The relevance of VACs - Visual Approach Charts - for VFR?

Peter wrote:

I never had any problem landing on any runway anywhere, and neither should anybody else with a PPL, so this whole business must be merely a manifestation of how much is needed

to hold a pilot’s hand all the way to the tarmac
to inform a pilot about nimby issues
to massage the ego of the airport / aeroclub manager who wants things done in a very specific way
If I was running an airfield with no nimby issues, I would publish the runway dimensions, bearings, and the elevation.

If you’d have tried flying into (eg) Bonn Hangelar without reviewing AIPs about 8 years ago and flying the published circuit, you’d have found yourself facing prosecution because the authorities wanted pilots to fly the exact circuit and not bother residents.They even had equipment to check whether you flew according to the circuit. If you didn’t – you received a summons. Put me off flying there if you could be fined for flying 10m further to the left or right…..

Having said that, at my base, we fly slightly different than the published circuit in order to avoid complaints about noise; however when we have our open day, all of us studiously follow the circuit exactly just in case visitors get confused with our dog leg approach; What’s amusing is that there is one house over which we must fly on final and the owner absolutely hates GA – could be a distant relative of a certain J Clarkson esquire, perhaps? – at which point the Flugleiter receives repeated phone calls from the local police stating that this one particular resident had filed complaints… first against D-Exxx; then D-Mxxx etc. etc.

I think one year he filed 42 complaints against aircraft until he was advised that the published approach path is, unfortunately, directly above his house and that it had been that way since before he built his house; that we, based pilots, had taken his complaints seriously and altered our approach to ensure at other times we didn’t disturb him was something he decided to ignore…

There are a couple of mid size german airfields which don’t have visual circuits defined – Arnsberg (EDLA) is one such location; the airport is large enough but they just request people try to avoid flying over the surrounding villages….

Peter wrote:

Has anyone tried the non-publication of this essential data as a defence? Laws should not be enforceable if the law is not accessible. Have there been successful prosecutions and, if so, what were the fines?

Here (unfortunately in german) is a link to the article where the stupidity of this was questioned; the whole scheme was then cancelled in 2014; I can’t recall just how many pilots being fined because after a short while they all knew the get out of jail card – birds. The fine was €500 for not complying to the circuit and some did have to pay it. As a sort of own goal, in late 2011, the airfield actually invested in a laser measurement instrument to measure the variance from the circuit – thus making a trip there more risky than ever. Only later in 2012 the club then realised that the data gained was inexact and useless…..

As for AIPs, I asked my flight instructor how we were supposed to fly a circuit if they weren’t openly published. The answer, which apparently the courts would also accept, is that €80 / year is such small change for pilots that those who don’t pay for it, shouldn’t be flying because they’ll cut other corners in maintenance, training etc.

Many points already made. It depends on the country and the purpose.

Germany: yes, the main beneift if its VACs is that they depict the (often oddly shaped) traffic circuits. As said many times, this is sort of a fetish of German PPL culture. Im am partial to this. On the one hand, Germany ia a densely inhabited, highly regulated country. It makes sense to a degree to minimze the noise impact. On the other hand, sometimes, it has come to extremes.

Do pilots really NEED these German VACs? Well, it used to be a yes. Since Skydemon came along, it’s an open question, since they do depict the circuits rather accurately. And many pilots now go without. In 9 out of 10 cases, you will be fine with just SD. But the VACs also show other, sometimes important details, like runway slopes, minimum overflight altitudes, glider precautions, etc. One day it will bite you if you don’t have all this information at hand and briefed. So, generally speaking, visiting pilots tend to no longer get the VACs. Local pilots tend to still have them. German airfield websites tend to not be very good and visual at all. Plus you need the AIP VFR to get airfield opening hours, etc. Some people nowadays call every airfield before their flight and ask all these things, since they don’t have the AIP, which is really annoying.

