Contact Approach

"Russ MacDonald" wrote in message news:YtfQd.31190$uc.1103@trnddc03...
I thought my question was simple.

I have never flown a contact approach in 30 years of professional flying.
I'm trying to learn why. Am I (and all my Texas buddies) missing some big
advantage?

All I am asking is what are the differences in the weather, or the terrain,
or whatever, in the northeast that cause lots of contact approaches instead
of visual approaches? Is it because the weather is not good enough for a
visual approach? It would seem that the weather and terrain are similar to
the Carolinas and Georgia where I have done a lot of flying, yet I never
have heard pilots there requesting contact approaches.

As far as the visual approaches I fly regularly, many are at fields that
don't have any weather reporting (so I know that the contact approach would
not be authorized there). ATC just drops me down to the minumum vectoring
altitude, and tells me to let them know when I have the field, and then they
clear me for the visual. There is no consideration as to whether or not the
field is IFR or VFR. I have flown hundreds, if not thousands of approaches,
like this. It is not uncommon on an attempted visual approach in bad
weather, to call ATC back and tell them I couldn't maintain contact with the
runway environment, and need an approach. This usually happens near the
Gulf due to quickly developing fog.

Maybe what I am asking is for some of you who regularly fly contact
approaches to describe the weather conditions that prompt you to request it.


I requested and received a Contact Approach on about my third flight after receiving my instrument rating! I
was being vectored "outbound" for the ILS at Temple. Clouds were scattered-to-broken at about 700 ft AGL, and
visibity was excellent. Once I saw that I could easily get under them and get back to the field, I got the
contact approach and it saved me about 10-15 miles of vectoring. Visual approach would not have worked because
of the cloud clearance. Well I guess you could say it would've "worked" but it wouldn't have been legal

I'm certainly no pro, and I don't "regularly" fly contact approaches, but, there you go...

Cheers,
John Clonts
Temple, Texas
N7NZ