The change was only noted as an RT change at the time, not a procedure change. Anyone know?
If it was a procedure change, then it was a big change to make without telling anyone.
There are numerous other places in the AIP where the same terminology changes have occurred. That is, the term "ATS surveillance service" now exists where previously was some term involving the word "radar".
They can't all be procedure changes. I would wager that NONE of them are.
To my thinking, we have NOT seen a procedure change in respect of night visual approach requirements - somebody has just noticed the wording change and we have all allowed ourselves to get highly confused by it.
I think the reason for the wording change was simple and has been established in this thread. That is, with the introduction of ADS-B, somebody in CASA felt it was time to go through all the documentation, changing all references involving "radar" to become "ATS surveillance service".
Unfortunately though, the meaning of "ATS surveillance service" is very very broad - so broad as to be useless, in fact. But it replaced some (very narrow), highly specific terms, such as "radar vectored", so naturally, the intricacies of some procedures will have now been obscured.
I would also wager that some other passages in the AIP, having been similarly amended, are now similarly confusing and misleading.
Excellent post,
Pera, as the thread was thoroughly bogged down over the definition of "ATS ss" but you have now rescued it. I believe it was my own duff line of argument that was responsible for the thread getting so constipated.
So where are we on the question of assigned altitudes when making a night visual approach in CTA?
Assuming that the new wording is only a red herring and that the rules have not changed in the 15 years that I have been flying (and the balance of probabilities surely, surely suggests this is the case), then:
When you hear "cleared visual approach", you
must descend to the
minimum altitude. You cannot descend lower than the
minimum until you are circling area or on final at 5/7/10.
If you were being radar vectored, then the controller will have just assigned you the
minimum altitude (the MVA). But if you weren't being radar vectored, then you need to determine the
minimum yourself - and you do that by looking at your chart (the 10/25NM MSA) -
and you disregard any intermediate assigned altitude.
All very simple after all.
i think the problem/confusion is due to the controller not being aware of the rules.
Wrong! The controllers are just doing it the way they have always done it. Nobody has told them of any change to the procedure.
I've never really thought that what Darwin Approach does is a good example for anything!
The Darwin controllers are no less professional and courteous than what I have experienced anywhere else in Australia. It is always a pleasure to go in there.
I went in there again last night, as a matter fact. Again it was a night visual approach. The RT exchanges were almost identical to the example I gave in that earlier post. The only differences were that, this time, the ATIS was OSCAR, the POB 5 and the runway 11.