IFR Fix: Circling the question

These are your choices: Fly the ILS approach to Runway 33 and land in a (quartering) tailwind or perform a nonprecision approach to Runway 33 and circle to Runway 15, skimming along in rain below the ragged overcast.

In the rigorously procedures-based world of IFR flying, the circling approach is the closest thing we have to an improvisational procedure—especially when circling really means finding your way to the opposite side of the airport, not just making a single turn to line up with another runway, which also meets the definition of circle-to-land.

There are numerous accepted patterns, and absent any airport-specific prohibitions, the choice is yours. Just be sure to keep the runway in sight, fly at or above circling minimums until in position to land, and never stray out of protected airspace into that murky danger zone out there.

None of which anyone would consider an ideal model of a stabilized approach. But now, as GPS approaches continue offering straight-in access to ever-more runways, operational use of circling procedures is becoming more infrequent.

Except in training—a point AOPA has made to the FAA in a proposal to drop circle-to-land tasks from the instrument proficiency check. We noted that a 2016 navigation strategy analysis predicted that “circling approaches would be phased out as training requirements are updated and user demand for circling approaches subsides.”

Another benefit of eliminating circle-to-land tasks from an IPC would be to move us closer to being able to accomplish our IPCs on an aviation training device, or ATD.

AOPA’s proposal—now even more to the point than it was when we introduced it in 2018—gets us the rest of the way to ATD-based IPCs by suggesting that the required landing from the instrument approach also be deleted.

The reason for the landing task is for the pilot to experience transitioning from instrument flying to visual references. But that’s exactly the kind of training an ATD could deliver better than the simulated instrument flying in VFR conditions under which most IPCs are flown.