Quote:
Originally Posted by Rama
Night circling approach in an area with terrain is not a good idea, especially when it is a 270 degree circle.
Circling near mins isn't a good idea period. We just don't do it enough. The Sim is useless because we're just doing MEM/JFK. In 12 years at NetJets I think I can count on my fingers how many for real circling approaches I did (excluding TEB ILS6, Circle 1). There was some little airport on the coast up in the NE that we knew we were going to have to do a for real circle at mins because of winds. My F/O and I extensively briefed it and covered everything short of a tsunami suddenly coming in but the pucker factor was still high. Nothing but clouds around us at MDA so we bailed to the Alt.
I'd like to see more "real" circling approach practice in the LOFTS. The whole purpose of MEM/JFK is so you don't bust the checkride. Both of those are pretty easy, MEM even has the road with traffic you can use as a crutch so you don't go too far from the runway.