PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Minimum Helicopter Visibilty to be increased to 3km ?
Old 11th March 2005 | 08:26
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Mars
 
Joined: Jun 2003
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From: Off the Planet
Rotorspeed:

There should be no problem unless you elect to cancel IFR and continue with a "Visual Approach - an approach by an IFR flight when either part of all of an instrument approach procedure is not completed and the approach is executed with visual reference to the terrain". The flight should be allowed to be conducted under the limitations of the appropriate approach minima. However, this change appears to place an unintended constraint on the approach minima and should therefore be commented to Bob Commander ([email protected]).

What is interesting about the rule in the RIA to which you refer - Annex C 29 (1)(d) - is its purpose and what it leads to. In the UK (and as is permitted by ICAO) flight at night in any airspace has to be conducted in accordance with the Instrument Flight Rules. This particular clause is intended to give, de jure, similar rights to those which obtain for day VFR. What is interesting is that, in the absence of other limitations (for CAT - JAR-OPS 3, FODCOMs, CAP 360 - and the licence etc.), the original text appeared to permit flight at night in extremely low forward visibility (nil in fact) and, as with other regulations (the FARs apart), there is no reference to visual cues on the ground.

It caused considerable interest during the NVIS (NVG) debate that while there is a limitation on the use of NVIS when the light levels are below a certain threshold, the same does not appear to be the case for unaided flight.
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