I bet you would have found the runway or the lighting environment at DA with these kind of weather conditions. :-) But … if you don’t feel comfortable to start with then better safe than sorry.
Sometimes the visibility can get quite low, but didn’t we get an instrument rating to fly on … instruments?
The color of the sky looks like the picture was taken in China? 
Ha ha! Before and during the blast.
Being the Commander of an aeroplane is about making decisions, and any decision is better than no decision. Limits are a very personal thing which depend in part on equipment, experience, and how you feel on the day; it is better to have limits than a gung-ho attitude which ends up in tragedy.
You made a decision, so it was right.
Would others with more experience have gone, perhaps. Seems like a sensible position particularly given your home airfield had lowish IFR as well.
As far as how you get practice going to minimums, you have to just do it. But don’t do it when pressured to arrive at a particular time and make sure you have plenty of fuel and a clear way back out with better weather.
Stephan_Schwab wrote:
At Cologne there were several landing options with the current wind:RNAV RWY 32L for LNAV/NVAV has 511’ DA
ILS RWY 24 has 200’ DA but it says LACFT: DA 317’ with FULL lights RVR 700m
ILS RWY 32R has DA of 200’ with LACFT: DA 257’ with FULL lights RVF 600m
Probably good that you didn’t rely on the first two this morning. Only 14L/32R available until end Oct.
Q) EDGG/QPAAU/I/NBO/A/000/999/5052N00709E005
B) FROM: 15/06/29 13:20C) TO: 15/09/30 23:59 EST
E) DUE TO RECONSTRUCTION WORK OF RWY 06/24 THE FLW CHANGES OCCUR:
ALL IFR PROCEDURES TO AND FROM RWY 06/24 TEMPO SUSPENDED.
REF AIP AD 2 EDDK 3-1-1 EFF 29 MAY 2014, 3-1-2, 3-1-3, 3-1-5, 4-2-2,
4-4-2, 4-6-1 AND 4-6-4 ALL DATED 05 FEB 2015, 5-7-1 EFF 29 MAY 2014,
5-7-3 DATED 05 FEB 2015, 5-7-4 DATED 7 FEB 2013, 5-7-8 EFF 29 MAY
2014, 5-7-11 DATED 05 FEB 2015, 5-7-12 DATED 7 FEB 2013.
Q) EDGG/QMRLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5052N00709E005
B) FROM: 15/08/18 09:14C) TO: 15/10/31 23:59 EST
E) RWY 06/24 CLOSED DUE TO RECONSTRUCTION WIP.
AIP SUP IFR 05/15 REFERS.
Q) EDGG/QMRLT/IV/NBO/A/000/999/5052N00709E005
B) FROM: 15/05/26 10:10C) TO: 15/10/31 21:59
E) RWY 14R/32L CLOSED, EXC JUN 06-07, JUN 13-14, JUN 20-21 AND
JUN 27-28 DAILY 1600-0400. TAXIING ON TWY B VIA THR 14R NOT
AFFECTED.
Flyer59 wrote:
never rely on this feature! It will always work, until it doesn’t, and it’s been one of the topics that have been discussed over and over on COPA.
+1 from me. I did my whole IR on a Cirrus with Perspective (Garmin), and one thing my instructor briefed me about were the conditions that need to be in place for the automatic switch to work. Among others, you need to be inbound to the FAF. Sometimes approaches are, for technical reasons, coded in the Garmin database with a “virtual” waypoint that is on the extended ILS centerline, but before the FAF, and not on the chart. So you think that you are inbound the FAF on the localizer, but your GPS hasn’t made the switch. In that case, the answer is to be patient and wait until you have passed that last waypoint.
Another condition is that you need to be inside a “box” before the FAF, which ends 2 nm before. So if you get vectored too close to the FAF, it won’t switch. And of course you need to have the ILS tuned and identified and approach armed.
I have now been flying an Avidyne equipped SR22 with GNS430s, and wanted to try the automatic switch from GPS to VLOC on an ILS approach. I had done a lot of reading about it, but still couldn’t get it to work.
Bottom line, you want to find out about all this when the weather is CAVOK and not like you described about Cologne.
Thank you @bookworm for the NOTAM. I usually look at weather first and then the other details. I might want to change that. I got a bad feeling when I checked the METAR while still in bed and the decision was made as I stepped into the car.
Regarding the automatic switch… All those systems want to live in a pure GPS world. That feature is their way to provide a seamless user experience but it relies heavily on how Jeppesen code it in the database. At EDVK the GPS overlay for ILS 27 out of ELNAT is coded in such a way that the automatic switch will happen at the right moment. The same ILS 27 out of LUXUX is coded in a different way and it fly you right through the localizer and continue on course ahead. It will never turn. So one has to be watchful and make the switch manually. Out of ELNAT there is another caveat. If you switch too early it may turn right away from the field instead of continuing left towards the field.
LPV is much nicer and that is what theses systems are designed for.
Rwy20:
i fly an Avidyne equipped SR22 with DFC90 A/P and i have not yet found out all conditions in which the automatic switching will not work. I flew with my friend who flies A320 for LH and all kinds of Bizjets – and after trying a couple of times we decided that it will be much safer for me if i ALWAYS do the switching and the setting of the FC manually.
My friend told me they have these features in some Bizjets, but that they never use them for safety reasons … for me that’s all i needed to know.
