My facility has similar argument haha... They always seem to boil down to the ever present trump card of "well what if he goes NORDO!"my facility is adamantly divided on this issue
I say yes (mostly.)
But I want to know more about the situation that brings up the question because I might change my mind.
IMO if the right base ac was thru the point of conflict of the right downwind ac before you lost 3, you're good... Now what comes into play is the base ac turning final... assuming you haven't regained your 3 miles, let's say you're landing rwy 18... let's say the right downwind ac is on a 360 heading/course, the base ac is heading/course 090, once the base ac turns final and passes the 135 heading/course, it is now opposite courses with the downwind ac, so the downwind ac would have to be past/abeam the base ac turning final before the base/final ac would break a 135 course/heading... And also assuming you haven't regained 3miles...
I hang my hat on the "headings or courses diverge by 15deg or more..." Does someone on a visual approach have a heading... Nope... Does he have a course... I'd say so... Whatever direction he is flying at that exact moment... So while you can't provide 15 degrees in a positive form of separation... If you wanna bet the farm that someone's current course buys you 15 degrees, you're a-ok in my book...
The situation was, the first aircraft was on a right base leg cleared on the the visual approach, the second aircraft was in trail on a right downwind. Three miles was lost between the two. The argument was made that the first aircraft was past the seconds course so they had divergence, the other side of the argument was the plane on the visual could turn a sharp base to final (turn right to the numbers) and it could get pretty tight between the two.
I don't think divergence can be applied because you can't ensure separation but that's just me
Just keep your downwind at least 3 miles from centerline and you'll never have to worry. Or just make sure the second guy has the first guy in sight.
Do you have any other details on that? At what point would direct be acceptable?I agree with courses but also believe when in doubt use headings. Had a briefing here from a situation ( I know this isn’t on the topic of a visual approach as discussed above but still divergence related ) the eastern region quality control group says that use of a fix for initial separation does not qualify for divergence. So if runway heading is 280 and XXX VOR is 300, the first aircraft must be given a hard heading of 15 or more vs. proceed direct XXX. Idk if that helps just found it interesting that the East QCG determined that.