Hangelar (been there twice in the last couple of weeks) is actually a bit tricky, even with the circuit diagram at hand. Hitting the correct entry point for the downwind for 29 is easy (Rote Schule clearly visible), but after that, it’s all more or less inhabited down there, and hard to do precisely if not from there. But as Steve said, luckily, the prosections have stopped years ago. Otherwise, I wouldn’t go there either.

Austria is an interesting one: they do publish circuit diagrams for some uncontrolled airfields, but not all of them. But even the latter ones often have very specific noise routings. They are often depicted on their website, and if you don’t comply, you will get into trouble. So Austria really requires a case by case study.

Switzerland is like Germany, but way more extreme. All the smaller airfields have very elaborated circuit instructions, and usually a truck of do’s and don’t’s. It often verges in the edge of being an insult. But they are even more densely inhabited, even more regulated and generally against individual’s freedoms. So, you need to either get the VFR manual for Switzerland and/or get the information from the airfelds’ websites (often quite well done).

The UK: it’s true that there are no official publications (AIP) of circuits. But they also do have lots of places where they have very specific noise abatement procedures. They are often not found in Pooley’s, etc, but very often, they are found on the airfield’s websites. You will have to study those (or get the info on a telephone brief – how quaint). But all websites are different in layout, content and quality.

France: I agree they are the best. Well made and for free. I also like the idea of having the text information in the same document. Most French airfield don’t depict the exact diagram of the circuit. That is usually when it is not much of a factor, noisewise. But as you go the more metropolitan airfields, you will get all the same instructions and circuit details as in Germany. See Cannes, Lognes, Annemasse, Toulouse Lasbordes, etc.

Italy does not depict traffic circuits and often does not give any specific instructions, besides circuit direction. That makes sense; Italians are not very sensitive towards noise. Also, traffic volumes at most airfields are simply lower than elsewhere.

So, whether is makes sense to buy VACs depends on the country, the amount of flying you will do in that country, and the amount of information you are able to or willing to gather from other sources.

In the UK, I never had a problem landing without a VAC map and noise area are mostly common sense, once I had a 30min session with few prints before departure to discuss my takeoff plans, we should also a 30min telephone session brief to get PPR and discuss my landing plans

These discussions are also applicable when landing with a TMG and feathered prop, noise real or imagined is a concern for some quiet places and as visitor I don’t know which house is complaining…

I don’t take those 20kg Pooley guides in the aircraft when visiting strips as it helps clearing their 50ft obstacles and besides we have to PPR anyway and listen for 10min, so worth getting whatever important summary by phone…

What I wonder about is why someone might think a VAC chart is really important

A Visual Approach Chart is the visual “equivalent” of the Instrument Approach Chart – both are ICAO terminologies.

I would say for clarity. The French-style of publishing for example is excellent. You visually see noise sensitive areas, frequencies, circuit direction, and typical inbound / outbound / transit routes with reporting points all on one plate. A picture can paint a thousand words and can be a good alternative to the many realms of paragraphs of text or mouthfuls of phone calls to pilots trying to understand flight procedures.

I use/depend on VACs a lot across Europe and wish the UK would have them too.
The UK filed a difference to not publish VACs – opting for (limited) Control Zone/Area charts instead.

Peter wrote:

If I was running an airfield with no nimby issues, I

The problem is – there aren’t many left like this, not even in the US.

In Europe I found the Spanish VACs very useful, they depict the entry points, reporting points and pattern (circuit) together with the frequencies. Also transit routes, if applicable. Pretty much the VFR equivalent of an IFR approach chart. Freely available from the AENA website.

