Straight-In approach legality

mshunter said:
This was exactly what I was thinking. There are some cases where a circling approach turns into a straight in approach because you get the field in sight way before you reach mins, and it's much more practical to line yourself up on about a 1.5/2 mile final. Would I get violated for that? After reading this, I'm am no longer certain. I think these rulings have set a dangerous precedent.
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But at a controlled field the tower will tell you what to do, while at an uncontrolled field I doubt the approach or center controller even cares or clears you specifically for the circle (it's been a long time since I've done one, and I honestly can't remember, but they definitely do not clear you to circle NE/NW/SW/SE etc for XX runway). The fact that you are doing a circle is purely academic in nature, the controller doesn't care nor even has to know. You were cleared for the approach at hand (VOR/LOC/whatever) then circling from there and landing at the airport, canceling on the ground. As an IFR aircraft cleared for XYZ approach, you maneuver for what you are cleared to do, not based on traffic patterns.
 
wheelsup said:
But at a controlled field the tower will tell you what to do, while at an uncontrolled field I doubt the approach or center controller even cares or clears you specifically for the circle (it's been a long time since I've done one, and I honestly can't remember, but they definitely do not clear you to circle NE/NW/SW/SE etc for XX runway). The fact that you are doing a circle is purely academic in nature, the controller doesn't care nor even has to know. You were cleared for the approach at hand (VOR/LOC/whatever) then circling from there and landing at the airport, canceling on the ground. As an IFR aircraft cleared for XYZ approach, you maneuver for what you are cleared to do, not based on traffic patterns.
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Alright, I'lln present you with this then. The FAA guides us with the Instrument Flying Handbook as training material(IIRC it's in chapter 10 or 11). I would reason to bet that the aircraft being cited in the txt provided in the OP would have been no more than a Cat C aircraft (max speed of 141 kts), or at best a cat D (a mac speed of 166) which gives a legal circle of a maximum of 2.3 miles. So the FAA now all of the sudden wants me to manuver the aircraft tight enough to create a hazard to all of it's occupants? It just seems like a rouge FA guy trying to make life difficult for someone. There is the nature of the regulation and it's intent, then there is the letter of the regulation and how it can be used to give someone a bad day. It seems like it was just used to give someone a bad name here.


Forgive me if this sounds like a bunch of jibberish. Last night was a rough night. Dutied on at 11pm, dutied off at 9am, and my kids had me up at 6am. I am a little dilerious right now.
 
I had a 141 assistant chief tell me that he thought it was illegal to make ANY right turns on an IFR circle to land approach. I stopped about 2 steps short of telling him I thought that was baloney, because I guess technically nowhere does it say that you can. I still think it's baloney, and in some situations unsafe, but I don't have anything to back it up.
 
SteveC said:
Who said that this has anything to do with circling approaches?
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Nobody, in this thread. However, since we're on the topic of right turns in the traffic pattern, I thought it somewhat related to dig up that relic of a discussion from my long-ago CFII days.
 
Roger Roger said:
I had a 141 assistant chief tell me that he thought it was illegal to make ANY right turns on an IFR circle to land approach. I stopped about 2 steps short of telling him I thought that was baloney, because I guess technically nowhere does it say that you can. I still think it's baloney, and in some situations unsafe, but I don't have anything to back it up.
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Even if that left turn put's you into the mountain? They have to be careful with bs like this, some people really would turn left into the mountain if they thought that you couldn't turn right. I've seen them.
 
I'd have to say that if the FAA came after me for making a straight in approach, my response would be somewhat similar to them coming after me for not flashing the strobes in the Cirrus while sitting on the ramp at night waiting for the AHRS to align.

Kiss my ass. But in a polite manner.
 
Roger Roger said:
I had a 141 assistant chief tell me that he thought it was illegal to make ANY right turns on an IFR circle to land approach. I stopped about 2 steps short of telling him I thought that was baloney, because I guess technically nowhere does it say that you can. I still think it's baloney, and in some situations unsafe, but I don't have anything to back it up.
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On a circling maneuver following an instrument approach, you can circle any direction and in any way you like, consistent with any restrictions notated on the approach procedures remarks and so long as you remain within the protected distance for your circling category.
 
