Originally Posted by
hans brinker
I used was based in NCE for half year, and flew into for around 6 years, so I have done that approach maybe a hundred times. The issue I had with your post was that you said if assigned a circling approach for rwy16 you cannot circle to 16 but only to all the other rwy-s at that airport. An approach is designated "circling" either because there is more than 30 degrees between the final approach course or because the descent from the MDA at the MAPT to the touchdown zone is more than 400 F/M. Once the rwy environment is in sight, you proceed within the circling distance, in visual contact to the intended rwy for landing. This can be any, including the one the appch leads into. An example of the top of my head was Bilbao VOR10 (not longer published). Visibility required was +/- 1.5km, minimums for both straight in and circling based on our GA climb grad 1500' or so. You would see the rwy about a mile out at 1400'AGL, circle to the left and land rwy 10, much better than the downwind for 30 or 28. Yes, you need ATC clearance, but totally legal. You are right that you can't make the straight in from the MDA at the MAPT without busting stabilized approach criteria, but that is why we circle, and what rwy you circle to is between you and the controller..
I have used the example of Nice because the VOR RIVIERA is not a straight in approach and therefore You must circle to land. If You are flying a straight in approach for a specific runway, like the scenario of VOR 16 in Beirut and if You wish to land on runway 16, You have two options : land out of the VOR approach of fly the visual approach.
In my interpretation of the regulations there is no provision to allow You to circle to land for a runway after having flown the associated straight in approach, it is just pure nonsense (in my opinion from a legal point of view).