In germany we have some airports where visual approaches are not even permitted to fly, according to the information in the aerodrome charts.

 

I was actually just reading a thread on another forum about that.

 

That seems overly...obnoxious, really.  I know I'm viewing this from a United States controller/pilot/traffic-management mindset, but it doesn't make much sense to me.

 

I think the generic argument that they always make over there is traffic flow management (TFM), and that keeping all the aircraft on a set path makes it more predictable for the TFM automation (which is why a lot of their STARs dump right onto the ILSs).  Where that argument falls short, however, is that we push a lot more traffic into and out of certain airfields than they could even imagine over there, and the reason we're able to do that is visual approaches.

 

As an example:

At IAD, if we're arriving on all three parallels, visually, we can land about 100 per hour.  Cut that back to 90 if it's lower VMC.  If we're arriving utilizing the ILSs, that's dropped down to about 72 because of the additional spacing that's required.  

 

From what I've heard (read: "I do not know for a fact"), separation over there is required to be positive at all times.  In other words, even if a controller calls traffic and the pilot reports it in sight, the controller is still responsible for the separation.  Seems a little crazy to me, but that's also because I'm from FAA-land.  Heck, even with the onerous requirement of ensuring positive separation at all times, soliciting the traffic and getting the aircraft to fly the visual would only improve situational awareness, and add redundancy in collision avoidance.

 

That's not even getting to the larger point that TFM wouldn't be as much of an issue if they were able to push more traffic in to the runways, which is made more possible with visual approaches.  That's a hard fact.

 

(...and no, I'm not simply in love with our system over here - we get in our own way all the time)

In the UK we have provision to used Reduced Separation int he vicinity of an aerodrome, one of these is the following pilot can see the one in front and maintain visual separatin.

 

There are also cases where we can reduce separation on final, EGLL and EGKK can both opreate 2.5 NM spacing on final (which is so tight you can't push it much closer and still have the runway free to give a landing clearance in time).

 

Might also be interesting to know that the LL movement record is 100 in an hour, on two runways with no visuals, so it is possible. It just requires a different style of controlling and planning compared to a visual approach system.

 

Having said that I wouldn't mind seeing more of them, I think visual approaches are good, but unfortunately due to noise it is very rarely allowed this side of the pond.

Hi Hans,

 

I think the real world route goes something like this:-

 

WAYPOINT Bla Bla

UL12

EKOLA

REKSI (Transition)

KUDIP (Fix)

RWY32 (31)

 

If you have the latest Nav Data this should show up in the FMC Arrivals page.

http://skyvector.com/?ll=36.14741214029798,14.070190432317094&chart=304&zoom=2&plan=F.LI.EKOLA:F.LM.REKSI:F.LM.KUDIP:A.LM.LMML

 

Hope this is of some help to you.

 

Regards

David