mshunter said:
Alright, I'lln present you with this then. The FAA guides us with the Instrument Flying Handbook as training material(IIRC it's in chapter 10 or 11). I would reason to bet that the aircraft being cited in the txt provided in the OP would have been no more than a Cat C aircraft (max speed of 141 kts), or at best a cat D (a mac speed of 166) which gives a legal circle of a maximum of 2.3 miles. So the FAA now all of the sudden wants me to manuver the aircraft tight enough to create a hazard to all of it's occupants? It just seems like a rouge FA guy trying to make life difficult for someone. There is the nature of the regulation and it's intent, then there is the letter of the regulation and how it can be used to give someone a bad day. It seems like it was just used to give someone a bad name here.
.
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If you want more protected circling area, it's perfectly legal to fly higher minima than what your aircraft is. If you want to fly Cat E minima in a C-172, go for it; you'll just likely have a higher MDA (obstruction/terrain dependant), but at that MDA, you have the 4.5SM circling distance, if you so desire.
 
MikeD said:
On a circling maneuver following an instrument approach, you can circle any direction and in any way you like, consistent with any restrictions notated on the approach procedures remarks and so long as you remain within the protected distance for your circling category.
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See below for AIM guidelines.
AIM 5-4-20 F

2. It should be recognized that circling maneuvers may be made while VFR or other flying is in progress at the airport. Standard left turns or specific instruction from the controller for maneuvering must be considered when circling to land.
3. At airports without a control tower, it may be desirable to fly over the airport to observe wind and turn indicators and other traffic which may be on the runway or flying in the vicinity of the airport.
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Interesting.
 
The AIM guidelines are very true, as it's entirely possible you would have VFR traffic doing pattern work. For a towered field, as mentioned before, you would receive guidance of some sort on how to maneuver, even if you were the only one airborne at the time. For an uncontrolled field, if you can reasonably determine that no one else is a factor or in the pattern, consistent with the plate, you can circle any way you like, as there's not only one way to circle. If there is traffic airborne, prudence would dictate attempting to deconflict somehow with the traffic, whether flying the pattern, or deconflicting different patterns, traffic dependant. Of course, there could always be the plane in the pattern with no radio or not talking to anyone.
 
If there are obstacles such as mountains these are almost always, if not always, considered when constructing the approach and you will see some sort of note(s), such as "circling north of the airport n/a", or there may be restrictions on the category of airplane permitted to to the circling approach. Frankly I have not done many circling approaches that did not permit a normal pattern. Like I said, if some kind of obstacle does not permit circling in one direction it WILL say so on the chart. In almost all of those cases the traffic pattern is nonstandard as well. Which brings up another point- if the pattern is nonstandard you had better comply with it. One airport I operated out of was north traffic only- the south side was a drop zone and an aerobatic box. On more than one occasion transient pilots were met by an irate jump master or aerobatic judge for flying the wrong pattern.
Circling approaches do NOT give you blanket authorization to ignore all other FARs. As Mike pointed out there may be other traffic in the pattern and they will not be required to have a radio.
It is what it is. The OP is giving warning that this has become an area where the FAA is, for some reason, paying attention. You can make your turns to the left unless a chart says to make them to the right, or you can do what you want to do instead and risk standing before an NTSB judge. Your call. Arguing it here will not change a thing.
 
smig said:
OK then, I will re-phrase that. "The honerable judge who ruled on the Code of Federal Regulations violation appeal".
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They are NTSB judges. If you want to look for case histories, look through NTSB legal decisions. The theory is that they will be impartial. Theory only.
 
