Originally Posted by OK465
I never have been a fan of the KMEM LOC 27, circle to land 18R by offsetting just to the north of the Fedex ramp to demonstrate sim circling fidelity and crew prowess. Sim instructors had to scramble when Stapleton shut down. Who’s going to circle at Memphis anyway…unless 3 out of 4 runways are closed?
737/A320/RJ class aircraft certainly do operate into less than cosmo..politan airfields, even in the US, where some days/nights the only way in to a particular runway is to circle, like LTAT.
I instructed circling at published circling minima in the B727 aircraft (not sim) for over 10 years. We taught and always used geometry and wind adjusted timing as the basic template for circling; any other useful references were ‘gravy’.
More importantly we taught the proper missed approach procedure from each and any point in the approach and circling maneuver, so that one could circle safely at circling minima to the opposite end of a single runway with nil additional visual references and worst case would be a missed.
Of course, you probably recognize that one of the primary reasons that KMEM ILS27 or LOC27, with a circle to land on 18R is used as a simulator task for Circle-to-Land, is that KMEM is likely well established in various simulator manufacturer’s visual data base libraries (and any data base in such a library makes it available at little or no cost to a purchaser) AND, not insignificantly, the conduct of this combination of “approach-and-circle” can be accomplished without violating ANY of the FAA’s operational requirements, (which means that it is likely that no international regulation would be violated either) even if the visual system has an extremely limited visual display system. While that is perfectly acceptable – as far as it goes – on it’s own, with no additional instruction, it does nothing to verify and entrench into the minds of first-time airline pilots what becomes necessary to perform an approach and circle operation similar to the one you described as … “one could circle safely at circling minima to the opposite end of a single runway.”
So … I have just a couple of curiosity questions, OK465 … but first and foremost, you deserve serious kudos for emphasizing the importance of executing a missed approach from “
each and any” point during the instrument approach
and the following circle maneuver.
My first question has to do with the fact that when you were teaching circling approaches you described “geometry and wind adjusted timing” as being the “basic template” … but that a circling approach
could be accomplished with “
nil additional visual references.” To me, this implies that there were at least
some visual references that were at least somewhat important. Was there something, or some things (plural), that you thought was(were) “primary” visual reference(s) … and what specific kinds of things did you include as “additional references?
Second, if my copy of the List of Airports by ICAO code is up-to-date and accurate, the example airport you referenced (LTAT) is Erhaç Airport in Malatya, Turkey. I’m just curious as to why you chose such an airport – as I am sure that there isn’t necessarily a huge portion of the participants here who even know that this airport exists, let alone would consider it a likely candidate for a “representative airport” for participation in this discussion.