Originally Posted by
exfocx
Here we go!
Circling Approaches: No big deal, IF, you are well trained in them and maintain a recency which is more than just every 6 mths in the sim, otherwise will one day end in tears if you're going anywhere near a REAL circling approach (min wx), and not just a cloud break procedure onto another rwy.
Visual App: Grew up in an era where that was the everyday norm and used to wonder how incompetent pilots were who couldn't do a "simple" visual approach. Time showed me I was a conceited fool for thinking that. Today, most pilots' descent (especially long haul) is around stars joining up to an ILS. I see it today were those coming through need to have a WP to tie their descent profile off and don't seem to be able to consider DME and expected tracking to come up with an estimated descent profile and adjusting as you go along. Why, because they don't get the training to do that, their descent profile management training is all tied into VNAV descent via stars/ils etc with no practise on descent gates Vs expected DTG. My first jet training captain ('91) made sure I could use the VNAV and do a decent manual descent, and that was during a time if you touched the TLs or speed brake on the way down, you'd stuffed the descent up
I would never accept a visual going into the US, when I first went into LAX the training captain said DON'T accept a visual approach, especially at night! Only took one night arrival into LAX to see why. In my opinion you'd want to know the port intimately to do a visual approach, hugely embarrassing at a minimum if you stuff it up! Sighting a rwy and other traffic in a port not operated to frequently is asking for trouble.
US ATC: My ONLY complaint about ATC was they were willing to treat international flights as tho they had the same familiarity there as domestic crew, with little tolerance for language issues, even for those who have English as their first language. We may all speak same the same lingo, but boy, do accents sure make it difficult for two English speakers to understand each other. You are not local and have nowhere near the same familiarity as dom crew.
I think an airline restricting its operations is a sign of maturity in accepting the limitations its everyday flying has on their pilots. I didn't think like this 10 yrs ago, but going back to an operation where black-hole night approaches etc is no longer unusual (which, in an early day didn't faze me, but now has my FULL attention), I've had to eat some humble pie.
A very reasonable and balanced post! I am quick to accept visuals in places the crew is familiar with because it actually makes our workload lesser. In unfamiliar places and especially at night, I’m more hesitant because you just never know what can bite you. To me, that’s just basic airmanship and good CRM.