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2 Answers

How to know if you’re within the circling radius

Asked by: 2622 views Instrument Rating

Because there is no piece of equipment that tells you how far from the runway ends you are, how are you supposed to determine if you’re within the circling radius of a circling approach?

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2 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on Jul 29, 2022

    The circling areas are designed so that if you fly a normal pattern at a normal airspeed, you WILL remain within the circling area. You’re right, you have no easy way to measure it in the airplane, but that shouldn’t matter – after all, you shouldn’t be staring inside the cockpit anyway looking at some distance indicator. Cat A is 1.3 nm, if you’re more than 1.3 nm away from a landing surface doing a circling maneuver in a 172 (or whatever), you’re doing it wrong.

    Note that the expanded areas (identified by the inverse C on the charts) are larger than the old areas* and have almost replaced all the old areas on the charts. I imagine at some point, when they’re all updated, the use of the C will no longer be necessary and the C will be removed.

    * for Cat A there’s virtually no increase, which if you’re in training this is probably what you’re concerned with. It’s still basically 1.3 nm. For Cats B, C, D and E there is a more significant increase.

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  2. John D Collins on Jul 30, 2022

    All the remaining approach circling areas and altitudes have been adjusted for the new areas, but the inverse C is no longer being updated on the remaining charts. Once flight testing had been completed on the remaining approaches, the inverse C will be removed from all the approach procedures and the old circling information will be history. This could still take a year or two before flight tests are completed, the inverse circle C is removed from all charts and the old circling areas are sunsetted.

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