We had a recent request in to calculate the different radii for Visual Manoeuvring based on the ICAO PANS-OPS criteria in Doc. 8168. The definition from Doc. 8168 is explained as follows…
“Visual manoeuvring (circling) is the term used to describe the visual phase of flight after completing an instrument
approach, which brings an aircraft into position for landing on a runway which is not suitably located for straight-in
approach, i.e. one where the criteria for alignment or descent gradient cannot be met.”
A simple API method was designed and the mathematical calculations were added to make this easy for the calling application. Below is an example using C#…
VisualManoeuvringCirclingArea visualManoeuvringCirclingArea = new VisualManoeuvringCirclingArea(CriteriaUnits.NonSi)
{
AircraftCategory = VisualManoeuvringAircraftCategory.A100,
AerodromeElevation = new Altitude(1000, AltitudeUnits.Feet)
};
Once the object has been initialised, properties are available for the calculated results of Radius of Turn (r), Radius from threashold, etc. If a property is changed then the calculation is done again.
The full API documentation can be found by clicking here
This feature has been added into the Windows App and a screen shot is shown below.
Visual Manoeuvring (circling) calculation in Windows App
