Cleared for the ILS 16 or circle to land 34 question?

On 12/22/06 14:46, A Lieberma wrote:
Was out doing approaches this morning to knock off the rust.

Called into JAN approach and requested ILS approaches into HKS under visual
rules.

Was 5 miles outside Brenz final approach fix and received the clearance;
Cleared for the ILS 16 approach or circle to land 34 Hawkins.

As Sam said, I don't know why they would have said this. Presumably, the
approach controller know whether you intended to terminate your approach
with a missed approach or landing - is that true?

If you intended to land, then the clearance would (should) have been given
as Sam said.


Exactly what is expected for a circle to land? Should I jog over to the
right of the runway on my descent and enter downwind? At what altitude?

The pattern you execute depends on a lot of factors, among them are the
geometry between the approach course and the designated landing runway
and the pattern in use or requested by the tower.

For training at the local towered airport here in Sacramento, they
expect the airplane to descend to circling minimums and fly a modified
pattern (at circling alt and closer in to the runway).

In our case, the approach and landing runways are opposite ends of
the same pavement, so we just turn 45 degrees toward the downwind leg,
and turn downwind once we get there. This way, we can keep the airport
in sight (practicing for low visibility).

When I've flown circle to land maneuvers at non-towered fields, I've
descended to the standard TPA and joined the pattern (this assumes
VMC, of course).

The airport terminal is immediately to the right as well as the tower.

Winds were 290 at 8 knots under VMC.

Allen



--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA