best way to brief a dep, arv,

[M3toocool]

whats the best way to brief an approach, arival, departure during an interview?

[minitour]

The same way you brief it when you fly, of course. Just like a book. Top to bottom, left to right.

Use the briefing strip...it's laid out the way it is for a reason. Make sure you include ATIS, NOTAMS, the miss, the issue date/effective date or amendment number (critical if it's a crew environment...make sure you're both reading the same plate).

When you brief the miss, don't say "straight ahead climb to 800 then a left turn to 3000 to the VOR and hold" Instead say something like "Missed approach is climb on heading 003 until 800 feet then a left climbing turn to a 280 heading and 3000 feet direct to the VOR when we can. Looks like a teardrop entry but we'll verify that on the way there." My point is, be specific..."turn left to 3000 to the VOR and hold" is pretty ambiguous...how far left do we turn? "...turn to a 280 heading and 3000 feet..." is pretty specific and at least gets you going in the general direction. You'll make adjustments as you go.

The last thing I do after briefing the entire approach is "Marker at 1800, minimums at 443, missed is heading 003 to 800 feet. Three minutes ten seconds." Just to make sure the critical stuff is in your head as the last thing. Humans lose something like 30% of their memory every 15 seconds according to a NASA scientist. Not sure if those are the exact numbers, but his point is that you remember the most recently reviewed stuff first.

On the way down I constantly remind myself that "One thousand to go, on glideslope, quarter dot left, on speed, minimums 443, missed is 003 to 800" though that probably won't come up.

Good luck.

-mini

[casey]

this airplane, that runway, any questions?

[USMC-SGT]

Id say in an interview definately what mini said, you cant be too thorough and they are looking for knowledge of the plate as well as thoroughness. Speed is not considered providing you are not stumbling through it and going ..ah ahh ahhh oh yea..MEA is...ahh and PAPIS...yea it has papis.

In the air i brief the approach before we are in the terminal environment to get it out of the way and it is a basic rundown to hit the important stuff and would also work in an interview.

I say "we are expecting the ILS 22L into EWR, plate XX-XX dated 1 Mar 08." I skip over the freqs because we already have the atis and we have the tower memorized and all the freqs will be tuned into the preselect once we get to that point so it is a waste of time to say that tower is 18.3. "ILS freq is 108.7 which is tuned into 1 and 2 with an inbound course of 219 which I have set on my MFD." "MDA is 21X feet which is set with the intercept at XYZ at XXX feet, airport elevation is XXX feet with a touchdown zone of XXX feet." "MEA all around TEB VOR is XXX feet and the missed will be flown off the FMS, tower instructions or climbing blah blah blah to turn to the VOR and hold somewhere." "We've got PAPIS on the left with 9,XXX feet of useable runway and I plan on exiting at taxiway X or Y."

It depends on where we are going but I usually run through all that IF it is an IMC approach and I set the freqs and bugs before I brief. If it is clear and a million but still assigned the ILS then I will brief it as a visual backed up with the ILS since it will be a visual anyway.

To each is their own though, just brief what you need to keep you happy, the captain happy, the flight ops manual happy, the FAA if they are there happy and the flight data recorder if you crash happy.

Of course there is the "alternate briefing" that consist of "we are doing the ILS 22L right?" then they say "Yup" and then you say "as previously briefed" but we ALWAYS do the full and approved appropriate briefing at all times because its the right thing to do and we would NEVER stray from any manual.