In the future, the DH will be adjusted.
Yes and no. If I remember correctly, we’ve been discussing this in the past already. In order to get approval for lower minima, the airfield must install an appropriate approach light system. For 550m/200ft a CAT I ALS would be required which is prohibitively expensive for a small airfield. Without approach lights, the RVR minimum will not be less than 1400m. With 1400m you can fly VFR.
BTW: Mid of December, Schwäbisch Hall EDTY has lowered their LPV minimum to 900m/300ft which puts it 20ft below the LNAV/VNAV minimum (and 150ft below LNAV only). But they have high intensity approach lights.
And 20ft is, ahem, nothing. Especially as the DH is a pilot-interpreted parameter, unenforceable unless you have a CAA employee as a passenger
And 20ft is, ahem, nothing
Yes, but it comes with an RVR of 900m instead of 1400 which as a commercial operator is what you need more urgently!
as well as every 5$ GPS receiver module
And about every 5$ module can also receive Glonass, while EASA still thinks Glonass can’t be used because it uses an ECEF coordinate system internally (every GPS receiver I know does that too…)
20 Ft?? My glide path profile is + or – 50Ft so if you average it out it would work that I might nail it and be a useful change in the DH
With 1400m you can fly VFR.
Not enroute…
You need 1500m for VFR, as of April 2012, for EASA PPLs.
National PPLs may have stricter limits; e.g. I believe a UK issued non-EASA PPL is still the JAR 3000m figure (not at all sure though).
Not enroute…
Enroute you as pilot determine the visibiliy, so you have guaranteed 1500m We have an airfield here close by (Donaueschingen EDTD) that has a GPS approach with minima of 1500m/600ft. There is almost no point in doing the instrument procedure, at least with a piston single, because with that kind of weather you can fly there visually. And a lot of people do.
I get your drift, of course but surely that’s true only for an airport which is
Otherwise, an IAP whose MDH is “VFR”, still has a big safety value, via flying enroute at the MSA, descending to the IAP platform (which ought to be at/above the MSA too ) and flying the IAP, all as per “classical IFR”. Very few people have got themselves killed following a classical IFR procedure.
A rather harder example is Shoreham’s 20 GPS/LNAV (on which you can get killed if you screw up – an 850ft hill very near the FAT) is 800ft which is practically the same as a low level circle to land from the sea (on which you “cannot” get killed) but if you had an autopilot-coupled glideslope on the IAP, it might still be safer than the low level circle to land to 20 because some pilots will crash on a CTL. It’s a philosophical point whether a fully guided descent through IMC is ever safer than a VMC maneuver of arbitrary difficulty
In addition to the above, you have the additional (ahem, theoretical) protection from VFR circuit traffic if ATC cleared you for the approach…
You need 1500m for VFR, as of April 2012, for EASA PPLs.
The limit is not license related, but is in SERA. It’s 5000 m unless a national authority authorizes lower in that country’s airspace. Sweden has 3000 m with max IAS 140 kt. 1500 m is permitted in the traffic circuit. I am assuming class G, of course.