Steve6443 wrote:

€80 / year is such small change for pilots that those who don’t pay for it, shouldn’t be flying because they’ll cut other corners in maintenance, training etc

1. The price seems to be more like 120 to 135 EUR per year; 84 EUR is a tripkit.
2. Most pilots fly less than 10h per year; the price is in the neighbourhood of an hour’s flight. Relatively speaking, the added cost is not negligible.
3. The principle of access to law is at stake, slippery slope, etc. Motorists don’t have to pay to see the traffic signs.
4. AFAIK the VFR AIP is (was?) available as a subscription only either on paper or as a Microsoft Windows program. I don’t have/run Microsoft Windows, and I very much object to having to pay a Microsoft tax (and boot into a different OS) to access law. (Before anybody says it is available as an add-on in SkyDemon or similar, I didn’t run a tablet either. An Apple tax for iOS is not fundamentally better than a Mirosoft tax for Windows.)
5. While as an amount 135 EUR is “acceptable” for pilots that fly a lot, I’m sorry, 40*135 EUR (for each Eurocontrol member / comprehensive agreement state) is not.
6. As a counterpoint, in practice, access to the German VFR AIP is (was?) free of charge. Call the German AIS on the phone, ask for the airport you want, and they email you the relevant pages, with an admonition not to share it because of copyright. They are even open 24h/24h. This was not some employee doing it unofficially/illegally, there is even a dedicated sender email address for these emails. In my VFR days, I used to do that systematically, before flying to any German airfield, unless I had already called them in the same AIRAC cycle. I used to think it was stupid to require some of their employee’s time for each request instead of a computer (web server) doing it more cheaply, but hey, that’s their choice.

I think historically, this is more about how the change of digitisation was managed. Laws used, in practice, not to be free of charge to access. To get your own personal copy of the Bundesanzeiger (the law journal of Germany), well, you had to pay. Because paper and printing costs money. Or maybe you could go to your town’s municipal library and read it for free, I honestly don’t know. To get consolidated laws, you had to pay. Because that work was done by private third parties (or, in Luxembourg, actually by the State, but personal copy on paper costs money).

From that situation, technological change brings a publication system whose costs to the publisher are essentially fixed; the marginal cost is effectively zero. Do you continue to charge the same cost to the user (as was done for the German VFR AIP), or do you make access free (as was done for the Bundesanzeiger and even consolidated laws)?

Peter wrote:

What I wonder about is why someone might think a VAC chart is really important. I mean, there is a runway, so you fly there, talk on the radio as necessary, and land on it… The circuit details, if any are desired, will be in the AIP or the airport description. And many/most VACs are just empty e.g. LGKC. Even my local EGKA has nothing on it which is not in the AIP or on the VFR enroute chart, and every pilot should have already briefed from these two.

They are the default chart for VFR in Norway on all public fields. They usually depict reporting points and routes in and out of the control zone, mandatory unless given other instructions by the tower. They are also used for IFR. For instance at ENVA, the VAC is exclusively IFR, and another chart “VFR routes light aircraft and helicopters” depict the routes.

There are no patterns depicted anywhere AFAIK, except for maybe one or two places, but never in the VAC. How many possible patterns are there anyway? Only right and left IMO They also have information of what to do when the radio is dead.

They are the VFR equivalent of IFR approach charts, unless a dedicated “VFR routes chart” exist.

LeSving wrote:

How many possible patterns are there anyway?

Many… infinite. Agree with most of @boscomantico’s comments.
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The visual pattern is more than just left or right. Many countries define a standard left/right pattern format and leave it at that. These are usually countries with lots of space and relatively low population density. Examples are USA, Canada, and France in Europe. In countries where there is a high population density patterns are often defined by the national CAA to meet the demands of local political influences. Every single airfield in Switzerland has its own unique defined pattern and it is expected by local residents that pilots follow it to the meter, even if there is no legal recourse when not. This is most important for local pilots who really should be compliant if they want the airfield to have a long-term future. Visiting pilots are expected to do their best, although one could claim that with GPS today even VFR pilots should be able to make the aircraft follow the line on the moving map most of the time. Nonetheless, try flying the black line below via GPS on departure from R30 at 200-300’ AGL while avoiding the high-tension power lines!

This is typical. Try flying it perfectly on a first attempt for a pilot not familiar with the area!