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

On 12/26/06 07:46, Jose wrote:
You are on the LOC rwy 16 approach and (because you reached the MDA
close to the MAP) you are in a position in which you are to too high to
make a safe landing. Wind precludes landing on rwy 34.

Is it legal to circle to land all the way round to rwy 16 provided you
remain in the CTL protected area?

I would say yes, so long as you are above the circle-to-land minima.
Remember, they are usually higher than a straight-in. I presume you
were expecting to land straight in and thus descended to the straight-in
MDA.

Now, suppose you did that... would it be legal to climb to the circle
MDA and circle all the way around? I don't see why not, so long as you
remain visual.

The regs say that if you're below the minimum, you must execute a missed
approach. If you're below the circling minima when you decide to execute
the circle maneuver, then you must execute the missed approach.

Now, if you say you climbed back up to circling minima and *then* decided
to execute the circling maneuver, you'd be lying and it would be obvious.

If the winds really did preclude a landing on 34, shouldn't you have known
that before flying the ILS to minimums?


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