Who can land in 'fog'

It doesn't matter if the airspace around the airport is class C or B it only
matters if the requriements for the approach are met. Usually the hangup is
centerline lighting which is expensive to add. I'm sure that the airports
with frequent low weather are more likely to have the centerline lighting
although many airports in the PNW, including KBFI, do not have it.. I
suspect that there is an element of politics in who gets the money.

Mike
MU-2


"Peter R." wrote in message
...
Mike Rapoport wrote:

Most Cat II and III approaches are at major airports. One of the
requirements is that the runway must have centerline lighting which is
generally only found at the largest airports.

Could the presence of a CAT II or III approach also be a function of a
greater occurrence of low visibility? My home airport, Syracuse (KSYR),
has a CAT II ILS, yet it is only a class C airport. During the winter we
experience heavy lake effect snow bands off Lake Ontario and I had
suspected that this was the reason for a CAT II ILS rather than its size.

--
Peter

wrote in message
oups.com...
Is there somewhere I can find out if this airport (KORH) has an
appropriate Cat II or Cat III Approach?

Generally speaking, you can look at the A/FD information which is usually
up-to-date at www.airnav.com. If a Cat II or Cat III ILS approach is not
listed, then the airport isn't equipped for Cat II or Cat III approaches (I
think lighting and airport markings is the primary criteria).

Compare entries for major commercial airports, like KSEA, KLAX, or KLGA, to
see what an airport that does have Cat II and Cat III approaches looks like.

As far as your original question goes:

It is theoretically possible for an airplane to land using a Cat I approach
in fog. I don't know the exact cut-off to differentiate between "fog" and
"mist", but I doubt the article you're concerned about is actually using an
official definition. So, in the colloquial definition of "fog", visibility
could be anywhere from as much as a mile, maybe even more, to as low as 0
feet. A Cat I approach isn't sufficient for 0 visibility, but it's plenty
for 1 mile (and visibilities lower than that).

So...the answer to "can anyone legally land in fog" is "yes", even if the
airport has only a Cat I approach.

Pete

wrote:
I read a report about a local airport with this statement:

"With existing Instrument Landing System (ILS) technology, inclement
weather, such as fog, is not a material obstacle to commercial service
operations."

I was under the impression that the FAA says fog is 1/4 mile
visibility. Can anyone legally land in fog?


Cat III operations can and possibly Cat II as well.

Matt

As someone who lives in fog and flys in it often, I say yes. Fog is
almost never uniform. The odds of the flight visibility being the same
as the tower reported vis is almost zero. Most of the time, I just
start to make out the runway lights nearing 100 feet AGL. Once at 100
AGL you can see A LOT more (probably because fog effect slant line
vis). Remember you can go down to 100 feet after seeing the rabbit. Its
kind of cool to look outside and see nothing but fog but a white
electric rabbit running back and forth!!

-Robert, Sacramento CA

Worth trying with a safety pilot while under the hood is to fly your
airplane all the way down a time or two. Full ILS to mins, keep the
localizer centered, maintain rate of decent. Sometime when everything
is stacked against you you may have to do something like that in real
life. It's a confidence builder knowing you can get down in near
zero/zero.

Mooneys with their low wings tell the pilot when they are a few feet
agl. I don't know how a Cessna would feel though.

If you are really landing 0/0 I would toss out the idea of trying to
flare. The glide slope is good down to 100 feet, after that it does
wacky. You would want to get the plane in a nose up attitude and a slow
decent rate and just wait for impact. Those of us that fly sea planes
were required to do that for our checkride. Berry Scheff wrote about
doing this during an ocean crossing flight.

-Robert (Mooney owner too)

In article .com,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

If you are really landing 0/0 I would toss out the idea of trying to
flare. The glide slope is good down to 100 feet, after that it does
wacky.

eh? For Cat III systems, the glide slope is good all the way to the runway.

--
Bob Noel
New NHL? what a joke

Bob Noel wrote:
In article .com,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

If you are really landing 0/0 I would toss out the idea of trying to
flare. The glide slope is good down to 100 feet, after that it does
wacky.

eh? For Cat III systems, the glide slope is good all the way to the runway.

I think you got lost in the thread. We've not talked about CAT III at
all in this part of the thread just flying an ILS down to the ground.
If you notice, some other trees from this thread moved off and talked
about cat III. You won't find any talk of CAT III going up the chain of
my post.

In article .com,
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

eh? For Cat III systems, the glide slope is good all the way to the runway.

I think you got lost in the thread. We've not talked about CAT III at
all in this part of the thread just flying an ILS down to the ground.
If you notice, some other trees from this thread moved off and talked
about cat III. You won't find any talk of CAT III going up the chain of
my post.

ok.

But let me add that a Cat I glideslope could be ok down to runway, but usually
isn't. It just won't be flightchecked

--
Bob Noel
New NHL? what a joke

Robert M. Gary wrote:
If you are really landing 0/0 I would toss out the idea of trying to
flare. The glide slope is good down to 100 feet, after that it does
wacky. You would want to get the plane in a nose up attitude and a
slow decent rate and just wait for impact. Those of us that fly sea
planes were required to do that for our checkride. Berry Scheff wrote
about doing this during an ocean crossing flight.

-Robert (Mooney owner too)

Naw. Autoland systems exchange crab to wing low at 150' AGL and at 50' AGL
the throttles come to idle and the aircraft enters Flare. At wheel spin up
it changes to "Roll Out" and continues to track the localizer centerline to
keep the aircraft on the runway. It makes beautiful landings.

--

Darrell R. Schmidt
B-58 Hustler History: http://members.cox.net/dschmidt1/
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