Yeah, I guess that's my point. You aren't given any guidance about a visual separation situation like this. The books says you must follow the RA unless the PIC decides it's unsafe. It also allows you to turn off RA's if operating in proximity of other aircraft. But if you get an RA, you have to follow it. Should it be ATC's job to never allow visual separation that might result in an RA?
It just seems like the book doesn't always apply well to real life...
Just like the Holding in lieu of "should I fly the PT turn or not" scenario....where real world disagrees with the book.
In a terminal area like this in close proximity to other aircraft, why don't crews disable RAs? If only to avoid getting one every 5 minutes?
We had a case where a C-17 crew was landing at Holloman AFB, back when I was flying the F-117. They were flying the HI-TACAN Z 22, however as usually is the case, HMN was doing launched on RW 25 and recoveries on RW 16. The pattern, both inside downwind as well as outside downwind, are east traffic (ie, towards arrival traffic that may be arriving on RW 22). RW 22 is the landing runway for heavy aircraft. The fighter traffic pattern is 2000AGL, and you'll notice in the attached IAP, that the FAF is a hard altitude of 5700'. The C-17 was on the approach, at the same time we were recovering F-4s and F-117s. As they approached the FAF, a flight of F-4s went straight through initial and to the outside downwind (about 3 miles east of the field) and a flight of F-117s were coming up initial at 2000AGL for the break into the downwind. Tower called the C-17 as traffic to the fighters, and vice versa, BOTH acknowledging "visual separation". As the F-4s rolled out on outside downwind getting to re-enter initial for the break, the C-17 crew got an RA from them and took evasive action, even though BOTH they and the flight of fighters saw each other, there was no other traffic in the area, and the traffic info had been getting displayed by the TCAS the whole time. The C-17 crew wanted to file a HATR report against the F-4 crew and against tower for bringing them too close and compromising safety. Investigating this whole deal, my big question to the C-17 crew was why did you have the RA on? Do your regs allow you to have it off? And worst, why didn't you use some common sense to know what the traffic was you were getting an RA on....you knew who was in the area at that altitude and in that direction, and you were visual separation on them. And further, if the evasive maneuver to have to dive towards the ground was so unsafe, why did you do perform it?
Never did get satisfactory answers to this.
http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/1003/00007HTZ22.PDF