High Speed Approach!
By: —Chuck Miller, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret)
av8or@eos.net
Flying an “old and slow” gooney bird out of the world’s busiest airport
— Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport —
was quite an experience for me as a young and impressionable 2nd Lieutenant,
right out of all-jet pilot training.
I flew as a unit co-pilot for about six months after being assigned there.
During this period, I was undergoing aircraft familiarization training
and left seat check-out procedures.
Our mission was to accomplish navigator training flights for Reservist Navigators
using the most basic of equipment.
We flew the majority of our missions on week-ends,
and — where possible — under VFR (visual flight rules)
so we could fly the navigator’s DR (dead reckoning) headings and procedures.
However, the weather out of Chicago frequently did not cooperate,
and often we would depart IFR (instrument flight rules) and try to find some portion
of the flight profile to accomplish navigation under VFR
(or VMC, visual meteorological conditions).
At the time of this incident, I had been checked out as aircraft commander
(left seat pilot in command)
for only a few months and had very little actual weather time on instruments in the C-47.
As we returned to O’Hare on that cloudy and drizzly fall Sunday afternoon,
the field was operating at near IFR minimums.
Landings were being conducted on their primary instrument runway,
14R, and the other parallel runway, 14L, was being used for departures.
The traffic was heavy and stacked up more than 20 aircraft deep.
We were given our first holding pattern about 125 miles to the west of Chicago.
We spent about 20 minutes “in the soup” at 9000 feet and then were sequentially
cleared into a closer holding fix and were gradually working our way down
to the bottom of the stack.
After over an hour of bumpy and fatiguing IFR holding,
in the typical heavy Sunday afternoon commercial traffic,
we were finally number one for the ILS precision approach.
Approach Control asked if we could maintain 140 knots to the marker
for traffic separation with the heavy-jets.
I advised that the only way we could sustain that speed was in a power-on dive,
but that I could give them 120 to the outer marker, if that would help.
Approach thanked me and cleared me for my first real IFR approach to minimums,
since pilot training.
I crossed the outer marker on glideslope at 120 knots,
a speed too high to allow lowering approach flaps (104 knots limited).
As I called the marker to Approach, they asked if I could maintain 120 to the threshold.
I explained my flap limitation and told the controller I could give him 100 knots on final.
This really accelerated up my normal descent rate on the glide path.
The turbulence and tension had me soaked with sweat,
but I was flying on their turf in a slow bird, so we were trying to be accommodating
(not to mention my anticipation that they would send us out of the sequence to hold
some more while they gave priority to the gas guzzling commercial jet traffic).
As I crossed the threshold at about 50 feet in the air, with throttles in idle
and nearly twenty knots above take-off speed,
O’Hare Tower advised me there was a heavy 707
on short final behind me
and requested that I make the first high-speed turn -off
— which was about 2000 feet from the threshold!
As I reached the turn off, we were still doing almost 60 knots indicated
and I made the turn off with the tail still airborne and both feet hunkering down hard
on the mushy brakes.
As I looked over my shoulder, I saw —sure enough —
the 707 in the “squat” of her flare less than 1500 feet behind me
(and at about 120 knots indicated).
When my nerves finally settled down and got back into the Squadron Ops area,
I picked up the phone to the Tower and informed them of the potential hazard
they had created by asking for the high-speed approach followed by their “direction”
that I should make the first turn-off.
Their response was to inform me
that they had no authority
to direct the pilot in flight to do anything
out of the ordinary,
that this was only a request!
This was one of many lessons
that has stayed with me over the rest of my flying days
— Never let Air Traffic Control talk you
into an unsafe condition or operation!
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