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[DairyCreamer]

Hi everyone,

The following question was given to me recently by one of our controllers:

I was controlling and I had an aircraft do the missed app for 25L at PHX, and it appears that POPKE (the holding point for the missed) is not on the sector file.  Just though you would like to know, and if I am wrong and it is there please tell me.

First, you are correct, POPKE is not displayed, albeit intentionally.  In terms of the sector file itself, I chose only to identify fixes that were displayed on the TRACON's scope, with few exceptions.  Adding the variety of missed approach fixes would/could contribute to excess and unnecessary clutter.  Let me expand on that decision a bit further, however.

Additionally, missed approaches/go-arounds are rarely, if ever, allowed to proceed via the full published missed approach.  In this particular instance, the missed could (in theory) wreak havoc on approaches in progress at CHD and potentially P19.  Not to mention, the published missed would cause some messy coordination between tower, departure, and satellite.

To simplify things, the P50/PHX LOA contains a small section on handling missed approaches/go-arounds.  Essentially, should this situation occur, PHX tells P50 there's a go around, and PHX handles the go-around in a fashion much like any other departure (this is the paragraph that says issue headings/altitudes. . . sterilized airspace).

Instead of letting the aircraft fly the published missed, it appears easiest to instruct the aircraft to fly runway heading and climb to 7000.  This puts the aircraft smack in sterilized airspace (per the letter), and 7,000' minimizes coordiation with the TRACON controllers as it puts the aircraft straight in to departure airspace (SANTAN in this case), who can work the aircraft south and east on to a downwind for 25L, then put him on QUARTZ for a short while for sequencing, then passed on to VERDE like normal.

If an aircraft wants to fly the published missed, that's ok though.  Tower just coordinates with the TRACON what he wants to do with an APREQ (since it's pretty much non-standard).  If TRACON approves, let the pilot do his thing and TRACON can deal with the coordination.  On VATSIM, of course, this is rarely an issue since it's usually 1 person for the whole TRACON.  During events though, I would be loathe to allow a full published missed (personally) since it would be painful to my fellow controllers.

Anyway... if anyone has any better information on this, please do let me know with a post here.  I know at least a few of you all are in the PHX area and probably listen to / have visited PHX ATCT a lot more than I do.  I'm just going off our docs.

Hope that helps.

~Nate

[MiaCane]

I think there's a point to be made for reducing clutter, however, I do think fixes like these should be published in the sector file.  You're not going to have View->Fixes on when you control anyways (or if you do, you're already accepting that level of clutter), but if you need to do a quick look-see, it's good to have.

That being said, I don't think most pilots actually have their missed approach procedures onboard, and the majority are those who just can't fly that well (I'm speaking of VATSIM only), in which case they're going to go "huh?" when you tell them to fly the missed approach as published.  Your point of the climb to 7000, then putting them back into an approach pattern, is the logical way to approach this.  The only reason I've ever seen the missed approach utilized is when a pilot's FP specifically mentioned that he was practicing missed approach procedures.

[AJ Heiser 1052801]

I think there's a point to be made for reducing clutter, however, I do think fixes like these should be published in the sector file.  You're not going to have View->Fixes on when you control anyways (or if you do, you're already accepting that level of clutter), but if you need to do a quick look-see, it's good to have.

That being said, I don't think most pilots actually have their missed approach procedures onboard, and the majority are those who just can't fly that well (I'm speaking of VATSIM only), in which case they're going to go "huh?" when you tell them to fly the missed approach as published.  Your point of the climb to 7000, then putting them back into an approach pattern, is the logical way to approach this.  The only reason I've ever seen the missed approach utilized is when a pilot's FP specifically mentioned that he was practicing missed approach procedures.

You're contradicting yourself in these two paragraphs, unless you are getting at something else that I am not seeing.

I personally don't care for these fixes. If a TRACON video map doesn't have them there, then you know real APP/DEP controllers aren't referencing them, so what makes us have to?

-ZZ

[MiaCane]

Nah, I'm not contradicting myself.  I'm saying that in the vast majority of cases, you're going to do a controller-guided missed approach, but in the circumstances where a pilot might wish to practice published procedures, it could be useful.