KORH Minimum Sector Altitude Gotcha
I had this draft around for over 5 years—since January 2019. Since I still think it is about an interesting observation, I’m publishing it now.
In late December (2018), I was preparing for my next instrument rating lesson which was going to involve a couple of ILS approaches at Worcester, MA (KORH). While looking over the ILS approach to runway 29, I noticed something about the minimum sector altitude that surprised me.
Normally, I consider MSAs to be centered near the airport for the approach. For conventional (i.e., non-RNAV) approaches, this tends to be the main navaid used during the approach. At Worcester, the 25 nautical mile MSA is centered on the Gardner VOR which is 19 nm away.
I plotted the MSA boundary on the approach chart to visualize it better:
It is easy to glance at the chart, see 3300 most of the way around, but not realize that when flying in the vicinity of the airport we are near the edge of the MSA. GRIPE, the missed approach hold fix, is half a mile outside of the MSA. (Following the missed approach procedure will result in plenty of safety, of course, so this isn’t really that relevant.)