You’ll find that on IAP charts.
Yes
600ft AGL. he was about 100ft higher.
If the airport is left traffic, if under IFR, the pilot is required to circle left traffic unless "circling NA" for left traffic.
I know this is silly, but I’ve always thought it’s a funny way to word that limitation, as all circling approaches are conducted in VMC.
If with 'VMC' you mean 'clear of clouds', then yes. But the more common use of 'VMC' is to describe weather conditions which meet or exceed the minimum visibility and cloud-distance requirements for operating under VFR. Which means there are absolutely situations where one can legally circle-to-land without being in VMC.
IOW. as the regulatory definition tells tells us, "Visual meteorological conditions (VMC) means meteorological conditions expressed in terms of visibility, distance from clouds, and ceiling equal to or better than specified minima."
Also done with ForeFlight Dynamic Procedures when you select circling to land MDA.
Indeed it does. I never noticed that before.
For standard circling areas, I believe the radius is based on the table published in the TPP and the pilot selects the category being used. The altitude comes from the Circling MDA for that category. The runway layout comes from other data already available.
I suspect the Garmin Pilot ones are being done the same way, although since it's intended as a chart replacement, I suspect Garmin is looking at the 8260s.
Pilot is pulling it from the standard table, not the form. ForeFlight doesn’t tell you the numerical radius and I can’t really tell although using the ruler it looks like it’s greater than 1.8 for B.
I suspect (strongly) that the table is being conservative, i.e. for each 2000-ft range they are using the calculated radius for the low end of that range, with the idea being that if you think you have 1.8 nm to circle in, and you really have 1.9, that's safer than the reverse. Which makes sense to me. At least in an academic sense, because if you're that close to the edges of the circling area you may be very close to higher terrain - there is no buffer on circling areas beyond what's shown in the table (or calculations).
Consider how, even at the Private Pilot level, selecting an “appropriate distance” is part of the ACS for ground reference maneuvers.
Yep. The one and only CTL I've done in anger (minimums) it appeared as if things were too fast and too close when I popped out.
FWIW, I've done lots of circling approaches and IMO, the best place to start one is from right over the center of the airport. It kind of makes them pretty much all look the same.
That's one of the two big problems with CTL training. The view at half pattern altitude can be disconcerting, even in CAVU conditions unless practiced. There's often a tendency to be too close to the runway. Unfortunately, too many practice it at nontowered airports where other pattern traffic often means flying higher, so they never integrate that view even for the checkride.
