Who can land in 'fog'

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?

Most Cat II and Cat III approaches can land in fog.

Mike
MU-2


wrote in message
oups.com...
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?

Is there somewhere I can find out if this airport (KORH) has an
appropriate Cat II or Cat III Approach?

I thought I heard it was a Cat I.

On 23 Nov 2005 13:12:22 -0800, wrote:

Is there somewhere I can find out if this airport (KORH) has an
appropriate Cat II or Cat III Approach?

I thought I heard it was a Cat I.

11 and 29 at ORH are Cat 1's with minimum required 1/2 or 3/4 mile vis
respectively. I don't remember anything saying that the cause of the
low visibility changes the minimum required value (be it fog, snow,
rain, smoke, whatever) - as long as you have the required value you're
fine.

On 23 Nov 2005 13:12:22 -0800, wrote:

Is there somewhere I can find out if this airport (KORH) has an
appropriate Cat II or Cat III Approach?

I thought I heard it was a Cat I.

Sorry, not enough coffee today. ORH shouldn't (to my knowledge of the
regs) have anyone landing in 1/4 mi since 1/2 is the minimum for the
published approaches. They'd have to go to Bradley in CT, or Logan
for the nearest cat 2/3 approaches that I can think of/find off the
top of my head.

Lower may be approved, specific to the company. As are unpublished
approaches.

Peter Clark wrote:
On 23 Nov 2005 13:12:22 -0800, wrote:


Is there somewhere I can find out if this airport (KORH) has an
appropriate Cat II or Cat III Approach?

I thought I heard it was a Cat I.


Sorry, not enough coffee today. ORH shouldn't (to my knowledge of the
regs) have anyone landing in 1/4 mi since 1/2 is the minimum for the
published approaches. They'd have to go to Bradley in CT, or Logan
for the nearest cat 2/3 approaches that I can think of/find off the
top of my head.

I"m not sure how you could know what the flight visibility was. I"ve
landed many times when tower is reporting 1/4 mile vis. There is no
requirement that you not land. The only FAA requirement is flight
visibility (which tower cannot measure). Since fog is almost never
uniform the odds that flight visibility are the same as tower
visibility is about as close to zero as you could get.

-Robert

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
I"m not sure how you could know what the flight visibility was. I"ve
landed many times when tower is reporting 1/4 mile vis. There is no
requirement that you not land. The only FAA requirement is flight
visibility (which tower cannot measure).

Air carriers are restricted to the 'reported' visibilty.

D.

ORH does not have a Cat II or III approach. Keep in mind that he visibility
that controls the approach is "flight visibility" not "ground visibility"
and when there is fog, flight visibility is usually greater than ground
visibility.

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.

Mike
MU-2


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?

I thought I heard it was a Cat I.

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