Blackhawk said:
If there are obstacles such as mountains these are almost always, if not always, considered when constructing the approach and you will see some sort of note(s), such as "circling north of the airport n/a", or there may be restrictions on the category of airplane permitted to to the circling approach. Frankly I have not done many circling approaches that did not permit a normal pattern. Like I said, if some kind of obstacle does not permit circling in one direction it WILL say so on the chart. In almost all of those cases the traffic pattern is nonstandard as well. Which brings up another point- if the pattern is nonstandard you had better comply with it. One airport I operated out of was north traffic only- the south side was a drop zone and an aerobatic box. On more than one occasion transient pilots were met by an irate jump master or aerobatic judge for flying the wrong pattern.
Circling approaches do NOT give you blanket authorization to ignore all other FARs. As Mike pointed out there may be other traffic in the pattern and they will not be required to have a radio.
It is what it is. The OP is giving warning that this has become an area where the FAA is, for some reason, paying attention. You can make your turns to the left unless a chart says to make them to the right, or you can do what you want to do instead and risk standing before an NTSB judge. Your call. Arguing it here will not change a thing.
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Well, there are a lot of situations with a circling approach where, especially in a situation where you have visibility at minimums, it would be much smoother, more efficient, and IMHO safer to fly over the field and do a right pattern than to crank over and try to fly a left hand pattern. Take, for example, the KASL VORDME-A approach, with ceiling just above mins and vis just at mins (1.25 miles). Let's say that due to a rain shower, or an area of lower cloud, you only sight the airport 3/4 of a mile away and at mins ( perfectly legal, since the MAP is over the field). Your choices for going to 33 are a) crank over into an immediate RH turn and try to do a left downwind for 33, which will probably result in something more like an upwind off of 15 and a 235 degree left turn with a dogleg back to final, and the very distinct risk of losing sight of the runway in that crazy mixed up maneuvering, plus the fact that even though you're ostensibly making left traffic what you're doing is not remotely similar to a normal pattern and would still conflict with any VFR traffic (which could still be there, since ASL is class G below 700'). Option B would be to maintain FAC heading until crossing midfield, then make a nice, gentle, right hand turn to downwind, then base, then final. Much less chance of losing sight of the runway in a low-vis scenario, and much less need for use of high bank angles. Smoother and IMHO safer. I know of at least one well-respected 135 operator that teaches circling patterns like this in their training course and so presumably uses them in real life. This is pretty much the exact approach and scenario that I got in a debate about. I know which one I would do if I was doing the approach for real at minimums, but since 91.126 makes no exception for IFR circling approaches I guess technically that would be illegal.
 
Roger Roger said:
I had a 141 assistant chief tell me that he thought it was illegal to make ANY right turns on an IFR circle to land approach. I stopped about 2 steps short of telling him I thought that was baloney, because I guess technically nowhere does it say that you can. I still think it's baloney, and in some situations unsafe, but I don't have anything to back it up.
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Oh boy. Here's one for the ACP.
not-sure-if-trolling-or-dumbest-pilot-ever.jpg


So when I'm on the RNAV Y Runway 26 to Camarillo, CA, circle-to-land 8, where circling is PROHIBITED north of runway 8-26, how precisely am I supposed (safely) to make turns to line up on 8?
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Oh boy. Here's one for the ACP.
not-sure-if-trolling-or-dumbest-pilot-ever.jpg


So when I'm on the RNAV Y Runway 26 to Camarillo, CA, circle-to-land 8, where circling is PROHIBITED north of runway 8-26, how precisely am I supposed (safely) to make turns to line up on 8?
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Well, to be fair, I suppose on that runway your traffic pattern is also right hand and so his argument would be that in that case an RH circle would be approved.
 
Roger Roger said:
Well, there are a lot of situations with a circling approach where, especially in a situation where you have visibility at minimums, it would be much smoother, more efficient, and IMHO safer to fly over the field and do a right pattern than to crank over and try to fly a left hand pattern. Take, for example, the KASL VORDME-A approach, with ceiling just above mins and vis just at mins (1.25 miles). Let's say that due to a rain shower, or an area of lower cloud, you only sight the airport 3/4 of a mile away and at mins ( perfectly legal, since the MAP is over the field). Your choices for going to 33 are a) crank over into an immediate RH turn and try to do a left downwind for 33, which will probably result in something more like an upwind off of 15 and a 235 degree left turn with a dogleg back to final, and the very distinct risk of losing sight of the runway in that crazy mixed up maneuvering, plus the fact that even though you're ostensibly making left traffic what you're doing is not remotely similar to a normal pattern and would still conflict with any VFR traffic (which could still be there, since ASL is class G below 700'). Option B would be to maintain FAC heading until crossing midfield, then make a nice, gentle, right hand turn to downwind, then base, then final. Much less chance of losing sight of the runway in a low-vis scenario, and much less need for use of high bank angles. Smoother and IMHO safer. I know of at least one well-respected 135 operator that teaches circling patterns like this in their training course and so presumably uses them in real life. This is pretty much the exact approach and scenario that I got in a debate about. I know which one I would do if I was doing the approach for real at minimums, but since 91.126 makes no exception for IFR circling approaches I guess technically that would be illegal.
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... and option C is to turn left, enter the upwind for runway 33 and make a normal left hand pattern. Again, read my last paragraph. I don't work for a FSDO, I'm not going around telling pilots how they have to fly the circling approach. Personally I don't really care as long as you are safe and don't interfere with other traffic. I am telling you that if the wrong FSDO gets wind of you doing a right pattern you may face enforcement action. And they will ask you why you did not chose option C and comply with the FARs.
 
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