Hi mad_jock
The dicussion I had with a colleague of mine started with talking about steep approach landing charts. As they give you lower LFL values he suggested to use that procedure in VMC but at "Non steep app." airports and I am not very convinced by this method. Reading Jar Ops and the AFM you'll find out that you need a visual reference or a Glideslope for the Steep Approach procedure, therefor in my opinion it's not permitted as the standard PAPI is only 3°.
We were using Florence as an example. Using steep app. charts landing is no problem at all, using the full available landing distance makes a landing possible under certain conditions(weight, wind, temp...) even using the "normal approach" charts(not steep). But using the landing distance beyond Glideslope would make it impossible to use this airport.
And in commercial operations it doesn't matter if you are VMC you still try and put it down in the same place as you would on an instrument approach. So you don't stick it down on the numbers if you can
What if you are flying to a VFR airport like Samedan and/or you don't have a PAPI? Are you allowed under JAR OPS to sit on the numbers?