Approach without circling minimums?

midlifeflyer said:
Real point is both "permitted unless expressly forbidden" and the opposite are overly-simplistic. We are in general a "permitted unless expressly forbidden" society when compared with most others, but "forbidden" requires reading, comprehension, interpretation, understanding, context. and application.
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That has been the case with light airplane GA since I first got into this game.

In this case, while rolling one's own departure is not prohibited, rolling one's own IAP is. Reading the applicable regs tells us this.
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I've "TERPsed out" a couple for a friend or two over the years. Geo-referenced 1:24,000 topos work a whole lot better than sectional charts.
 
Interesting and timely. I did the RNAV 20 into KDAN this weekend. The controller read me two notams, one of which was this Circling delete. Made me wonder why that would be deleted, and now I know!
 
aterpster said:
Are you trying to say that you can roll your own circle to land MDAs if not are charted on a particular IAP?
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Absolutely not. I explained in Post #10 why I believe that a circle-to-land operation is not authorized when no circling MDA is published for the approach that the pilot was cleared for.
 
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azure said:
Very interesting! I had read about the NOvA "far detector" at Ash River, but I thought that one was finished and already in operation. Is the new detector part of the same experiment or a different one?
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This is a different one: it's called CHIPS. I'll write more later... I gotta go build some photomultiplier arrays... :)
 
aterpster said:
That has been the case with light airplane GA since I first got into this game.


I've "TERPsed out" a couple for a friend or two over the years. Geo-referenced 1:24,000 topos work a whole lot better than sectional charts.
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You sure the statute of limitations is up on that?:)
 
George Mohr said:
Interesting and timely. I did the RNAV 20 into KDAN this weekend. The controller read me two notams, one of which was this Circling delete. Made me wonder why that would be deleted, and now I know!
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Almost certainly an obstruction has appeared in the circling area.
 
champ driver said:
The P-205 area to the north is over the BWCA, Boundry Waters Canoe Wilderness Area. It's a pristine wilderness area and they want to keep it wild and quiet from engine noise, including motorboats. Shouldn't have anything to do with any TFR.
The TFR is common up there for blasting for one of the many mines, you're in the iron range now with open pit mines.
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Who would build a boundary water for canoes so close to an airport?! Hahahahaha.

Kidding, of course. :)
 
flyingron said:
Almost certainly an obstruction has appeared in the circling area.
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No. There are hundreds of obstructions in any circling area. A new, taller one will just cause the Circling MDA to be increased, or if it is significant enough, for Circling to be restricted to one side of the runway.

The reason for the removal of circling minimums has only to do with the FAA initiative to remove them, as discussed further upthread.
 
RussR said:
No. There are hundreds of obstructions in any circling area. A new, taller one will just cause the Circling MDA to be increased, or if it is significant enough, for Circling to be restricted to one side of the runway.

The reason for the removal of circling minimums has only to do with the FAA initiative to remove them, as discussed further upthread.
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...and indeed, there is a pending chart amendment for two RNAV approaches for circling cancellation after a comment period (part of the process as discussed above) which ended in June. (Site source for photo). The associated cancellation checklist and memorandum are here.
8A673D5D-46AE-429C-B491-E8DCBF9A4E4A.jpeg
 
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Good lord.....Bob made a slip up and confused NATOPS with the Dash 1 and 50 posts later we’re still debating prohibited vs authorized.....
 
dtuuri said:
Not seeing how canceling ANY circling approach is an improvement to aviation operations. Shouldn't have to comment on every one, IMO.
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It’s not, nor was it intended to be, an improvement to aviation operations.
 
MauleSkinner said:
It’s not, nor was it intended to be, an improvement to aviation operations.
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Well, yeah, that's the whole problem, IMO. Are you long enough in the tooth to remember "climb corridors"? Well, to me, this is nothing but a reverse form of that out-dated and restrictive concept for IFR departures.
 
dtuuri said:
Well, yeah, that's the whole problem, IMO. Are you long enough in the tooth to remember "climb corridors"? Well, to me, this is nothing but a reverse form of that out-dated and restrictive concept for IFR departures.
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KLAX hasn't had circling minimums for perhaps 30-40 years.
 
dtuuri said:
Well, yeah, that's the whole problem, IMO. Are you long enough in the tooth to remember "climb corridors"? Well, to me, this is nothing but a reverse form of that out-dated and restrictive concept for IFR departures.
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I don’t remember them, but that could either be because I’m not long enough in the tooth or too long in the tooth. ;)
 
MauleSkinner said:
I don’t remember them, but that could either be because I’m not long enough in the tooth or too long in the tooth. ;)
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They didn't last long. Positive controlled airspace within the corridor. They were gone by the time I hired on in January, 1964.

