Sat May 24, 2003 9:29 am
#15321
110kts ILS cruiser,
I can assure you that a 150kt ILS in a light aircraft is not unusual. I would say that in the past year of flying 50% of my ILS approaches have been at "best speed". You do, of course, have the choice but if you are flying into (taking some of my recent examples) Geneva, or Brussels or Amsterdam or something like that then this is what you can expect.
If I have an inexperienced passenger then I routinely brief them on the gear warning horn. This is because my Seneca has a gear extension speed of 129kts. Once I get to the point where I can start to slow down (say 2 miles) I have to pretty much close the throttles in order to stay on the ILS (because I am probably still IMC) and slow down at all. This results in a loud, alarming and distracting gear warning until I get below 129 and drop the gear, at which point, with the addition of flap, getting back to 76 for the final approach is not too bad.
A recent exchange with a controller at Cardiff went something like this...."G-SENX what is your best speed"..."err how about 140"..."can you manage 160?"...."I'll do my best". Now, the seneca cruises with an IAS of between 140 and 160, so 160 is pretty quick, but when you're coming down the glide slope it's actually very easy and requires less than 20" MAP. On this occasion I made it but was nevertheless asked to expedite on the runway because a 757 (I think) was about to land on top of me. There were 4 aircraft being vectored to the ILS with me in the front! Its not so much a question of what the controller expects, just what is required in order to not conflict with other traffic.
It occurred to me, shortly after realising that this was not going to be unusual, that they should teach high speed ILS in the IR syllabus, but no doubt it's not recomended and is probably frowned upon for safety reasons - at least for us ordinary GA types.