I have always had a bit of a THING about this visual approach stuff, especially at night!
There is a lot of opinion about it with smatterings of fact.
I have been told by different pilots that we can’t call visual at night!
Can’t report visual until we have the runway in sight!
Can’t report visual until 30nm! And so on, none of which are true.
along with have to read back "visual approach"
My understanding of the rules are, report in flight conditions as appropriate on first contact with approach. If that happens to be visual AND you desire a visual approach then call visual regardless of your distance. That may not suit some pilots, that’s fine then you don’t have to call visual.
ATC cannot issue a visual approach at night until we are within 30nm.
Once issued a visual approach we can descend --(by night) maintain an altitude not less than the route segment LSALT/MSA or appropriate step of DME/GPS arrival procedure or 500FT
Looking at Darwin DME arrival, that would mean that you could descend to 650’ in accordance with the DME arrival procedure (CAT C, 850’ CAT D), 1600’ ft is the MSA, the LSALT’s are also relatively low.
Tracking as already quoted by Claret and others previously.
All this other stuff like can’t descend below last assigned altitude until within the circling area and its ridiculous calling visual at 32 nm, where does all this stuff come from??