Phrase "landing runway" vs. "cleared to land"

Today I was shooting approaches at MHR. Wx was 001OVC 1/8SM. When I
got handed off to tower they would say "Mooney 1234, not in site,
landing own risk, landing runway 22L". That doesn't sound like a
landing clearance to me. What does "landing runway 22L" mean in the
tower ATC phrase book? Why would he tell me that landing was own risk
if he wasn't going to clear me to land?

BTW: It always struck me as odd that a Mooney and a 747 have the same
vis requirements on an ILS. A 1/2 mile is probably like 2 seconds in a
747 but an 1/8 mile is like 10 seconds in a Mooney. Of all my 6
approaches today I easily could have landed from any one of them. I
was able to follow the rabbit to the runway but technically if I can
only see 1/8 or so I can't land.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary wrote:
> Today I was shooting approaches at MHR. Wx was 001OVC 1/8SM. When I
> got handed off to tower they would say "Mooney 1234, not in site,
> landing own risk, landing runway 22L". That doesn't sound like a
> landing clearance to me. What does "landing runway 22L" mean in the
> tower ATC phrase book? Why would he tell me that landing was own risk
> if he wasn't going to clear me to land?
>
> BTW: It always struck me as odd that a Mooney and a 747 have the same
> vis requirements on an ILS. A 1/2 mile is probably like 2 seconds in a
> 747 but an 1/8 mile is like 10 seconds in a Mooney. Of all my 6
> approaches today I easily could have landed from any one of them. I
> was able to follow the rabbit to the runway but technically if I can
> only see 1/8 or so I can't land.
>
> -Robert

What are the vis minimums for that approach? Probably > than 1/8 SM.
I'm sure you got cleared for the approach but perhaps since the vis
minimums were below that published for the approach tower didn't issue
you a clearance. That's my guess.

Robert M. Gary wrote:
>
> Yea, we teach (or are suppose to teach) IFR pilots not to do that. Its
> not very helpful for the intended purpose (to let everyone know where
> you are).
>
> -Robert, CFII

Flight instructors should at least tell their students
about what IFR fixes are and where they are (at that airport).
Its not rocket science and it will help the student in the long run.

On Jan 15, 11:15 am, kontiki <kont...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
> Robert M. Gary wrote:
>
> > Yea, we teach (or are suppose to teach) IFR pilots not to do that. Its
> > not very helpful for the intended purpose (to let everyone know where
> > you are).
>
> > -Robert, CFII
>
> Flight instructors should at least tell their students
> about what IFR fixes are and where they are (at that airport).
> Its not rocket science and it will help the student in the long run.

That would require students to purchase IFR charts for every airport
they visit. They would not only need approach charts but enroutes as
well. Its much simplier to just tell the IFR pilots that they need to
use VFR friendly phrasing. Instead of saying "I'm at FOOBAR" they
could just say "I'm 5 miles out on the the ILS straight in runway 12".
Its not very hard.

-Robert, CFII

"Robert M. Gary" <N7093v@> wrote in message
news:5fdc8536-11f5-4348-993f-ab3fb4679722@s13g2000prd..com...
>
> Today I was shooting approaches at MHR. Wx was 001OVC 1/8SM. When I
> got handed off to tower they would say "Mooney 1234, not in site,
> landing own risk, landing runway 22L". That doesn't sound like a
> landing clearance to me. What does "landing runway 22L" mean in the
> tower ATC phrase book? Why would he tell me that landing was own risk
> if he wasn't going to clear me to land?
>

He erred. The proper phraseology is "not in sight, runway 22L cleared to
land." "Own risk" is used when a pilot insists on landing on a closed
runway, "unable to issue landing clearance, landing will be at your own
risk."

On Jan 15, 11:30 am, "Steven P. McNicoll" <roncach...@>
wrote:

> He erred.  The proper phraseology is "not in sight, runway 22L cleared to
> land."  "Own risk" is used when a pilot insists on landing on a closed
> runway, "unable to issue landing clearance, landing will be at your own
> risk."

That's what I thought but he said it 6 times. :) Must be training week
in Sacramento. Sunday night I flew into SAC and was told "Cleared to
land runway 22". I assume they hadn't built a new runway over night.

-Robert

On Jan 15, 11:04 am, kontiki <kont...@frontiernet.net> wrote:

> What are the vis minimums for that approach? Probably > than 1/8 SM.
> I'm sure you got cleared for the approach but perhaps since the vis
> minimums were below that published for the approach tower didn't issue
> you a clearance. That's my guess.- Hide quoted text -

There is no min reported visibility requirement for the approach.

-Robert

Robert M. Gary wrote:
>
> Yea, we teach (or are suppose to teach) IFR pilots not to do that. Its
> not very helpful for the intended purpose (to let everyone know where
> you are).

I was taught, and it was reinforced by the DE, to use distance and
direction over waypoints.

If you think about it, it's not difficult to do, as the distance from
the named point to the airport is usually right on the plate. Also,
since most of us have at least a VFR GPS onboard, we have another
reference for distance out in between fixes.

On Jan 15, 11:41 am, B A R R Y <beech23pi...m> wrote:
>
> I was taught, and it was reinforced by the DE, to use distance and
> direction over waypoints.

That's good but just make sure you use waypoints that a VFR pilot
would know (like VORs, etc). Remember the point is for traffic to know
where you are so you don't want to use references that some pilots may
not know. Personally I prefer using relative location to the airport,
since you're only about 10 miles out anyway.

-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" <N7093v@> wrote in message
news:197d1d02-e0d8-40ef-b05f-da6d27b389c0@s27g2000prg..com...
>>
>> On Jan 15, 11:30 am, "Steven P. McNicoll" <roncach...@>
>> wrote:
>>
>> He erred. The proper phraseology is "not in sight, runway 22L cleared to
>> land." "Own risk" is used when a pilot insists on landing on a closed
>> runway, "unable to issue landing clearance, landing will be at your own
>> risk."
>>
>
> That's what I thought but he said it 6 times. :) Must be training week
> in Sacramento.
>

A qualified instructor is supposed to correct those things on the spot.