PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Visual approaches Radio Minimums or Baro
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Old 12th Apr 2016, 18:13
  #20 (permalink)  
RAT 5
 
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IMHO, in the world of regulated & regimented public pax operations the concept of Minima is well understood and expected. It's removal causes confusion. Most operators have a 'landing gate' at which point there is a decision to continue a stable approach or GA. This is also a fundamental safety addition that has been introduced over time. Its disrespect has been shown to create incidents/accidents.
This philosophy applies to all approaches, even visual ones. A decision has to be made. So setting a 'decision point' is not so daft and has great merit & necessity. Considering some of the screw ups on the 'not so often practiced visual approaches' by large pax jets it can be claimed it is most relevant.
I've flown single crew visual sectors many times. if it wasn't going to be visual at destination you didn't depart. It was a different environment. However, I believe the question was aimed at the more normal MCC pax IFR type operation. In that case I believe a decision point is a good idea, so why not set it at the IFR DA point and still keep the landing gate active? With nothing set it can lead to the landing gate criteria being overlooked, and the mental model being that a landing is assured. Not so healthy.
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