Tescoapp: glad to hear there are still some old farts alive & well and practicing the dark arts. I'm glad I read your whole massive, because the opening gambit led me to believe you might be in total disagreement when in fact you seemed to be in severe agreement. Bravo.
Why your boss thinks a circle to land is an easier manoeuvre alludes me. I suspect one of two of my last CP's would have gone apoplectic because of 'the message' it would send to others. I did have that comment once, and decided with a heavy heart not to pursue what 'the message' was.
I was flying with an F/O who was PF into a severe clear area, as in the runway was visual from 50nm or more. The straight in ILS was u/s, the wind favoured the other end, and the ATIS said 'circle to land' from the VOR. It would say that because there is no IFR approach to the other end. We were the only traffic and there are no PAPI's on 'the other end'. The F/O briefed the circle approach with all the fine detail required and the use of autopilot, including the circling height of 600' with gear down etc. That was were I gave him 'the eye', and wondered why a perfectly good visual downwind was not a better choice. Answers; "ATIS says circling, I'm on the outside of the turn, there are no PAPI's, circling profile will put me in the correct place in glide slope." I commented that circling would put him, blindly onto a 2nm final with no PAPI and little time to correct. A visual circuit, time it if you feel you must, will give you a longer final to sort it out and stabilise. The following discussion was an education for both us; well a disappointment for me, and this within an airline who claims to have the highest training standards. There are times when 'the emperor has no clothes'.
I still lay some responsibility at the XAA's door with their low expectations for base training, and the airlines themselves. There are airlines that do not allow pilots to execute a typical base training circuit on the line. What is the point; I'm lost.

Not recommended for RPT, but at my old base we’d circle for a touch and go at mins, at night to a 7,000’ runway and never thought twice about it. An afternoon with strong winds and rain was a workout in the instructir’s right seat.

It did build confidence!

While for example the B737 FCTM displays a diagram of a visual circuit as distinct from a circle to land, as you say there are many airlines who disapprove of practicing a visual circuit during type rating training. For example, the Boeing (formerly Alteon) syllabus during type rating training does not include visual circuit training. That info from someone who recently completed their 737NG type rating in Australia.

Moreover from the very first simulator session, the accent is on full use of automation rather than give the student the opportunity to fly the 737 by hand without flight director or other automatic features to get the feel of his first jet.

Yet there is no doubt that repeated circuits and landings in the simulator manually flown with FD and AT off, gives new pilots more confidence in flying the aeroplane than staring fixedly at the PFD and MAP and fiddling around with the MCP while pressing autopilot buttons. Others are welcome to disagree, but in my job we see the immediate results in the simulator.

I think you are at crossed purposes. In EU land it is necessary to complete Base training after the LST to receive the type on licence. Most airlines, to save cost and build confidence, do an hour os so in the sim prior to live a/c circuits. My comment is that once this is done some airlines then discourage/forbid this profile to used on line with pax aboard.
When asked why not, one reply given was that,
"Base training circuit was a requirement for TQ and very specific. On the line it would be rare to fly a level timed circuit, but rather a self-judged descending CDA circuit, which was not trained and therefore liable to screw ups and costly GA's. Visual circuits will only be flown into an OM final which negated the benefit of a shortened visual circuit anyway. The benefit gained from the training required was not worth it."

OMG. So doing it the way we had always done it, by demonstration & practice on the line, was now deemed insufficient & inappropriate and unnecessary. The problem is evolutionary because with rapid commands there is no-one to demonstrate and coach. I retired a couple of years, after doing what I had done for 35 years, was banned. 2 years previously, & the last time I had the opportunity to arrive overhead at 4000' and fly a raw data Mk. 1 eyeball CDA to 2nm finals, the F/O had the gumption to ask "how did you do that?" & "why are we not doing it more and being taught how to do it?" Good lad, and then it was banned.

Excuse me gents, but I don’t quite understand. What exactly is banned these days? Visuals? No PAPI landings?

I have flown (and still fly) for several large jets operators around the world and have never seen any restriction w.r.t. to PAPI.

O.K., vast majority of runways I operate to have them these days, so no PAPI landing is rare. Still, haven’t seen any formal requirement for PAPI, or any restriction due to lack thereof...

As a happily retired old fart who last flew a commercial aircraft back in 1995, I am absolutely amazed by the discussion here. A straight forward handflown circuit at night with no PAPIs or VASIs was a basic requirement.

A straight-in approach at night with no glideslope assistance was perhaps another matter but was still the norm at some fields. If in doubt a basic circuit made life easy AND safe.

I know all the automatics have made flying much safer and more efficient but surely the basics are still stick and rudder, regardless of the type you fly.

Judd and Rat5, as an SLF I'd feel a lot safer with people up front with your skills than with the skills they are left with after training as you describe it. As an aside in the early days of Doncaster Sheffield in a clear bright sunny day I heard an arrival from Spain gleefully asking to do a visual to 02. He must have been at 4000 overhead and did what I assume was a CDA (sorry if I am wrong) and ended up beautifully on short final as you describe Rat5. Even for a non-pilot like me the skill and its application were things of beauty.

The subject of the thread is not about superior airmanship, or lack thereof, it is about a procedural note that the French aviation authority placed on the use of instrument approach procedures. The issue is obstacles penetrating prescribed visual segment slopes for Runway 36. If the PAPI is inop in the daytime, no problem. If the PAPI in inop at night, not even Sky King can see the obstacles sticking up into a normal approach path (3 degrees or so).

Increasingly, aviation authorities are restricting night IFR operations to runways with such visual segment penetrations as a matter of both safety and liability. The FAA is very restrictive in this regard since a Lear Jet hit some trees at night in the descent below MDA several years ago.

