midlifeflyer

So I walk out on the ramp one day and there's this Metroliner with local charter company logo and bent props....

It is and it isn't. If 90% of your time is spend flying a standard pattern at a nontowered airport, sure, it takes a bit extra thought to unfold it. OTOH, be based at an airport where a base entry is as common as a 45-to-downwind and it it just evolves. In my case, I don't use it. But that doesn't mean others do't do it naturally. If it works it works. It's not what I do (mine is designed to be independent of the pattern) , but as I said, I don't force my method on anyone else. To the contrary, if someone has a method which works (defined as reasonable and consistent), I don't want to. The reason is part of my First Commandment of Flight Instruction — Thou shalt not force a pilot to change a working technique just because you like another better. In the case of the gear, the closest I have ever come to a gear up landing was about 14 years ago, if I have my dates right. It was about 4 months after I was checked out in a Comanche. I was using the SOP I had been using for at least 10 years. I got a chance to ride with an airline pilot in his Comanche. It was a chance to learn more about the airplane and its handling. Anyway, he used a gear-down method I thought looked really good , so I decided to adopt it. Two flights later, a simple "straight to the numbers" and I forgot the gear. Fortunately, the gear horn woke me up - in more ways than one!

Yeah, but "on downwind" is not "consistency" for the exact reason you mention. Visual approaches come from various points. You might approach from a base leg or straight in or on an ATC "direct to the numbers" instruction, But don't assume those who say "on downwind" aren't actually using it as a shorthand for distance and essentially "unfold" the legs of the pattern when coming in from another direction. A "normal" 1 mile-1 mile-1mile abeam-base-final becomes a 3-mile straight/direct to in or a 2-mile base. That's what I've found when I've asked the question and watched trainees (who know what they are doing) fly.

There's a balance and my procedure may be different than yours. The important thing is that it is repeatable, reasonable, and can be consistently applied. I might be unusual in this but I don't like to impose my gear procedure on someone else. Even when I give complex transition training, I ask, "you've been online where people have discussed putting the gear down. Have you come to any conclusions about how you think you want to do it?"

Glad I was able to teach you something

Beats me, I fly my instrument approaches with no flaps in most airplanes.

Solve? No. Help? Yes. The best solution is a combination of different clues which all tell us all tell us the same thing - the expected performance you mention being wrong, airspeed, missing drag, the "500" annunciated by many newer avionics, gear warnings - that the gear is up. Add a healthy dose of a consistent SOP backed up by good checklist use and we might have something less likely to be forgotten. That's what I teach when I do complex transition training. One of the most pleasing moments was during a transition into a 182RG. About ready to head back from our practice area, I pulled the gear breaker. He came to the point where the SOP he developed said it was time to put the gear down. He put the handle down and within seconds turned to me and said, "what did you do, the gear didn't come down."

That is, sadly, a training issue. We managed to have learned how to ignore warnings. It has plenty of sources, from systems which produce too many of them (yes, dammit, I know the pitot heat is off. It's f'in 90 degrees and CAVU, and yes, I know I have entered the Class D I am landing at!) to (flame suit on) old-style slow flight which considers hearing a warning continuously for an extended period without correcting the reason as the height of good airmanship. i do some transition training with G1000 and cringe at the way the yellow warnings are regularly ignored.

ATC has made it clear they are not the ADS-B police. Which basically means, so long as there isn't a problem where the lack of ADS-B is a factor or discovered as part of the investigation, there might not be a ding. of course, before one thinks that makes it ok, bear in mind that's also what happens with pilots who fly unlicensed, non-current, IFR when not rated, with no medical, in unairworthy aircraft.

That will do it. Keep in mind it always defaults to Vectors. My SOP is to pull out the chart and brief the approach before entering it into the box. The situational awareness provided by the Plan View and selecting an appropriate transition is as important a part of the briefing to me as "the numbers." Maybe more.

It should not do that. Coming from in from the east is a NoPT sector within 30 NM of DUCER. So it should give you the option, which it does.

You are correct. From the west it gives yiu the hold. From the east it gives yiu the option. Middle of the night brain fart.

Approaching DUCER from the northwest with DUCER loaded as the IAF transition and as the currently active waypoint should have given you the procedure turn. The aircraft was positioned at UZMEF in this simulation. Arriving from KSJX in the NoPT sector, OTOH, it asked whether I wanted to fly the course reversal.

I'm still confused. The plate shows to TAAs. The one east of DUCER is NoPT. The one west of DUCER requires the PT. Loading the approach with DUCER as the IAF transition should get the hold or not the option as appropriate for your direction of travel to DUCER. if it didn't, the approach was entered incorrectly or there is an error in the system.

The comment about DTK was a nit-pick Definitely true about descriptions of functions. Which is why I often answer questions with a short video of the simulator performing it. What I have also found with all of them is that there are practical capabilities which are roughly based on information contained in the manual but are not really obvious. One example is using the flight plan catalog to set up an alternate airport (or a series of airports in a practice session), including the desired approach, in advance. I was explaining that function to my instructor on my last IPC. He didn't really get it until he saw me pull up the next approach on a 3-approach plan, confirm, brief and load it while the GPS was continuing to give me course guidance on the missed for the prior one.