IFR Course Reversals | TheaterFire

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Cap-Fae@reddit

Depends on the environment: big airport with a TRACON? Never. Airport in a remote area with just a center controller? Reasonably often, especially if there’s not radar coverage down low.

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AlexJamesFitz@reddit

If you're asking because they seem hard: Don't sweat it too much. They take a little practice but they're simple once it clicks.

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joshuathewise@reddit

Almost daily, but that’s mostly because I’m at the schoolhouse and the students need to learn the skill, so we request the course reversal.

The only times I’ve had to do it in the “real world” were on approaches into non-towered fields with center controllers that were too busy/unable to give me vectors to final. You definitely need to know and be comfortable with course reversals, but most people are going with vectors if given the choice.

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flyingron@reddit

Probably two thirds of the time you get vectored to final around here. My standard alternate (my home field doesn't have an approach), it's closer to 50/50. It's actually faster to fly to the IAF and do the hold in loo rather than getting vectored around to intercept final (or pick up the NoPT IAF).

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spacecadet2399@reddit

Basically never at the airline level, and I think once when I was flying and instructing GA. The one time I did it during GA, the controller went back and forth on it and finally had us do it because we were a Piper Archer and the conflicting traffic the controller was worried about was a flight of A-10's. So I think he honestly couldn't tell initially if we'd be conflicting or not. But he cleared us for the full approach, then cleared us straight in, then as we approached the IAF he asked us to do the procedure turn. That *can* be pretty annoying because usually when you're cleared straight in, you would clear out the procedure turn from the FMS, and that's what we had done. So even though it was a lesson with my student flying, since it was kind of an unusual situation and speed was necessary at that point, I went in and reloaded the entire approach for him once we got the procedure turn clearance.

It made for a good teaching point in the lesson debrief, though.

At the airline I fly for now, I've never had to do one, and generally the way we normally load approaches, it doesn't even load the full approach. It just loads what you'd essentially see if you "activate vectors" on a G1000 - basically the last couple fixes from the FAF. You *can* load the full approach and we can do that quickly if we need to, but we basically never need to. Most arrival procedures, which are common at the airlines but not in GA, will tell us to just expect vectors from the final fix of the arrival to the final approach course.

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Mispelled-This@reddit

Pretty much never thanks to RNAV. If I’m on the wrong side for a straight in, I’ll either get direct a T-fix or VTF. Or I’ll do the opposite approach and circle, if WX allows.

The only real course reversals I’ve ever flown were at my request so I could log a hold for currency.

If you want to know about common practices, though, 95%+ of my approaches are visuals, and nobody teaches those because it’s not on the checkride.

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Key_Slide_7302@reddit

I’ve only had it once or twice in the last year. Middle of the night, Jacksonville center didn’t have the maps that the local approach controller does, but approach was closed for the night. Jacksonville cleared us to the IAF via the Victor airway, which took us from CEW to RRS. We were dual navs without GPS. Jacksonville told us to report inbound over the IAF, then kicked us to CTAF with the FSS frequency to cancel.

LOC14 if you’re interested in looking. The glide-slope indicator on our aircraft was inop.

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bhalter80@reddit

Depends how busy ATC is. If they're busy and you're going to a far out airport you'll get cleared for the full approach. If you're going into BOS you're going to get VTF and a 150kt or better speed restriction and you'll like it.

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rFlyingTower@reddit

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:

Hello Everybody! I recently started learning about course reversals on my IFR ground training and I have a question. For those of you that fly IFR in real life, how often do you get to reverse a course in order to shoot approach? Is it a common practice during everyday operations?

Thank you for your responses!

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