Just wanted to share this from NPA 2020-02
That seems to be on right track and a sensible approach, only glitch in UK I had is that A/G operators in uncontrolled & unlicensed airfields still come with those 2000ft agl overhead joins and noise abatement procedures or FISO now with new ATZ airspace definitions even with 800ft ceiling days 
Still nothing prevents pilot from flying overhead join in IMC first, coordinated with other circuit traffic in frequency before telling eveybody they are flying a long downwind at MSA even beyond “ATZ airspace” before coming back on a long final…
DIY approaches were never illegal in Europe AFAIK. It is just that everybody thought they were
Maybe some countries had their own (pre SERA) reg banning them.
What is “sufficient clearance”?
Right now yes, you can land at non-instrument AD with OCH of 1000ft within 5nm corridor. :)
Peter wrote:
DIY approaches were never illegal in Europe AFAIK.
Absolutely right!
BUT! The major elephant in the room is the missing AMC/GM for the sentence cited above “pilot-in-command should ensure that sufficient obstacle clearance is available for safe operations”.
Big Q is, what is meant by “ensure” and “sufficient”. If the requirements are the same as for ensuring the sufficient obstacle clearance in a published approach, a DIY approach would not be illegal but it would be practically impossible for a PIC to plan such a DIY approach within the regulations (as the required information is simply not available).
In absence of such AMC/GM that clearly state that the requirements for this “ensure” and “sufficient” are substantially lower than for published approaches, there is always a significant risk that in the end some authority (or finally a court) decides while in general DIY approaches are not illegal, in practice that specific approach has been poorly planned…
arj1 wrote:
Right now yes, you can land at non-instrument AD with OCH of 1000ft within 5nm corridor. :)
If (and only if) you actually know (can “ensure”) the OCH. For many non instrument runways one doesn’t even know the threshold elevation to that such an OCH would refer to ….
No need for airfield data, just fly it on QNH in VMC, naturally you tend to be more conservative than in IMC where you get close without noticing or published IAP which takes you very close with low margins regularly in VMC if they add a 5G network mast last month 
I fly back to my home airfield in CAVOK sunny days at 500ft agl sometimes, just to remember how things look…I forgot how do you ensure enough obstacle/ground clearance when flying visual and no airfield data? with no altimer QNH/QFE or topo map ?
Obviously, this is only doable at familiar homebase where one know the landmarks, bad weather routes and what is around left and right…building IAP to an unfamiliar airfield with tight weather is a first time jackpot !
As long a minima are in-line with the accuracy of flying and understanding of envirenemnt one should be ok, the biggest risk is overshooting a small runway length due to optics illusions from low visibility/clouds compared to sunny days, the rest is just details…
In VMC it is easy, as you can ensure obstacle clearance visually. And the catch her is, that visually we are typically very good at doing the “clear/not clear” decision, but not really good to really bad at estimating distances and heights of distant objects. But VMC it doesn’t matter.
The challenge with planning an IMC approach for that reason is not so much to identify the theoretical flightpath that would not lead into an obstacle – that can be done by flying it in VMC as you describe. The problem starts when you need to ensure that considering all the deviations that can come from indication errors (within the permissible error margin of the various instruments) the actually flown flight path will still be within error margins.
And to be honest: Even for my home field I’ve never tried out in VMC how much half scale deflection in such a DIY approach would take me away from the “ideal” flight path and how the obstacle situation actually would be half scale right and half scale low of the planned path…
Yes margins around flight path is what matters but then you would expect doing this in a place where even something simple and crude like flying a magnetic heading +/-10deg and -500fpm for 6min will not kill you even in windy days
I am also assuming one has an accurate view of actual weather observation with his own eye either from his own airport before departure, or dry run on nearby instrument approach or a nearby cloudbreak in middle of nowhere
I try GTN approaches it’s scary how close those shallow 3deg flight paths are to the trees on long final on sunny days, one would never get that close on steep visual approach, that view alone would set you an 800ft agl ceiling and 5km visibiliy minima
Peter wrote:
DIY approaches were never illegal in Europe AFAIK. It is just that everybody thought they wereMaybe some countries had their own (pre SERA) reg banning them.
There was no “Europe” in this sense before part-NCO so every country had their own rules. (Not SERA — The Rules of the Air have never mentioned anything about instrument approach procedures. It is all in the ops rules.) In Sweden it was implicitly banned as all instrument approaches had to be done at instrument airports with open ATS units.
Malibuflyer wrote:
BUT! The major elephant in the room is the missing AMC/GM for the sentence cited above “pilot-in-command should ensure that sufficient obstacle clearance is available for safe operations”.
Big Q is, what is meant by “ensure” and “sufficient”. If the requirements are the same as for ensuring the sufficient obstacle clearance in a published approach, a DIY approach would not be illegal but it would be practically impossible for a PIC to plan such a DIY approach within the regulations (as the required information is simply not available).In absence of such AMC/GM that clearly state that the requirements for this “ensure” and “sufficient” are substantially lower than for published approaches, there is always a significant risk that in the end some authority (or finally a court) decides while in general DIY approaches are not illegal, in practice that specific approach has been poorly planned…
I don’t see why they should be lower? With today’s easily accessible terrain and obstacle data it is not difficult to do a conservative obstacle survey and decide on your minimums based on that.
