Situated on the northwest of the St. Louis metropolitan area, the St. Charles County Smartt Airport (KSET) in Missouri is a busy general aviation facility that many pilots use to get into the area. Filing IFR and lying the VOR approach can be useful when the weather isn’t great, and it is also a good way to have approach control services to help navigate the busy Class B airspace that overlays nearby St. Louis Lambert International Airport (KSTL).
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A) Anticipate Vectors Onto Final
A pilot flying this approach is likely to be vectored onto the approach path somewhere outside the BYRNS INT, which is an IAF and the FAF. Without vectors the pilot could use GPS to transition to an IAF or start the approach at the VOR, which happens to be along the approach and departure paths of aircraft at KSTL (St. Louis) which has northwest/southeast aligned runways. Because of the nearby busy airport, unless absolutely necessary to fly the full approach, expect ATC to leverage radar services and vector an aircraft onto the final approach path.
B) Straight-In, Kind of
While the published approach is listed for Runway 18, which would seem to indicate it is a “straight-in” approach, it is not perfectly aligned with the runway. You can see from the diagram inset in the lower left that the arrow just above the approach end of Runway 18 indicates the approach comes in at a 208-degree track, slightly offset from the runway. Be ready for a slight turn to the left after the runway becomes visible to finish the landing.
C) Waypoints Identified by Cross Radials or DME
Getting old school here. A pilot flying the approach path using the VOR (inbound or outbound) could identify the IAF at the BYRNS INT using the cross radial from the TOY (Troy) VOR. Note that the radial from TOY is not a feeder route a pilot could use to get to the BYRNS IAF since it is not depicted with the thick heavy line used to denote feeder routes. On the missed approach, a pilot can also use the TOY VOR to identify the FASHE waypoint and the published hold using the STL VOR on a 211-degree inbound track with right turns.
D) Missed Not Straight Ahead
Speaking of that missed approach, this one doesn’t carry forward but instead requires a left turn after reaching 1,000 feet msl to a 360-degree heading to intercept the STL VOR 031 radial. The pilot then flies that out to the FASHE waypoint identified either by the cross radial, DME, or with an IFR-capable GPS.
E) Can Be Flown Without GPS or DME
This approach technically could be flown without using DME or GPS. A pilot can use the STL VOR (or vectors) to get established onto the approach, then use the cross radial to identify the BYRNS INT then fly the approach using the speed and time in the bottom left to a missed approach point. Minimums used would be slightly higher, but the pilot can then do the missed approach if needed using only VOR signals. This is a good exercise in what a pilot can do if they were not DME equipped or have a loss of GPS signal to get down an approach if needed just using VOR systems.
This column first appeared in the July Issue 960 of the FLYING print edition.