Also, after the UAL DC-7/F-100 midair over Las Vegas, the FAA went to three levels of airspace for a couple of years. As I recall the highest level had route positive control.
 
aterpster said:
They didn't last long. Positive controlled airspace within the corridor. They were gone by the time I hired on in January, 1964.

Also, after the UAL DC-7/F-100 midair over Las Vegas, the FAA went to three levels of airspace for a couple of years. As I recall the highest level had route positive control.
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So I’m not long enough in the tooth to remember them.
 
dtuuri said:
Thinkin' he referred to departures?
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Yeah. I had my mind on the thread title Circling. I think they can still get him for Trademark Infrigement though for saying TERPsed.:) The whole thang was just a joke. What's these Climb Corridor things you are talking about?
 
Bump. Nobody wants to tell me how wrong I am? Instead of the FAA canceling out circling minimums in favor of only straight-in approaches and landings, reminiscent of bygone four leg LF range approaches, shouldn't they be thinking about how to develop on-course arrivals culminating in circling approaches to land into the wind? Doesn't that make more sense at most airports under typical weather conditions, especially in light of modern navigation technology? KLAX-type airports shouldn't be a model for the rest of the country, IMO.
 
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dtuuri said:
Bump. Nobody wants to tell me how wrong I am? Instead of the FAA canceling out circling minimums in favor of only straight-in approaches and landings, reminiscent of bygone four leg LF range approaches, shouldn't they be thinking about how to develop on-course arrivals culminating in circling approaches to land into the wind? Doesn't that make more sense at most airports under typical weather conditions, especially in light of modern navigation technology? KLAX-type airports shouldn't be a model for the rest of the country, IMO.
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Why? Perhaps no one cares as much about saving circling approaches as you do.

I sure don't mind adding 10 minutes to a flight to pick up a T end past the airport to come straight in in low or marginal conditions wher cancelling IFR is not viable. The certificated operators with "no circling" in their OpSpecs don't seem to. Perhaps, statistically, the number of true circling ops is so low that the impact on air commerce is minimal.
 
aterpster said:
The context was helping him rolling his own ODP at a VFR airport.
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Yeah. I see that now. I was just scanning through the thread about ‘Circling’, saw what you said without reading the whole sequence of posts and threw out the punchline. There is nothing wrong with using whatever tools you have, including knowledge of TERPS, to plan a departure.
 
luvflyin said:
I’d tell you you’re wrong but I’d be lying. I don’t like the reason they are doing it. Because the data bases are getting to much stuff in them. Doing away with a useful procedure just because they are running short of storage space in airborne navigators doesn’t seem right if there is another solution. How about different subscription levels. Like the ‘big boys’ and the ‘dinks’. The airlines pretty much don’t want nothing to do with Circling Approaches so fine. Don’t include Circling lines of minima. The dink’s can get data bases that don’t include CAT numbered approaches, RNP and other stuff they don’t care about. Yeah yeah, it’s probably not that simple.
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If that's the reason, it might be that simple. It's already done in other contexts. For example, there is no LOC-only option for an ILS approach with LOC minimums in the massaged Jepp database used in Garmin navigators (no step downs inside the FAF).

But is "running short of storage space in airborne navigators" really the reason? There have been circling minimums for years, well before databases. What are the differences from a database standpoint? The difference between straight in and circling is the MDA, and, even in the most modern GTN, that altitude is not part of the database. It's too dependent on here and now in the cockpit. Fly at one speed, one minimum; flt at a different speed, different minimum.
 
midlifeflyer said:
If that's the reason, it might be that simple. It's already done in other contexts. For example, there is no LOC-only option for an ILS approach with LOC minimums in the massaged Jepp database used in Garmin navigators (no step downs inside the FAF).

But is "running short of storage space in airborne navigators" really the reason? There have been circling minimums for years, well before databases. What are the differences from a database standpoint? The difference between straight in and circling is the MDA, and, even in the most modern GTN, that altitude is not part of the database. It's too dependent on here and now in the cockpit. Fly at one speed, one minimum; flt at a different speed, different minimum.
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Yeah. To many lines of minima was about something else, not this. Post deleted

This gives the reason. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media...many-circling-approaches-eyed-for-elimination
 
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dtuuri said:
Bump. Nobody wants to tell me how wrong I am? Instead of the FAA canceling out circling minimums in favor of only straight-in approaches and landings, reminiscent of bygone four leg LF range approaches, shouldn't they be thinking about how to develop on-course arrivals culminating in circling approaches to land into the wind? Doesn't that make more sense at most airports under typical weather conditions, especially in light of modern navigation technology? KLAX-type airports shouldn't be a model for the rest of the country, IMO.
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The only reason people might say you’re wrong is the apparently widespread belief that circling is dangerous.

