Contact!
our profession is a weird one. our words seem to have run out and we use them for very different things...not always correctly.
traffic 12 o'clock high...CONTACT (I say: traffic in sight)
want to start your sopwith camel or JN4-jenny? Yell CONTACT (after switch off, switch off position prop...switch on...CONTACT and bam off you go...maybe taking someone's arm too)
And yes...the CONTACT approach...virtually abandoned by all major airlines on this side of the pond, but still legal.
Contact flying use to refer to (and still does I suppose) flying by visual reference to the ground. I think the word PILOTAGE can also be used in this sense...but Contact means visual contact with the ground. Often used in the USA prior to and during WW2.
and the CONTACT APPROACH (not confused with contact approach on 119point6, or foreureopeans contact approach control on 119DECIMAL6)
A published instrument approach must exist for the airport in question ( a visual approach can be done at any airport...instrument approach or not), an inflight vis of 1 statute mile and maintain clear of clouds...how you get to the runway is up to you and lots of luck. You can even make a pirep your own self of one mile and its between you and St. Christopher!~
I've done a number of contact approaches...and some where the approach mins were 5 miles, you request a contact approach and you go down to 1 mile.
If you lose it...you execute the published miss (that's why there has to be an instrument approach) or turn away from terrain!!!
The airlines gave up on them...too much potential for a screw up especially at night.
Our friend P51 guy knew KSFO like the back of his hand so it was ok...and KSFO can have fog on the threshold and be clear 300 feet down the runway or on another runway. That is what thinking and knowing is all about (though his airline ops specs were different than the part 91 definition of contact approach)
And then there was the time I landed an MU2 at Truckee, CA, USA with only the first 75' of the runway visible and fog for the whole rollout...but that's for another time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!