Empty cruise:
What's secondary radar got to do with it?
Surely the chart is available on your FMS; if not then I suggest you change your software supplier to one that supplies complete packages.

Radar vectoring charts are not designed to allow pilots to navigtate safely below MSA in IMC. They are for information only. Therefore whilst they can aid situational awareness during the approach, without some sort of ground-based position fix (specifically, radar) they are of little use.

Unless, of course, your company SOPs allow use of FMC position below MSA to be an acceptable way of determining your position - ours do not (FMC subject to large drift errors). In which case you might as well be allowed to do an FMC approach anyway which is kind of off the point of this thread (are they allowed anywhere in Europe?).

Descent below MSA is only allowable:
1) when visual
2) on an approved instrument approach
3) when under radar control (including radar-monitored 'self-positioned' approaches)

Using the Radar vectoring chart doesn't help us achieve any of the above.

If you offer me the opportunity to "self position", the chance I will "programme" the aircraft to do it is approz zero. I'll fly it myself thank you

And I have seen all these from ATCOs But more especially from pilots acting as Sim operators i.e. playing being an ATCO.

There is no "standard" way of doing it, and as pilots we are not trained in it. I am therefore not surprised at what you see - you have basically said to us "have a go yourself" and we are

Unless you now stipulate a range to be established, and depending on weather, I may essentially treat it as "a visual". 5NM might seem a good range to be established without checking further, and I may well not do an "intercept leg" as such.

Appreciated... but weather dependant, and us now controlling ourselves, we only need to be stable by 1000' / 500'...

"Unstable" is hard to determine from radar - it essentially refers to speed and glideslope. Ordering a GA is a but drastic, but a subtle hint "confirm established" might be in order. I would not expect you to act as ZRH ATC and allow an aircraft to fly into a hill "because it was not your job"... However, I would expect you to lower your standards to those of safety, rather than expecting the intercept to meet your own standards

Gary Lager:
From CAP 709:
Chapter1 para 3.1 The purpose of an RVA is:
b)to provide pilots with an indication of the minimum altitudes at which ATC radar vectoring will take place on Initial Approach below the published Minimum Sector Altitude (MSA)

Quite. They are not to be used to allow pilots to navigate below MSA without ATC Radar Control/Monitoring, which is what I understood was being suggested.

from chevvron.
A chart and the FMS have nothing to do with each other.

So you're saying that those people who rely on FMS software updates and don't bother to cross-check the paper updates don't see certain pertinent information. That would explain a lot!!