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3 Answers

ATC Expectations After a Practice Approach

Asked by: 3825 views ,
FAA Regulations, General Aviation, Instrument Rating, Private Pilot

Recently I was on an IFR flight plan doing practice approaches at multiple airports. Normally ATC has given me climb out instructions to follow after the approach, but this time I was given no instructions. In this situation does ATC expect me to follow the published missed approach?

What I did was complete a touch and go then climb out to the initial heading and altitude in the published miss but I did not make the turn to the hold point. ATC came on after I contacted them, asked my altitude, then gave me a heading to my next airport. But I'm not at all sure I did the right thing. 

What is the proper procedure in this situation. Oh, the weather was VFR at the airport. 

 

Thanks

Mike

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3 Answers



  1. Sans on Oct 26, 2014

    I think you did the right thing. You are just practicing and since 1. you are not on an “official” IFR flight and 2. no specific instructions give from the ATC after the missed approach, then you can continue practicing by completing the missed approach procedure or fly discontinue the practice. ATC will only expect you to execute the missed approach if you are under IFR flight plan (regardless if the WX VMC or IMC).

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  2. Mark Kolber on Oct 27, 2014

    I think AIM 5-4-21(c) (among other FAA guidance and regulations) makes this one pretty clear. When you are cleared for the approach, you are cleared for the published missed and must follow it “unless an alternate missed approach procedure is specified by ATC.”

    A distinction between a practice approach under VFR and under an IFR clearance is going to depend on a lot more than just whether the flight is under VFR or IFR. Even with practice approaches under VFR, some ATC facilities use “cleared for the approach” others use “practice approach approved.” IMO, practically speaking the primary difference between them is ATC accepting or disclaiming separation responsibility.

    But another important difference is going to be the ATC facility involved. Go straight ahead and don’t make the turn at some airports and you may be heading into airspace you don’t want to fly into or creating a traffic conflict with “real” IFR traffic.

    In either case, if you are preforming the approach, unless someone says something different (I’ll ask you to answer this one:) is the reasonable expectation in the absence of someone saying something different that (a) you will do the procedure as charted or (b) that you will do something requiring ATC to read your mind?

    In your situation, it sounds like ATC already had some idea that you planned to proceed direct to the next destination rather than execute the missed. Clearly, if ATC had a problem with what you did, they would have said something. No harm, no foul in this situation. But let’s do a slight variation – What would you do in the exact same situation if your practice approach were in Class C? Just go straight ahead or execute the procedure you were cleared to use?

    My preference is to not require ATC to guess. Best answer for me is always: make sure you and ATC are on the same page. I would preform the missed as charted or otherwise instructed and advise ATC ahead of time if I planned something different.

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  3. Mark Kolber on Oct 27, 2014

    …all that bolding at the end was a typo accident. It was only the word “reasonable” that was supposed to be bold. Sorry about that.

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