KDCA - River Visual Rwy 19

Charts General
1

I loved reading the latest blog from Navigraph “Challenging Approaches Part 1: KDCA River Visual Runway 19” and can’t wait to fly it.

However, I found it hard to find the “River Visual Rwy 19” Approach. I added the route to SimBrief and then imported it into Charts. I got the NUMMY3 Arrival transitioning at BUCKO as pictured… but I then had an option of 8 approaches in Charts, none of them being the visual approach used in the blog post.

Eventually I found the approach chart in the list of charts associated with KDCA but I still can’t add it to my route.

Am I doing something wrong please?

Thanks in advance, Jez

2

Hello! Thanks for the feedback.

This is a completely visual approach without any radio or GPS navigational aids. As you can see in the chart, a DME is used as a reference to provide recommended altitudes along the approach, but you are expected to perform the lateral navigation on your own by following the river! That is why you can’t add a visual approach to your route.

You can add the initial navaid FERGI to your route and make sure that you pass it around 3000 ft, then resume visual navigation along the river!

Alternatively, the chart in question has this suggestion:

image

This RNAV procedure can be shown, since it relies on both radio navaids and GPS to make an accurate approach. This is what that looks like:

image

It’s safe to say that it is very similar to what you would fly if you chose the visual approach. However, the required precision is a lot higher for an RNAV than a visual, and you miss out on the challenge of flying the approach manually!

I hope this clears up the situation. Let me know if you have any further questions!

Kind Regards,
Malte

3

Dear Malte,

Thank you for taking the time to reply in full like this. It makes a lot more sense now. I love learning and it’s great that people like yourself take the time to help ‘newbies’ like me.

I still have issues adding the route to the FMC in the PMDG B738 (using the RNAV, not the visual approach) but that’s a question for a different forum. At least I understand the route itself now!

Thanks again and please keep these challenging approaches coming.

Jez

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