I had never heard of the IFR Refreshers - I just subscribed, thanks!

Never heard of a 747 crash from a circle to land. Are you just making this up? Think next time before you make a broad statement like that. Show me one accident that involved said aircraft due to a circle to land.

Sorry, I was only trying to make the point that all pilots that fly real IFR no matter the size of the aircraft or crew composition have to be concerned with circling procedures. Anyway, I have seen the case study on a large A/C circling crash and I looked up the case study for you and you got me. It was a 767 not a 747. It's been 3 years since I reviewed the case study at AF Advanced Instrument School and I forgot 1 number. It was Air China flight 129 at Busan, South Korea. Instead of accusing me of making something up you could ask for a reference first. Although I have to admit I made up the 152, I don't know of any specific 152s that have crashed while circling. But I have heard of several small GA and military aircraft that have. The point remains the same anyway, circling is a dangerous maneuver. While most don't take it seriously the fact is it can be a dangerous maneuver and if you are a professional pilot you have a good chance of doing one for real in bad wx around terrain. Or if you are a CFII training someone who may someday be a professional you should impress upon your students the importance of flying a good circling approach (i.e. maintaining MDA and staying inside your circling radius) if you don't then you are only letting your student down.

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Sure you can. Once you pop out of the clouds you call airport in sight and it's all you. Look at the VOR-A approach into Del Rio (KDRT). When people get the airport in sight they can then follow the rules and regs for class E airspace and landing at an uncontrolled field.

Once you are out of the clouds you can do whatever you want to land so long as it's nothing "evasive". At KDRT the VOR approach puts you midfield. however to land on 31 you'd have to do a circling left hand pattern even though you are approaching somewhat from the south already. So everyone that flies in shoots the approach and once they break out of the clouds instead of flying to the airport and doing a circle to land they just hand a 45 to the left and intercept a 3-4mile final then bring her on in. An examiner will want your student to stay at the altitude for the cirle the entire time. However once flying beyond the checkride when you have airport in sight it's all you.

You are talking about an uncontrolled field. If you canx IFR with Houston once visual. Then, you are VFR, so of course you can do whatever you want. My point was that while you are still IFR you are legally required to maintain MDA and inside the circling radius. If you try that somewhere where you are not familiar, or at a class C or even D airport without cancelling then you are asking for trouble.

All very interesting responses to my question. As always, there is the training and check ride way and then there is real life.

The original approach that my student was doing was the SBP VOR-A with the DME off MQO inop.

http://www.naco.faa.gov/d-tpp/0612/00989VTA.PDF

Even in controlled areas. When you pop out of the clouds you can call airport in sight to the tower and if you don't want to stay at MDA then just ask the tower for special VFR or whatever else you want to do. I do it all the time. A class B usually can't work with you too much because of volume but in KSAT or KCNW(class D) we did it all the time.