Hi Geof,An interesting question- I have always considered the visual an "approach" since you are still on an IFR flight plan. Of course the visual is conditional upon having the airport or preceding aircraft in sight. I have never had to do a missed from a visual, but this is my biggest concern- until you get instructions, what do you do? Sometimes maintaining r/w heading until vectors are received is not the best and safe option. Bruce.

What about when they clear you for the visual approach-you cancel-they tell you to squawk 1200-ifr cancelled? I would assume once you cancel-it isn't an ifr approach anymore though you were cleared for one. One of those grey areas. I am thinking about the currency requirements and how a visual fits in. I just have never logged them.Out where you live I can see your concern! :-) I would assume you would brief the departure procedures and have that in mind until told otherwise.

What about when they clear you for the visual approach-you cancel-they tell you to squawk 1200-ifr cancelled? I would assume once you cancel-it isn't an ifr approach anymore though you were cleared for one. One of those grey areas. I am thinking about the currency requirements and how a visual fits in. I just have never logged them.Out where you live I can see your concern! :-) I would assume you would brief the departure procedures and have that in mind until told otherwise.

I think once you have cancelled and squawked 1200, then it is no longer an approach. I would prefer to not cancel, stay in the IFR system, in case I lose sight of the airport of other a/c.Yes, there are some big rocks out here :) . What I usually do is set up the GPS and navs for an ILS (someone once told me that you should never leave any instrument in the aircraft unused, especially something that can indicate the LOC and GS, even on a clear day when you don;t need them), and have anticipated using the ILS missed- which could be reported when I declare the missed "... going missed ILS 29 Right". Bruce.

Yes in FS even if you are in clear sky's you'll get an ILS approach from ATC, if one's available.I think he needs to check if some how an AFCAD (ADE, AFX or other) scenery was installed that removed the ILS approaches in KPHX.

Awww crap lol, you're right. For some reason I was thinking FSX ATC does visuals if the weather is good. Thanks for reminding me the downfalls of FSX ATC dang it :(

The pilot cancels the ifr plan. You also don't have to accept the visual. I had one a few months ago where the controller vectored me straight to the airport expecting by reported weather conditions for me to do the visual-however I was still in the clouds when he cleared me for the visual. I reported this to him and asked for a vector to the gps approach. Once starting the approach, I broke out about 400 ft. lower, and then reported I had the airport-at that point I was cleared again for the visual. However, I did not cancel my ifr until I was a couple miles out as I still wanted the radar separation. If a controller reports no traffic I will usual cancel at that point. If you wanted you can wait to cancel on the ground-but again it frees up the system if you can in the air. Which again leads me to ask my question. I have never logged visual approaches as an approach, but a cfi told me his opinion is since they are an approach in the ifr system you should. I am not sure-wonder if someone here has another opinion.

Thanks Geof, that is exactly the info I was looking for. Makes complete sense.

Awww crap lol, you're right. For some reason I was thinking FSX ATC does visuals if the weather is good. Thanks for reminding me the downfalls of FSX ATC dang it :(

Yea, even Radar Contact will do the same, which was the reason for my original question. Now, you can ask for a visual if the conditions allow it, as that is a choice you have: 1) accept vector to published procedure for active after being handed off to approach, 2) ask for a published procedure and fly the full approach 'on your own', at which point radar is terminated and RC ATC requests you to either cancel your IRF flight in the air or on the ground, or 3) Declare a visual, and land per acceptable VFR pattern.More often than not, I could chose #3 as conditions allow, but assumed I had to continue with vectoring to final once started by ATC. I think I'll start utilizing that option more often, land per VFR patterns, and cancel my IFR in the air.What Radar Contact has no idea about is existing weather conditions, so once they start to vector you, they have no idea if the weather may allow a visual and request that instead, which again, was the reason for my original question. If an airport has no published procedure, RC ATC will will vector you through the patten and then ask you to declare when the runway is in sight. That is something I do not use very often, as quite honestly, I tend to select airports that have published approaches.

I think once you have cancelled and squawked 1200, then it is no longer an approach. I would prefer to not cancel, stay in the IFR system, in case I lose sight of the airport of other a/c.Yes, there are some big rocks out here :) . What I usually do is set up the GPS and navs for an ILS (someone once told me that you should never leave any instrument in the aircraft unused, especially something that can indicate the LOC and GS, even on a clear day when you don;t need them), and have anticipated using the ILS missed- which could be reported when I declare the missed "... going missed ILS 29 Right". Bruce.

