Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 57; Flight Crew Total 6800; Flight Crew Type 2700
Time Pressure; Workload; Situational Awareness; Confusion
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Chart Or Publication
When arriving MQY from the South East sector; our routing has us over waypoints associated with the SWFFT RNAV Arrival but without 'flying' the published arrival as it only serves BNA. Traffic landing MQY is kept at a higher altitude consistently resulting in late descents requiring a high rate of descent such as the 17;000 feet 35 miles from the airport we experienced today. This is opposite of the efforts being made for constant rate descents. This late descent is compounded by the requirement to land on Runway 32 at MQY which is a straight in approach from this arrival path. This creates an extremely rushed approach environment for not only the loss of altitude but also a reduction in speed in preparation for an approach. Additionally; this arrival path puts aircraft directly overhead MBT which is a heavy training airfield. The combination of training aircraft combined with a high performance jet aircraft with a high descent rate creates a high possibility of an inflight collision or separation issue with aircraft that are not likely talking with ATC. The other potential with being kept high is the inability to become properly stabilized for the approach into MQY which could lead an aircraft to have a runway excursion. There is no reason that a modification to the RNAV arrival to incorporate MQY and surrounding airports to better facilitate the flow of traffic vertically and provide for better stabilized arrivals and approaches couldn't be created.
Today our aircraft was given a descent clearance from 17;000 feet MSL to 5;000 feet MSL approximately 35 miles from our destination. Rough math calculates this to be a '2 to 1' descent profile that requires excessive descent rates into the terminal area. To compound this issue; the route of flight today went overhead of MBT which has/had high volumes of flight training aircraft in the vicinity of the airport. The possibility for traffic conflicts; TA/RA's and unstablized approach conditions are high in this scenario.
Corporate Captain reported a hazardous arrival procedure and accompanying charts that require modification to conform more closely with safe air traffic control for arrival to MQY airport.