Re: Prm
Sydney has close spaced runways which operate in mixed mode (as opposed to dedicated mode). This is a highly efficient system and one that others are moving too. The flaw in Sydney is that not all aircraft are allowed to use the short runway and due to the constraints in spacing the approach paths are not independent.
This requires a number of odd procedures to allow independent approaches IVA's in VMC allow the airport to accept at about 50/hour (should be more but as we know there is a cap). This falls to 34 / hour in IMC and can be lower.
From an ATC point of view we would like you to report Visual when you are VMC and in addition to advise when the runway is in sight ( AIP refers ). The ammount of time ATC spend extracting visual calls is a joke.
In IMC we use PRM to increase the acceptance rate in IMC to 42 (16//) 44 (34//). The penalty from the pilots point is the PRM circuits but at the moment we are stuck with it but as you can see the savings for the airlines are massive.
As an aside last week 16 IMC with no PRM acceptance rate CTMS at 34 resulted in airborne holding of 30 minutes. Due to the number of acft that can't accept the short runway in the morning peak.
There are no composite VMC / PRM procedures (probably should be). But to stop PRM and commence IVA's requires a certainty of visual reports.
Annecdotaly we have stories of "I didn't report vis. because I wanted an instrument approach" etc. etc.