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The Art of Briefing the Approach

July 29, 2025/by Elaine Kauh

There’s a lot to keep track of when nearing the initial approach fix or that last vector-to-final. Along with all those numbers for altitudes and courses to fly the procedure, you have things to do to the airplane—like adding flaps and adjusting power. It’s all part of what makes the approach a high-workload phase, so anything to help you get ready before it gets busy is a good idea. And that means being ready for anything. Enter the approach briefing.

Mastering the Localizer (and Back Course)

July 25, 2025/by Eric Radtke

Mastering back course approaches is an exercise in situational awareness and instrumentation discipline. Pilots who don’t understand reverse sensing can easily find themselves drifting further from the intended path while chasing a misleading CDI.

The Art of Briefing the Approach

July 29, 2025/by Elaine Kauh

Mastering the Localizer (and Back Course)

July 25, 2025/by Eric Radtke

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

The Art of Briefing the Approach

July 29, 2025/by Elaine Kauh

Editor’s Note: Welcoming Elaine Kauh to IFR Focus

We’re excited to welcome Elaine Kauh as a regular contributor to IFR Focus. Elaine brings a rare combination of instructional depth, real-world flying experience, and writing talent to our community of instrument pilots.

A professional pilot, Master Instructor, and FAA Safety Team Lead Representative, Elaine has spent years helping pilots sharpen their skills in the IFR system—with a particular focus on emergency procedures and advanced avionics. She teaches in a variety of aircraft, from the Cirrus SR22 to classic taildraggers, and brings that same hands-on experience to her writing and speaking.

You may recognize Elaine from her past contributions to IFR Magazine, or from her expert guidance as part of PilotWorkshops’ IFR Mastery series. She’s also a familiar face at regional safety seminars and appeared on Sporty’s Pilot’s Discretion podcast, where she shared valuable lessons on both instrument flying and taildragger instruction.

With a background in journalism and a passion for thoughtful instruction, Elaine has a unique ability to make complex IFR topics practical and approachable. We’re proud to feature her work at IFR Focus, and we look forward to the insights she’ll share with our readers in the months ahead.

The Art of Briefing the Approach

by Elaine Kauh

Along with callouts for some phases of flight (another great discussion), this is another standardization aid that we can borrow from professional flight crews. If you learned to do this during your instrument training, that’s great. Many of us did not, and verbally briefing elements of the approach isn’t a hard requirement for the rating. I learned the concept from an airline pilot while providing an IPC in a flight school rental. He took that practice into his single-pilot piston flying, and I took it out into my own flying and instructing. This has become a bit more common as training toward careers has ramped up, but there are plenty of us who haven’t seen this practiced in recurrent training and everyday flying.

Why bother? Approach briefings embed key elements and other good-to-knows into your brain before it gets too busy to look stuff up. Monitoring those needles at the Final Approach Fix and heading down the glidepath is no time to be wondering, What’s the DA again? You could fly everything perfectly then neglect one item, like the runway length, or the circling MDA, or that NOTAM for the higher DA due to lighting outages. Briefings prevent such gaps. Here’s a template, which can go on a printed card or an EFB-loaded document.

The main elements:

Approach title and airport, like “RNAV 27, KBYW, Byway Field.” Seems obvious, but this is a confirmation that you’ve got the right stuff programmed in the navigator and pulled up the same one on the tablet. Errors can and do happen here.
Weather. Are the ceiling and visibility legal for the IAP, or matching your personal minimums? If so, continue. If not, time for that plan B (to be followed with a new briefing).
Expected approach fixes/waypoints, crossing/transition altitudes, the inbound course and FAF, then ending elements like lights, a visual checkpoint, or anything you will look for. Again, you’re confirming expectations and preventing errors like programming the wrong IAF or altitude.
Minimums. Which line is yours? You should already know the aircraft category and DA or MDA—just double-check.
Runway and landing. “Runway 27 is 5,500 feet. I’ll land with 20 degrees of flaps and correct for the left crosswind. Land by the second taxiway and turn right at the third. Land no later than the runway intersection halfway down.” Have that maximum distance or furthest stopping point briefed here. That’s in case of unknowingly flying too far down the runway, which—if left unbriefed—can have a bad outcome. If briefed, there’s no doubt whether it’s safe to continue.
Missed approach. For example: “Disconnect. Full power. Pitch for 90. Flaps to 20. Positive rate, gear up. Flaps up. Climb to 1,500, then climbing left turn to 3,000 to MISSD and hold.” Remember that the “missed” is two operations in one: the go-around, which concerns the aircraft, and the missed approach, which is the procedure that governs the flight path. Going missed is also high-workload. Add a startle—like overshooting your landing spot or a vehicle entering the runway—and your brain will depend on deploying those next steps as briefed.

Try It Out: Let’s fly to Ainsworth Regional in Nebraska and do an approach briefing. You’re in a Piper Arrow arriving from the northeast, and the region’s drying out after a cold front passed, leaving low ceilings and a northwest wind in its wake. After copying the AWOS and relaying intentions to Center, the briefing is the next item on your descent or pre-approach checklist:

“Expecting the RNAV 35, ANW, Ainsworth. 31 is closed. Weather is 300–3, winds 300 at 15 knots.” (Notice I abridged the wording to be brief—yes, pun intended.)
“I am cleared direct to DUWAT initial fix and 5,100. Awaiting approach clearance. DUWAT, right turn at FUGLE. Inbound course 353. 4,200 feet to COLSI, final fix and glidepath intercept. One mile from COLSI, 10 degrees flaps, 100 MPH. Category B for winds. Fly to LPV minimums, 2,789–½. VDP one mile from 35.”
“Runway is 6,824 feet, medium approach lights with RAIL, PAPI on the left. Left crosswind. If I see the runway before minimums, go to second flaps. Final speed 95.”
“Missed: TOGA, power, pitch for 85; positive rate, gear up. At 95, flaps up. Climb runway heading to 5,000 direct EVANE and hold. Parallel entry, right turns.”

