Visual Approach

A visual approach is an approach to an airport conducted under IFR flight rules but where the pilot proceeds visually and by reference to the terrain and the airport environment rather than following a published instrument approach procedure. It is essentially the IFR equivalent of a VFR approach — the pilot sees the airport and navigates to it visually.

Conditions required for a visual approach:

• The airport must be in sight, or the preceding aircraft to follow must be in sight
• Ceiling must be at or above 1,000 feet above the minimum vectoring altitude
• Visibility must be at least 3 statute miles (or as required by local regulations)
• The pilot must request or accept the visual approach clearance

Visual approaches offer significant efficiency benefits — they allow more direct routing, tighter spacing between aircraft (since the pilot accepts visual separation responsibility), and reduced ATC workload. At busy airports, visual approaches can increase landing rates by 20-30% compared to instrument approaches. However, they require good weather and transfer significant situational awareness responsibility to the pilots.