the game. If you don't have some sort of foundational, and I think that might be what's missing in a lot of people these days, this isn't a job for me. It's my life. It's a career. This is it. If you don't have a love for it, it's going to be really, really hard to get through. All the shift work, all the missed things, the long days, the stressful times that do happen, despite me answering that question all the time, it's not as stressful as people think. There are times when it was. If you don't love it, it's going to be harder. And you took some time away. Probably overlapping with a shutdown, which didn't help. And now you have a new light at the end of the tunnel, a new job to look forward to. And it's going to feel like you're starting over again. Ask anybody who's gone from a center to a tricon. Let me just help you with one lesson that you need to learn now before it takes you a month or two to realize this. Just because it's a lower level facility or not a center, does not mean it's easier. It's going to be a very big challenge for you. Take it head on. Yeah, I ranted a lot. Go ahead. No. No, I mean, you said it. Yeah, it will be a little bit of a, I don't know what kind of sector you worked at the center. Because if you work the sector to the ground, there could be some similarities. But the difference is the center doesn't work a ton of sequencing in the places that the center works to the ground are not usually particularly busy because those would be a tricon if they were. Right. They don't have a Charley or Bravo underneath them. Yeah, right. So it is going to be a little bit of a shock, I think. Yep, you can get airplanes closer than five miles. You have to say altimeter settings, weather matters on the ground all the way down into the low-leathed surface of earth. Right. Yeah, I mean, the idea that these planes are going to the same place, the center gets super bent out of shape sometimes about, like this two planes are 15 or 20 miles apart, you know? Right. And they're slowly getting closer and they'll, so they'll put speed on them and say, hey, this one's, this one's 300 or greater, this one's 280 or less. Like, okay, well, 300 or less would have been sufficient. They're already 15 miles apart. And do you not realize that by the time we're done here, they will be three miles apart, landing on the same piece of pavement? You're making my job of getting them two, three miles apart. Much more difficult. Right. Yes. Yeah, so it is just a little bit of a mind shift, I think. And on the keyboard, I just learned yesterday, which by the way, I am super upset about, that in the back, in the main, on the maintenance scope in the equipment room, there is a QWERTY keyboard plugged into that scope. That you would buy off the rack at like Radio Shack? No, no, no, no. Okay. It has all of the tracks to spin, handoff buttons, it has all those buttons at the top. Make more of them and plug them into all the scopes. And it's QWERTY. And I said, hold on a minute, I was back there with the maintenance guys. I said, what is this keyboard? And they're like, oh, that's the keyboard we use, that's way easier than your guys, you know, ABCD keyboard. And I said, yeah, it is. I want that. No, you can't have that. Your scope isn't set up for that. The square hole we've dedicated to, it won't fit a QWERTY keyboard, it only fits this giant calculator size one. Oh man. So it is a thing that's, we are capable of having a real keyboard. In your spare time, they will teach a class, you have to come after work. It's not during your normal business hours, just ask for it on day one. What time does the typing class start? And with one hand, you practice. Yeah, there's no more two handed typing. Well, you promise that's a real thing, they won't laugh at you. That's over. It's done after hours though. If you want to be a true professional, in our tracon, you have the ability to split apart the keyboard and the trackball. And you can type with one hand, in my case, I type with my left hand, and I slew and click with my right hand. This is the model of efficiency. Typing and slewing with the same hand is what the caveman did. That's the controllers that worked the right brothers. That's what they You're telling me that you can write with your right hand. I could slew and click. And then you can use your left hand to touch a keyboard. Yes, and type. I don't believe you. Come watch, come sit down. I split them, but I also reached across to the left side and typed with my right hand, because I couldn't get my left hand to do anything except hold a strip to the slippery counter. That's all it could do. That was its job. Made even more difficult by you holding the switch for your microphone. That was, I have to really think about what I did there. Well, either way, good luck at the tracon and learning these new tools. You can do it. And welcome back. Yes, welcome back. All right. You get number two. Number two from Supercaster Ekalima. This has nothing to do with anything. It has something to do with something. But folks on the chat were saying see ya. And I remembered my favorite sign off I heard on frequency attached. I heard near upstate New York on my solo cross country, September of 24. The first call tally ho apparently meant traffic in sight. All right. So we have audio. I'm ready. Eyal. I'm ready. One, two, three. Look out the street. November golf, Roger. Follow that. Trapped in the runway. Caution, wait, sir. Roger. Three number golf. Look out the three November golf contact tower one, two, zero point three today. Three number golf over the tower. Bye. We're not suggesting you add that type of goodbye, but it's great. Yeah, the sea is very common. Some people get very animated about the sea. Yeah. That was a big thing in the military. I never really got into it. I don't have a call. I don't have a way to get off frequency anymore. I don't. I don't even remember what I said. It's a Treycon. I try to mix it up. So it doesn't sound like I'm just delivering the same stale line to everyone. Like you get your own personal goodbye. Have a good day. Have a good night. Good morning. We'll see you. You know, I sort of try to mix it up a little bit. There are controllers that do have a very stale goodbye and then like four or five airplanes that are on frequency. They realize very quickly, I'm not getting a special goodbye. I'm getting the same one he said every time. Cut the same goodbye the last guy got. Perfect way to end the show. Okay. Anything to add before the chat? I do not. All right. We do our best to respond to support or feedback and let you know if your feedback will be on an upcoming show. The inbox is very managed right now. If you're thinking, hey, there's no way I could beat some of this awesome feedback. I'm not even going to try. Please stop thinking that. This show keeps going with your great questions. It's okay. It's something we've talked about before. There's always a different angle. There's something new that we can bring to the conversation. Please send it. Yeah. There are new listeners. Yes. That haven't been exposed to all of these episodes. And one of the emails recently said, I'm not sure, well, a lot of them say this. Let's just stop doing it. They say, hey, I'm not sure if this was brought up on a previous show. Well, we've done too many episodes. That's a great product. We don't know either. We have no idea. That's the benefit of being our age. You forget. Yeah. I don't know. We'll just do it again. Yeah. We'll just talk about it again. But I promise it won't be the same airport. It won't be the same pilot. There'll be some little nuance that's different. And we'll make it a new thing. Don't be afraid to send your questions. Please. Right. All right. Closing out episode 423 of Opposing Bases, Air Traffic Talk, Romeo Hotel. And Alpha Golf. Goodbye, everyone. Drop. Opposing Bases is a listener supported ad free weekly podcast. The views expressed on the show do not reflect the opinions or official positions of the FAA or Penguin Airlines. Episodes are for entertainment purposes only and are not intended to replace flight instruction. To get on time access, bonus content and full archive access, join the crew at opposingbases.supercast.com. Yeah. Drop.