The most-asked question I get when discussing the best ways to use briefings: “That’s a lot to say—shouldn’t I be flying the plane?” Sure, and the briefing need not be in one chunk. This one takes about 60 seconds. You can customize it to fit your flying minimums, your aircraft, and the conditions of the day. Keys to success include covering each step when it fits best and committing to memory what you can (results may vary). Presumably, you reviewed the weather, desired approach, landing considerations, and NOTAMs before the flight, so it can be a quick review on descent. I use the pencil tool on my EFB to mark changes or reminders right there on the charts. Once you’ve confirmed these, you can start in on the IAP details—a lot of numbers that are more easily forgotten if you haven’t looked at them for a while. You can easily brief those several miles out from an approach clearance, which is a good “deadline” to call the briefing complete and continue with your checklists.

If expecting a visual approach, briefings are just as useful because you still want a game plan for this highly variable operation. Say Ainsworth is now 5,000 and 5 and you’re cleared for the visual. Brief the plan and perhaps program into your GPS the descent to traffic pattern altitude by one mile from the pattern entry (here, 3,500 feet). Landing checklist, fly overhead, enter left downwind for 35, recite the go-around.

There are a lot of options for easing into this practice. Start with briefing some essentials next time you’re out doing practice approaches flying VFR: Read the fixes and what to push, dial, and target for course and altitudes as you near each one—including the missed approach. Just by adding the item Approach Briefing to your descent or approach checklists, you can make that busy time smoother, easier, and with set boundaries. That means safer, which always makes flying approaches more enjoyable.

Mastering the Localizer (and Back Course)

July 25, 2025/by Eric Radtke

The localizer is a critical component of every Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach, providing the lateral guidance that brings the airplane to the runway. While most pilots are familiar with the basics of flying a localizer, precise tracking takes practice—and the back course variant can be tricky.

Before you dive in, let’s review some essential concepts to sharpen your understanding.

What is a Localizer?

Think of the localizer as an electronic extension of the runway centerline. It provides lateral (left/right) guidance for an ILS approach. The localizer signal is transmitted from an antenna typically located 1,000 feet beyond the far end of the runway, operating on one of 40 reserved frequencies between 108.1 and 111.95 MHz.

The signal is far more precise than a VOR—about four times more sensitive. Full-scale CDI deflection on a localizer typically represents only 5 degrees, which translates to about 350 feet from centerline at the runway threshold. The sensitivity of this guidance makes precise heading control a must.

The localizer antenna is typically located 1,000 feet beyond the far end of the runway.

How to Fly the Localizer

Flying the localizer is all about small, smooth corrections and disciplined heading control:

Outside the outer marker (typically 4–7 miles out): Limit heading corrections to 5° or less.
Inside the outer marker: Limit corrections to 2° or less. Use gentle rudder inputs for very fine adjustments.
Avoid overcorrecting—S-turns across the centerline waste time and add risk during an already busy phase of flight.

Maintaining an exact heading—even in calm air—can be deceptively difficult. Practicing heading discipline during en route legs can pay big dividends when you’re inside the FAF with low visibility ahead.

The Back Course Twist

Some localizers also transmit a signal in the opposite direction, known as the back course. These approaches are less common but still appear in certain parts of the country.

Flying the back course adds complexity due to reverse sensing—where your CDI needle deflects opposite to the aircraft’s actual position. That means:

When using a traditional CDI, you must fly away from the needle to stay on course.
Set the OBS to the approach course as a visual reminder, even though it won’t center the needle like a VOR.
Disregard the glide slope—it’s false information on a back course.
If using an HSI, set it to the front course of the localizer to eliminate reverse sensing and fly toward the needle as normal.

Flying the back course adds complexity due to reverse sensing—where your CDI needle deflects opposite to the aircraft’s actual position.

Try It Yourself: Interactive Localizer and Back Course Simulators

To help visualize these concepts, we’ve created two interactive simulators that let you drag the aircraft left or right on either a standard localizer or a localizer back course and watch how the CDI responds.

Localizer Instrument Approach Simulator

Back Course Instrument Approach Simulator

Whether you’re new to instrument flying or teaching the next generation of IFR pilots, understanding how to track a localizer—and its more confusing sibling, the back course—is essential. A few minutes with these tools will make the signals click in a way that no textbook can.

Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

The Art of Briefing the Approach

Mastering the Localizer (and Back Course)

The Art of Briefing the Approach

Mastering the Localizer (and Back Course)

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

The Art of Briefing the Approach

The Art of Briefing the Approach

by Elaine Kauh

Mastering the Localizer (and Back Course)

What is a Localizer?

How to Fly the Localizer

The Back Course Twist

Try It Yourself: Interactive Localizer and Back Course Simulators

Localizer Instrument Approach Simulator

Back Course Instrument Approach Simulator

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