Originally Posted by EMB120IP

Well, sounds like the interviewers are throwing a changeup to the applicants. Technically, your takeoff minimums aren't affected by cat 1, 2 or 3 approved airports or procedures. It's all based off of company ops specs and what the airport takeoff minumums are (on airport diagram), whichever is more restrictive (if ops specs allows 600 rvr but airport diagram for a specific rwy says 1000 rvr, the lowest you can use is 1000). So it sounds like they are just manipulating a question to try to throw them off.

Of course this leads into the takeoff alternate question some have brought up. All it leads up to in the current (2008) FAR-FC's is if the WX is below the certificate holders authorized wx minimums (ops specs), then a takeoff alternate is applied. Not sure what some Cat 3 carriers ops specs say on this. Personally, I've always tried to teach my upgrade/transition capts to think outside of the box on this one (CYA, cover your a%$). The reg doesn't say anything about if the wx mins are below the approach mins that you would use to get back into the airport, but just "below the landing minimums for that airport". For example, an apt has a vor appch (1 sm vis needed) and an ILS (1/2 mile needed). If the ILS has a 30 kt tailwind and vis is 3/4 mile, some people would say that it's not below the ILS mins, so no T/O alternate needed. I personally say, if it's below the approach I will use to get back in, I need a T/O alternate (hopefully there's an airport within an hour though). Sorry for the long response.