I did one years ago, but today cramming 6 approaches with my old CFII we finished off with a PAR into the Naval Air Station, Carswell. On downwind 5 miles out they came back twice what kind of plane we were, GS was 230. . On long approach constant vocal guidance heading and vertical. If you haven't done one at military base before you can't touch down, but you do low approach. Half dozen F-16's waiting on me as I held 20 feet for a mile of runway before a 1k pop up. They turned us downwind and the F-16's were already taking the runway. Don't know the details, but they like for private planes to do this and will tell you if they can't. I guess they have to do so many to stay qualified and easier and cheaper for a piston than expensive jets. Very friendly and welcoming folks, I highly recommend it. No NFlightCam going as I thought just boring approaches today.
Thanks! The more approaches you fly the less I have to for the controller's training. I only want to fly one if the weather is bad, and in that case I only want to fly one per sortie. Approach and landing is just something I do when the real flying is over.
It's probably a lot easier to train a new guy and/or do your own PAR to stay current plane that is fairly slow on final and a civilian who will follow instruction. The biggest problem with doing a PAR (or in my case an Airborne Radar Approach/ARA) is making sure they follow the instructions you are giving. I said fly heading 250 motherf cker! Don't go below 1100 feet! It all depends on where you are at.... I have done a bunch of them during sand storms in Iraq and sometimes they are the only way to get into a place. One of the more amusing things is that they will call ceiling/vis right at mins when they are MUCH lower. Next time I'm in Dallas I will bring some videos and maybe Rob can host them.
Not sure of all the correct terminology, but I have a private pilot buddy that had an ex-navy pilot riding shotgun with him a few weeks ago. They happened to be flying near NAS Meridian here in MS. Navy guy told him the frequency to use to call the NAS tower to request a carrier approach. So sure enough, they set him up to do a carrier approach using the "meatball" on the carrier deck practice area they have lined off on their runway. He said it was a lot of fun, and now he's ready to land a Cessna 184 on a carrier!
I have good memories from an ex-navy pilot instructor who was giving me some landing polish in a Stearman. When I was on final he asked me where the hell we were going. I told him that we were landing. " At this speed we could go to New York!". He took the airplane and we made a go around and then had me set up an approach speed that, as he said, was two clicks above stall. The stick felt like a wet noodle and he said to add a little power if it got too uncomfortable. We dribbled over the numbers and he said chop power and back on the stick and we plopped down in a beautiful three pointer at what seemed like 20 feet from the touch down point. I have since endeavored to follow his lesson, tight crisp pattern, and set the airplane up in the down wind for the landing. The circular " navy approach" is dangerous in a civilian uncontrolled field and I never used it. A rectangular tight-in pattern allows one to scan all quadrants without the wing blanking the visibility in any direction. On a trip home from an air show we were just beginning to turn on to the 45 deg entry to the down wind when we were met head on by a 182. I had to dump the airplane to avoid a collision and regained my flight path somewhat below the proper altitude but continued to enter the pattern. When I turned on base I noticed to my left the same 182 coming in on his "707 final" way out. After we landed I was assailed by the 182 pilot for "cutting him off" and interfering with him in his downwind leg...one half mile east of the prescribed downwind pattern leg. My partner and I had many run-ins with the elite high time Beechcraft Bonanza jockeys there until they bought a Taylorcraft to pad their time . They had it two weeks until one of them lost control on take off and ran it into the FBO's office. A true story.
Unfortunately the Navy is way behind the times on this. PARs are still the only precision approach available in fleet aircraft (excluding P3s I believe). I remember someone telling me the hornet/rhino does not even have a VOR receiver. If there's weather its either TACAN, ASR or you're going to a Navy field. While we're talking about old fashioned, how about still using UHF comms That being said, PARs are about as easy as it gets. It's like having someone do your scan for you while you just focus on heading and VSI. You also stay up with approach the whole time so one less step when already task saturated. But, by far, the best is the occasional cute sounding female controller, complementing you all the way to touchdown, "On glidepath, on course... On glidepath, on course" That's pretty cool that they accommodated him, and I'd say he's pretty lucky. Every once in a while (like every two months) we see a civie king air or something doing a practice approach, but I've never seen anyone in the VFR pattern. Are you in Meridian btw?
What?? Are you saying that navy aircraft cannot do any other precision approach (Ils, mls. gps)???? Define Fleet aircraft for me.
