Smallcog
With respect, if you read the TC AIM narrative, you will see that it states that the basic procedure is to keep the runway in sight. How do you do that when it’s behind you?
All the runway is not directly behind you though. The threshold will be just behind the wing. You would have to have a particulalry restricted view from the cockpit to not have line of sight to the runway environment when banked at 25°
The diagram and the text I posted from Tranport Canada AIM make it clear that circling back to the staright-in runway is an ICAO compliant procedure. If TC agreed with your subjective interpretation then they would be contradicting the very example they have explicitly provided. Also the article I linked to from IFR Refresher by the former chair of the ALPA TERPs committee with a diagram (see below) of exactly the manoeuvre in question is unambiguous. Meanwhile there is no specific prohibition anywhere in the regs against circling back to the straight-in runway. It would be the easiest thing in the world to include if that was indeed the intention of the regulators. In the face of the explicit references I have provided I do not think second guessing the regulators with tenuous interpretations of the likelihood of being able to keep the runway environment in sight during the turn really stand up.
