Well, the choices are:
(a) Approach designers using published criteria and mathematically derived templates to insure pilots who can't see out the window have terrain separation.
(b) the pilots who can't see out of the window.
?? These answers make me think you don't understand the question: who says I have to make a course reversal when I am exactly lined up on final when I reach the IAF? Why do I have to make a "Course Reversal"?
Your answer (a) answers the question: "How do I make a course reversal in order to get lined up on final?".
Your answer (b), I don't get. ??
So far, the AIM and FAA Legal seem to have gone with (a).
Oh, you mean with the continued re-writes of the same contorted confusions. All of the legal interps just repeat the reg or AIM in a specific answer to a specific question in the government fashion of not taking any responsibility in the interpretation.
If the question is asked "Can I go straight-in if I am already lined up,
etc., at the IAF?", the government entity answering that question cannot say yes, because the
etc I put in there requires too many ifs, ands, and buts, so the generic answer is to quote the AIM. ..and the AIM description of the PT gets connected to the
purpose of the PT, so that some think that
a depiction of a PT requires the execution of the PT.
But the
purpose of the PT is in the
definition of a course reversal, which is to get turned around to get aligned on final. If that is not necessary, then the PT need not be executed. It is when the pilot makes a decision to execute a turn that he must fly the turn as depicted.
...and, of course, many FAA folks & senior instructors believe the "must-do-PT-no-matter-what" to be the manta, also, so the myth is perpetuated. You/we have all seen many examples of that in many areas.
Really. I haven't seen a black-and-white command that you must make a course reversal when you are already on final. Have you?