May I put you on hold?

Modern GPS navigators and moving maps simplify holding entries. Load a published hold from the database and the box prompts you through the turns. The instrument rating ACS even encourages visual aids during checkrides, advising you to “Use a multi-function display (MFD) and other graphical navigation displays, if installed, to monitor position in relation to the desired flightpath during holding.”

But you may encounter two types of holds—arrival holds and alternate missed holds—that can make you stumble, even if your panel includes the latest avionics.

Arrival and alternate missed holds aren’t ad hoc, random holds assigned by ATC—or a fiendish instructor. These racetracks are published, either on charts or via a notam. But they aren’t coded as part of the procedures they serve, so you can’t just load them from the database. Instead, you must understand two features of the navigator in your panel—creating a hold at a fix and using OBS mode to set a course to a fix and suspend waypoint sequencing.

The first step in dealing with arrival and alternate missed holds is identifying them. AIM 5-4-6 Approach Clearance explains that “Some approach charts have an arrival holding pattern depicted at an IAF or at a feeder fix located along an airway. The arrival hold is depicted with a ‘thin line’ since it is not always a mandatory part of the instrument procedure.” The Aeronautical Chart Users’ Guide (ACUG) notes, however, that “If two types of holds are located at the same point, the procedural holding pattern will be shown in lieu of arrival or missed approach holding patterns.”

For example, see the RNAV (GPS) Runway 15 approach at Kingston-Ulster Airport (20N) in New York, which includes an arrival hold at ILGEZ.

The AIM notes that an arrival hold is charted “where holding is frequently required prior to starting the approach procedure so that detailed holding instructions are not required.” For example, an arrival hold may help inbound aircraft descend smoothly from a minimum enroute altitude or allow another aircraft to land or depart. Arrival holds also may be charted if joining an approach from an airway requires a turn that exceeds limits set in procedure design criteria. But an arrival racetrack is not a course reversal like a hold-in-lieu-of-procedure-turn (HILPT). Section 8 of FAA Order 8260.19, a handbook for procedure creators, notes that “An arrival holding pattern must not be used to function as a [HILPT] in order to accommodate [approach] descent gradient requirements and/or used to mandate a course reversal.”

An arrival hold is not authorized unless ATC assigns it, but you can request a charted arrival hold if you want more time to set up for an approach, and again according to the AIM, “once [you are] established on the inbound holding course and an approach clearance has been received, the published procedure can commence.” If you don’t want to fly an arrival hold, you can ask ATC for vectors.

If you are cleared to fly an arrival hold, you won’t see the hold when you load an approach in a GPS navigator, and it isn’t shown on your moving map until you add it to the flight plan. If you’re prepared, that’s easy to do in newer GPS avionics, such as the Garmin GTN series. With an older GPS, you may need to use OBS mode to set a course to the fix that anchors the hold. As you fly an arrival hold, remember that you must unsuspend or switch out of OBS mode when you are ready to continue the approach.

Your EFB can also help. For example, in ForeFlight, you can create a hold at any fix. And arrival holds are in the ForeFlight database. Highlight a fix, touch Hold, and fill in the pop-up form. Garmin Pilot offers a similar way to create a hold at a fix (see Hold at Waypoint in the Garmin Pilot User Guide).

Alternate missed approach holds are described in AIM 5−4−21 Missed Approach. These holds are assigned when the primary navaid used for the missed approach procedure is unavailable. For example, the ILS or LOC RWY 1 at Albany, New York (ALB), includes an alternate hold at MARIA, a fix on the ALB 299 radial. The primary missed approach hold is at the Cambridge VOR (CAM).

ATC can issue alternate missed approach instructions, but an alternate missed approach hold is usually mandated by a notam that describes the procedure. The AIM explains that “To avoid confusion, the alternate missed approach instructions are not published on the chart. However, the…holding pattern will be depicted on the instrument approach chart for pilot situational awareness and to assist ATC by not having to issue detailed holding instructions.” Still, if you’re using GPS to fly the miss, you must build the racetrack or use OBS mode, and you must take care to follow the alternate missed approach instructions and not just activate the charted missed approach procedure.

It’s best to practice setting up holds in an ATD or with an avionics simulation like the free Garmin PC Trainer Suite and apps that emulate various navigators—tools I wish I’d had before I took my instrument flight instructor checkride back in the last century. To test my “instructional knowledge,” the examiner pointed me at a fix and declared, “Give me holding instructions that will require a parallel entry.” FT

Bruce Williams is a CFI. Find him at youtube.com/@BruceAirFlying and bruceair.wordpress.com