Contact Approach -- WX reporting

The OUT is that you are in the system and can resume IFR.
S&R is a function of a flight plan. Commercial flights are
required to be "on a flight plan" and canceling IFR even for
the last few minutes of a charter flight puts you in
violation.


Flight visibility is solely judged by the pilot on an IFR
approach, once the first step is passed. ATC will clear any
airplane to make any approach the pilot requests. The pilot
is not supposed to request or begin an approach if the
weather is below visibility minimums. But any pilot, Part
91,121, 125, or 135 is the only person who can judge flight
visibility and that is the controlling visibility on an IFR
approach.

How do you judge visibility? Standard approach lights are
of a certain size as are the runway lights. You learn how
to judge, 91.175 (c)(2) The flight visibility is not less
than the visibility prescribed in the standard instrument
approach being used; and
1.1
Flight visibility means the average forward horizontal
distance, from the cockpit of an aircraft in flight, at
which prominent unlighted objects may be seen and identified
by day and prominent lighted objects may be seen and
identified by night.






wrote in message
oups.com...
|
| Jim Macklin wrote:
|
| At airports without official weather reporting,
| the pilot can report to ATC that visibility is such and
such
| and he can maintain VMC and request a contact approach,
the
| pilot become the weather observer.
|
| Can you really do that? A pilot's guess of ground
visibility from
| aloft is good enough for the FAA?
|
| The advantage is that
| the IFR clearance is still in the system and the pilot
has
| the "out." It keeps an active flight plan, which is
nice er
| than canceling IFR and then nobody will look for you.
|
| I wouldn't consider search-and-rescue an "out." The only
thing I can
| think of is that staying IFR keeps other IFR traffic out
of your hair.
| Is there another advantage?
|