Well I had an interesting one a couple weeks ago that again shows this grey area. We were cleared for an rnav approach-which started just outside class c airspace-but it was cavu . The controller was harried and kept hinting at us cancelling our ifr. I finally did-but at this point we were in the class c airspace and very close to the shelf altitude.It occurred to me after the fact-if you in fact cancel your ifr -then vfr rules would apply at that point-and if higher than the shelf while on the approach could be in violation. However, after talking to a few cfi's a) you are cleared for the approach and :( you did make radio contact with the controller (the requirement for class c airspace)-so therefore that would supersede. In any case, in that situation I for sure will not be cancelling-harried controller or not, and it is one of those interesting situations that crop up.As far as cancelling-when I have good vfr weather and I hear other aircraft coming in I usually try to cancel-as long as the controller assures me he has no traffic between me and the airport and of course weather is not a factor. I once had to do s turns for quite a while going into Leesburg, Va. cause the guy before me didn't cancel-he cancelled on the phone on the ground and I was doing atc vectored s turns for quite a while waiting for him to do so.From the Aim-"A visual approach is not an IAP and therefore has no missed approach segment." I would interpret the "not an IAP" to mean you can not log it-whether you cancel or not. Probably better to err on the safe side.

Sooo now that the discussion of weather or not fsx accounts for ceilings or visuals is over, can someone help me with my problem??

As for logging the approach I only do so if I am in weather or under the hood passing the final approach fix or at glideslope interception. If I am in VMC before that point then I don't count it.

Sooo now that the discussion of weather or not fsx accounts for ceilings or visuals is over, can someone help me with my problem??

Read my last reply, it looks like for some reason your airport afcad (or whatever the proper term is for FSX, since there are multiple editors available now) may have been modified. If you are flying an IFR flightplan, and it's still active, the only way you should get a visual approach is if there are no ILS available in the direction of flight based on winds. I just checked my KPHX Rnwy 26 and it has and ILS. (Freq 111.75)

Thats just it tho. I havent changed any of freqs for my airports. Its happening in phx and las, those are the only places that ive checked so far, but both of those airports obviously have ils runways and since all of my ai is ifr they should be getting the ils runways.

As for logging the approach I only do so if I am in weather or under the hood passing the final approach fix or at glideslope interception. If I am in VMC before that point then I don't count it.

Yeah-that is the way I do it too. A cfi I was talking to thought otherwise. Seems to be a grey area.

Thats just it tho. I havent changed any of freqs for my airports. Its happening in phx and las, those are the only places that ive checked so far, but both of those airports obviously have ils runways and since all of my ai is ifr they should be getting the ils runways.

A ILS runway has nothing to do with what ATC approach says. Approach phrases to say fly the ILS in FS is coded in the approach portion (ARINC 424) of the APXxxxxx.bgl. If the compiled XML has a ILS approach heading for the runway ATC approach will say fly the ILS regardless of weather (IMC or VMC).There are several reasons why ATC approach may stop saying fly the ILS approach and default back to saying fly the visual approach.KPHX is in the DIR 0202 File APX18200 and KLAS is in the 0202/APX17190. These bgls may have been corrupted by a scenery designers installer at some earlier point in time. That is not likely since each airport are in different files.A more likely problem could be the DeleteAll= blocking statement has been added to a higher priority 3rd party airport but the approach code was not copied up to that same bgl. This causes all the approaches for a airport to be blocked so ATC does not see them.You have a FSX tool called the GPS in most default Airplanes that will show you if the 3rd party airport in use has blocked your approach code. Using the default Cessna 172 open the approach page in the GPS receiver and see if all the approaches (including the ILS) have been deleted (blocked in the fallback scheme). If the approach page is blank then remove the 3rd party airports (KPHX and KLAS) and see if the approach page in the GPS shows all the approaches. jack

A ILS runway has nothing to do with what ATC approach says. Approach phrases to say fly the ILS in FS is coded in the approach portion (ARINC 424) of the APXxxxxx.bgl. If the compiled XML has a ILS approach heading for the runway ATC approach will say fly the ILS regardless of weather (IMC or VMC).There are several reasons why ATC approach may stop saying fly the ILS approach and default back to saying fly the visual approach.A more likely problem could be the DeleteAll= blocking statement has been added to a higher priority 3rd party airport but the approach code was not copied up to that same bgl. This causes all the approaches for a airport to be blocked so ATC does not see them.jack

Ok Ill look into it.When you say delete all statement does that mean something in an fs menu or something that is written to the afcad when complied in ade?

Ok Ill look into it.When you say delete all statement does that mean something in an fs menu or something that is written to the afcad when complied in ade?

The deleteALL= statement is part of the XML that gets compiled to a bgl. ADE cannot assume what some other airport utility placed into a compiled bgl. ADE does not work with a compiled bgl but works with special coding which helps eliminate drifting that compiling a bgl over and over can introduce the way other airport utility's work.Designers that open an existing bgl with ADE must understand how FS9/FSX uses blocking statements which are listed in the SDK. These blocking statements ensure a airport is designed to work properly and not just show properly. As stated previously use the default GPS as a tool to determine if you have lost your approach page which is reading the compiled bgl processed through the .dll files. If you need further help the ADE forum and its team members will assist in finding any code that may be missing from your airports. jack

Its doing it at all my airports. None of the approaches are listed under the approach menu on the gps. I have no idea why because I havent changed any of them. Any ideas?