Can Colgan pilots do a visual?
 

Just wondering if there is something written that Colgan pilots can't do a visual?

Clear night, calm winds and they are more than 5 miles from the airport. Tower asks if they can accept a visual to a parallel runway to get us out and they decline because they are already set up.

Can't shoot a pure visual or can't type that fast?

We can shoot a visual approach. We must have (I dont have my FOM with me) vertical guidance whether that be a glideslope or vasi/papi or on an approach such as VOR etc. I will not admit to doing a sidestep or a pure visual hundreds of times until I cross check my FOM.

If it had a vasi on the parallel they could have scooted over.

Yeah it depends. At pinnacle we cant do visual approaches to some airports or runways without vertical guidance. Some airports/runways require a glide slope, vasi, or papi to do visual approaches at night.

Even if the books allowed it, it is their choice to accept or decline a switch to another runway. Maybe they had a Fed in the jumpseat. Maybe it was leg 8 of 8.

I decline switching all the time. It's not worth changing the FMS, briefing, and running the extra checklists in a high workload environment. Now when I flew the DC-9, I would switch without thinking about it. Can I switch runways without doing anything? The answer is yes, but my company wants everything done. They pay me so I'll do it their way.

Seriously, Colgan pilots shoot many "pure" visuals every day. With all the funky airports we fly into many are not backed up by anything.

You really can fault a crew for not wanting to sidestep to another runway at 1500' when they are all already established and set on one visual. You may have had to wait another 2 minutes but you can not blame the crew or wonder why they acted in the best interest of safety.

You probably did not want to hold for that Colgan wake right? ;)

Our Company SOP prevents us from sidestepping below 1000 AGL as an example.

They really have taken away the balls of airline pilots. On speed, configured, and all by 1000'. It used to be that they let pilots fly the airplane... not anymore.

Hey, I seem to remember having a bit of fun flying over the numbers of 4R and making a short approach to 29 there in EWR...

Wow sounds like things have changed a lot since my Colgan 1900 driver days...