Resultant of the above French restriction, there are companies flying in its airspace which subsequently prohibit pilots flying night visual approaches. They enforce the most restrictive national rules within its operating theatre as their standard operating procedures = Safest?

Possible workaround?

Does your FMS allow range rings from the runway threshold?

If NORMAL approach is 3 degrees, then appropriate rings with a target ALTITUDE of 320'/nm plus threshold elevation plus 50' should assist those otherwise uncomfortable with a purely visual approach to put the aircraft where it should be.

Before the howls of outrage I'm assuming you are by now VMC with runway lights in sight.

Rings less than 2nms from threshold are not needed as by then if you're not in the groove it's time for a G/A anyway (500' stabilised?) but if in the groove then leave the energy management as it is and get the job done?

But there are TCs out there who despise the use of such utilisation of the kit so be prepared to defend your corner.

There are those on B737NG'S, perhaps also AB's, who profess that if you have an FMC generated VNAV/LNAV approach the FD's will give good enough guidance to touchdown. I used to fly for operators that switched FD's off when visual from an NPA. I then had sim checks by TRE's from different operators who did not, as they believed it was not a Boeing SOP and believed that there was some guidance available. I'd always been taught that the A/P connect limit was 50' below DA unless coupled to a glide path. Therefore this applied to he whole AFDS, including FD's. That is not to say the FD's suddenly become inaccurate, but would be advisory only, in some operator's eyes.

Who's looking at F/Ds on visual approach?
 

Rat, you misunderstand my point.

I'm assuming PF is looking out the window, enjoying the view, but using dist v alt to keep them out of the weeds.

Either logged into PFs brain would be the target distance/altitude figures and/or PM would be keeping track of them calling high/low as appropriate.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believed the original query was a visual approach, possibly from a straight-in, without visual slope guidance beyond the runway lights' aspect cues.

The straight-in visual approach, for whatever reason, is rarely if ever practised and almost always never taught, unless part of an IF approach where the needles are used for vertical guidance though the visual criteria have been acquired.

Many current line dogs can perform a visual circuit or circling approach only because the company or aircraft FM gives appropriate range/timing/altitude numbers which will suffice if accurately achieved. But picture the panic on a night straight-in visual, using the needles for staying out of the weeds, when the needles disappear into the corners for whatever reason?

Hence the use of a modern FMS runway-range rings, kept me and my team in the groove on the frequent nights when LGW main runway was taken out of action and tired crew landings at 0400 GMT were in force without PAPIs nor an approved VNAV approach for runway 26R.

As long as the maths have been done and X-checked long before the panic starts.

Aaaah, halcyon days..........:)

There is nothing more irritating than a PM continually reading out a profile to satisfy his own nervousness under the mistaken impression the more you talk the safer it is. All under the guise of good CRM. If something looks dangerous then speak out by all means. But Fly-By-Mouth PM's, whether they are the captain or co-pilot, are a real pain in the arse. In a car they are called back seat drivers.

RAT through out the whole discussion I had a feeling none of the fleet types had ever done a circling approach in anger on a cold windy night with the fuel gauges ticking down and your alternate 50 mins away.

They did do the decent thing and include a circling approach in the next sim cycle.

But when I got there they hadn't taken into account the pan ops protected area and weren't teaching that you had to stay inside its limits.

They hadn't modified the stabilised approach criteria (hence they were getting way way to far away from the runway outside the protected area).

And blank looks and stumbling when this was pointed out on debrief as the reason why my wings weren't less than 5 deg bank at the gate. That point was then dropped and we moved swiftly on.

Anyway my present outfit has a much more realistic method of dealing with it. Any airport that your likely to get a circling approach is cat C, Captains approach if its a circling and even the slightest hint there is something to bang into then its a sim session to qualify. And in the airport brief the protected area is marked. And also the modification to the stabilisation gate criteria which is normally wings less than 5 deg bank by 200ft.

PAPI's are not a requirement as long as you get visual contact with the runway mins +500ft. If you come out the murk at mins and they are not on then its a GA .

Which to me is a more sensible clued up way of dealing with things. Not that I have had to do one in anger yet with them. Which as I have done more than enough of them in the past is more than fine by me.

If I never have to do one again outside the sim I won't be even remotely upset.

Not even at LFMH Runway 36 at night?

For you guys who want to set up an FMS 3.0 degree "roll-your-own" VPATH to LFMH Runway 36 note both the VDA and the PAPI are 3.8 degrees.

I hear you... So annoying! Like today at 400 feet AGL with the runway clearly in sight 2 whites/2reds, the FO called: "Glideslope!". It was like 1/3 of a dot deviation not even half a dot which in that case is a standard call out by Airbus but for God Sake just look outside bro. Also another thing who really grinds my gears, are the guys who call " 1000 to go" when they are PF cause I miss it. Well done buddy, now I won't call it anymore! Or the guys calling " Clear right side" every 10 seconds when I taxi the aircraft and I can clearly see ahead... Common sense at sea level...

Concerning the PAPI... Who needs that seriously?

If there is a local restriction in the pates of course you would have to obey that like any other restrictions.

If the plate says you need PAPI's then you have to have them.

When I was teaching the 777 at Boeing we not only did visual approaches, but there was one on the checkride

I have to admit that at night, on a circle, I would like to have glidepath assistance. You are close in and needing to transition from level to an accurate descent path probably slightly before you are wings level on C.L. PAPI's would help this enormously. The error margin is very small. A visual circuit at >1500' should be possible for a competent pilot, but is so rarely practiced that it seems safer and more sound commercially for an operator to insist on PAPI's.
Daytime, that's another issue. There has been comment about 'not being trained' for this or that. There are some operators who have that philosophy, which limits them sometimes because you can't train of every eventuality. Which brings the debate full circle about the depth of basic training. I know the opening thread was not about that. Sorry.