Flying into Ft. Worth Alliance in marginal weather and folks are getting cleared for visuals???!!!
Question would be what is marginal? If the wind is favoring a runway that has a rudimentary approach and the ceiling/vis is marginal VFR then why not fly the visual approach?
I have encountered many times where the ceiling dictated doing an instrument approach to the circling minima and circle to land on the active that had no instrument approach available.
It’s unclear when ATC defines weather is not fit for VFR. I have seen clear weather while ATC declares the airport closed for visual approach and also the other way arround happens.
IRL, there are a few factors that can govern the closure to VFR traffic. Not the most common but one to watch out for is night operations. I have been in and out of airports that have approaches that are unsafe for visual night operations due to obstacles and or terrain. As a result only IFR approaches are approved.
Otherwise, ceiling and visibility is going to be the deciding factor. Horizontal visibility is a big one that many VFR pilots get caught on. The ceiling can be fine but snow in particular can be deceiving. You can see the ground just fine from 3000 AGL in low wind snow conditions but can’t see a 1/8 mile if you are looking horizontally.
In the sim, there does seem to be some variability. I think it has to do with the weather generation. If the system has forecast poor conditions but the weather generation hasn’t produced it, ATC thinks they are below minimums when you can clearly see the airport from 5 miles out at 5000’. Just one of those sim things.
Sounds like the sim could use a limit on when ATC allows a visual approach.
IRL, it is defined when it is allowed and when not. Reference for US operations is FAA JO 7110.65 section 7-4-2 (3 miles visibility and ceilings 500’ above minimum vectoring altitude). Canada is slightly different, but similar. Hard part is getting a data source for the minimum vectoring altitude, so may have to use an arbitrary number.
Problem for the sim as I see it is that until ATIS, ATC, and what you see out the window all match, it will be pretty hard to have the sim decide whether an airport is below minimums or not.
Even from an IFR standpoint, I have been cleared on an approach that has a 400ft minimums when the RVR is down to almost nothing. ATC should know that if the weather conditions are below minima for an RNAV approach, they should not be clearing you to it.
When wind, weather, precip and vis all match the sim’s various branches, ATC would at least have a hope of getting it right. That would mean that some one would have to develop another ATC algorithm that would further confuse the poor AI controller any further.
That’s common in many areas. ATC has a general idea, but doesn’t know what your specific minimums are. You could have a HUD based EVS (enhanced vision) system that authorizes you to go below published minimums for all they know. Or you could have a limitation that imposes higher minimums. That responsibility falls on the pilot. But yes, hopefully ATIS, ATC, and Sim weather will all continue to improve and get on the same page.
I have had several instances ATC told me airport was closed for VFR, so sometimes it works,
Apologies if it is a dumb question because I do not do real time traffic & weather but…
Conditions may be QBI for you, but how do you know what weather other folks have set up for their flight? Isn’t it possible that the folks getting VFR clearance are in VFR conditions?
I only use real time and It was really sort of a rhetorical observation. I have thousands of hours of PIC time and retired as a controller with both Tower and Tracon facility ratings. I broke out of the soup two hundred feet above published minimum on the RNAV approach.
Atc is full of bugs, sometimes they do this sometimes that and every time they want you to fly 10.000 feet high short before the faf lol
Airport reported weather and the visible live weather doesn’t exactly match. Weather around Airports use the last reported metar weather while the visible weather is based of the meteoblue forecasted weather.
The patch on the 18th is apparently supposed to improve the correlation.
It would be cool, but likely a lot to ask, if atc could divert us to the nearest airport with vfr conditions when our desired one is socked in.
What I dislike a lot, is to setup STAR and Specific ILS RW for landing and have that changed by ATC. I do not turn on live weather, because I have enough problems getting this to work correctly without having that to fight as well. (NOTE: if someon turns on LW for KLAX for instance, it’s going to actually
have the real local weather for that person. If you also have LW on, and makijng the same approach, than both should experience the same weather since it’s LIVE as I understand it. That problems exist, well I cannot say. Servers lately have been spotty as at least once flight I get Axure is off, local sounds, blah, blah.
Although for me, SU6 vastly improved lots of NAV issues in the 747/787. I think if SU7/GOTY updates are on target, it will be actually fun flying in this sim. I do not do GA or light business Turbo Props or Jets. It’s big iron for me all the way, that is what I was taught from my neighbor who was Delta MD-11 Captain and he taugh me in FS-98 how to do it correctly. Things have changed some from then. Not sure I could do ILS into KSEA any longer in MSFS, FSX would be fine. One thing I have noticed, ATC does not get you down nearly quick enough of far enough out to be reasonably close to final approach. I usually have to dive quick to get correct, not in every case, but more than I like. It also might be the 747 and free C-17, since none of those are quite correct yet, cannot speak to 787, but 747 is better, still needs some work, but much better since SU6.
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