On the other hand, as GPS navigators with RF capability become more common, the circling procedures could be built in, similar to the RNAV Y (RNP) 13C at KMDW.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Why? Perhaps no one cares as much about saving circling approaches as you do.
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No one? How about all the corporate operators running around at an operating cost of, say, $50/minute? That's a rough guess at today's entry-level bizjet life-cycle expense.

midlifeflyer said:
I sure don't mind adding 10 minutes to a flight to pick up a T end past the airport to come straight in in low or marginal conditions wher cancelling IFR is not viable.
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What's the point in filing direct if you have to circumnavigate the destination in order to line up nice and pretty with the runway? That'll cost the entry level bizjet owner $600 bucks, if my estimate is reasonable, which could be better invested for all our benefit in the form of goods produced, more employment, services purchased, etc.


midlifeflyer said:
The certificated operators with "no circling" in their OpSpecs don't seem to.
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If I had 1000 captains working for me I wouldn't let 'em do circling approaches either. A chain's only as strong as the weakest link, so sooner or later some klutz is going to kill a bunch of my passengers and ruin my good name. If I had a single boss to please you better believe I am not going to be that one klutz and will do everything I can to safely accomplish his mission for the least cost. As you might say, I would have a fiduciary responsibility. :)


midlifeflyer said:
Perhaps, statistically, the number of true circling ops is so low that the impact on air commerce is minimal.
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Maybe for air carriers' idea of "air commerce", but that's a self-fulfilling result of their fear for their brand name.
 
Can't quite see why anyone would need circling approaches anymore, when RNAV and LPV approaches can be easily designed to serve both sides of most runways. Pick an approach to land into the wind and away you go. Made a lot more sense when everyone was depended on an ILS or a localizer.
 
steingar said:
Can't quite see why anyone would need circling approaches anymore, when RNAV and LPV approaches can be easily designed to serve both sides of most runways. Pick an approach to land into the wind and away you go. Made a lot more sense when everyone was depended on an ILS or a localizer.
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Because, you could end up flying a whole lot of unnecessary extra miles, and depending on the weather on the other side of the airport you might not be able to fly the other approach.
 
dtuuri said:
No one? How about all the corporate operators running around at an operating cost of, say, $50/minute? That's a rough guess at today's entry-level bizjet life-cycle expense.
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Perhaps "no one" was an overstatement. But apparently not enough to make a difference. NBAA, for example, the organization which represents those $50/minute operators, urged the FAA to pause the plan in 2017 due to some specific issues, but "generally supports the establishment of the proposed evaluation criteria for IAP cancellations,” and is directly involved in the decision about which approaches to eliminate.

Some care because it affects their operation; others don't. It's a numbers game. I have friends who think it's an incredibly stupid idea because they use them in their ops. Me, historically, I spend more time explaining changes in process and procedures than I spend whining about it. If I were interested in opposing a specific elimination, I would comment on it, as @aterpster did, not impotently scream at the heavens after it was accomplished.
 
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EdFred said:
Because, you could end up flying a whole lot of unnecessary extra miles, and depending on the weather on the other side of the airport you might not be able to fly the other approach.
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Plus terrain, too.
 
MauleSkinner said:
The only reason people might say you’re wrong is the apparently widespread belief that circling is dangerous.

On the other hand, as GPS navigators with RF capability become more common, the circling procedures could be built in, similar to the RNAV Y (RNP) 13C at KMDW.
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?? I don't see anything that looks like circling on that approach. How would that work? Building circling into the navigator?
 
luvflyin said:
?? I don't see anything that looks like circling on that approach. How would that work? Building circling into the navigator?
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Look at the PLOPP transition...it’s designed to get you from the “wrong” side of the airport, but still keep you within about 6 miles of the airport.

Not a circling procedure, but an RNAV-capable replacement.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Look at the PLOPP transition...it’s designed to get you from the “wrong” side of the airport, but still keep you within about 6 miles of the airport.

Not a circling procedure, but an RNAV-capable replacement.
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Gotcha. I was wondering if you meant building a close in 'circling' maneuver in. Keeping it within 6 miles is closer than you'd get with most conventional approaches.
 
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