one ought to be able to do a visual approach just by looking out the window
Indeed ... sometimes it got a tad interesting ..
One of my fondest memories is of a licence renewal check on the 727 .. the checkie (thanks, Brian) required everything useful in my vision to be switched off at about 70-80 DME into SYD on a severe CAVOK day (I couldn't see Sydney, let alone the airfield) .. and the task was to intercept the extended ILS (Mk 1 eyeball only) and fly it to touchdown. Local knowledge of mountains, rivers, etc., saved the day .. as he, no doubt, intended. Not a usual event but typical for pushing the learning boundaries and, on this occasion, during a quite low traffic period.
Another regular exercise on routine line ops (PER-MEL) was to be held high for an ILS onto 27 .. but then be offered straight in on 09 (T-VASIS and nothing else as I recall) .. near invariably we would take the offer to save a heap of time .. good fun and I can't ever recall there being a need for a miss .. it follows, though, that the Mk 1 brain was well employed throughout to make it all work ....
Another fun night I recall saw us LST-SYD on the Electra .. standard noise arrival required out north and turn back in for a significantly displaced 16 threshold landing .. started descent FL300 abeam the airport .. didn't go north of the harbour and still needed to power up in the normal manner .. we three were quite relaxed about it all .. the ATC-er, though, thought it all a bit stressful, methinks .. at 0-dark-30, though, it did increase the cerebral activity .. No real purpose other than for the learning exercise .. nil traffic at the time.
This was all routine grist for the mill at AN back in the good days .. if the kids these days miss out on such exercises it is all a bit sad ..