You Can't Get There From Here

[Mark Hargrove]

Looking at the towered focus fields for Saturday (KSMX - KCMA), I decided to fly the route IFR. While planning, I see that there is a TEC route in the database (SMX RZS VTU CMA). Check the weather in Camarillo (at about mid-day). Winds 070 at 9, so RWY 8 will be in use. Check AirNav to see what approaches are available. RNAV (GPS) RWY 08. Sweet.

Then I looked at the approach plate and see: "Procedure NA for arrivals at VTU VOR/DME via airway radials 289 CW 311." Uh oh. I brought up the low-level enroute chart on SkyVector to look at the actual flight path of the TEC route, and sure enough: the leg from RZS to VTU along V25 is on -- you guessed it -- the VTU R-289 radial.

So, it appears to me that there is no way to get from KSMX to KCMA when Rwy 8 is in use. That seems pretty wacky, particularly when the TEC route directly crosses DEANO intersection, which is one of the IAF's for the RNAV Rwy 8 approach.

What am I missing or misunderstanding?

-M.

[Keith Smith]

Two things:
1) in VMC, you could expect the visual approach to rwy 8, rather than an instrument approach

2) TEC routes are rarely airport specific, they' get you from one terminal area to another. What you'll actually get once airborne and closer to your destination will often differ from what's printed. In this case, if you requested the RNAV RWY 8 approach, you could fly that pilot nav from from DEANO off V25, or you could be cleared to another IAF, or you might be vectored to the final approach course.

It does not make sense to send the aircraft over one IAF for the requested approach, all the way to the last waypoint of the cleared route, VTU.

[Mark Hargrove]

That makes complete sense, and I was hoping something like that was the case.

What would I do, though, if "cleared as filed" on the TEC route I then I lost comms in IMC sometime after departure but before receiving an amended clearance? I think the answer is that I'd take my choice of the Rwy 26 approaches which can be legally flown from VTU (for the VOR approach) or from VTU to SADDE or KITEC for the two RNAV approaches.

What's been bothering me, though, about lost comms in IMC is how to know which runway to use. Let's say that when I left Santa Maria the weather at Camarillo was 1000' OC with winds of 070 @ 15G25. I'd certainly be expecting Rwy 080, but if I'm lost comms on the TEC route what do I do? I would be VERY reluctant to try to land on Rwy 26 with a 15KT+ tail wind -- but I do I have a legal approach I can fly into Rwy 080?

-M.

[Keith Smith]

In a lost comms situation, if your cleared route overflies an IAF or a feeder, you can commence the approach from there, rather than continuing to the end of the cleared route.

As for runway in use I would use the info from my preflight planning as a starting point.

If, on final, my grounspeed is higher than my true airspeed, then I have a tailwind component. I can either continue, circle, or go missed and shoot another approach, assuming it is IMC.

Keith