Originally Posted by
Lantirn
Well respected reply.
But again, you can’t deny a visual pattern because a procedure doesn’t have circling minima.
When in visual approach you fly visual.
Circling MDH assumes that you maintain that altitude at weather limiting conditions and that you will descend MDH and break only when you will be visual there.
Here I was talking about a visual pattern from the beginning early in the procedure assuming you have visual contact.
The option not to fly it is a pilots discretion and it is well understood. ATC prohibition is well understood due to weather conditions or other reasons. However ATC prohibition because RNAV doesn’t have circling minima is just not valid.
I’m curious as to the robustness of being cleared, and then established, on one type of approach (in this case RNAV) and then requesting another approach (in this case visual). Essentially this seems to me like you’re using the benefits of one approach to get to a lower minima, and then asking to change the type of approach onto another, more beneficial one to you, where you can operate outside of the approved minima of the approaches (descending below circling minima).
Whether the approach has circling minima I agree is not relevant as to whether you can fly a visual pattern, but then in my view if you were truly visual in terms of doing the visual pattern, you wouldn’t have commenced the RNAV to run into a circling vs visual debate.
None of this is meant in a critical way, simply for conversations sake.