SWA CAT III Question
 

Let me ask a quick question of the SWA folks. Is SWA now doing CAT III approaches? We went into JAX the other night and it was CAT III. SWA followed us in. I was surprised, I understood that SWA was CAT I.

Thanks

SWA has been CAT III for several years. They are hand flown using the HUD. I've flown a few in the sim and sat in the right seat for 3 actual CAT III approaches and it works great.

Thanks, it came as a surprise when they followed me in.

Cat III are hand flown? Why?

Heads up display.

Ditto at JB...we do Cat II now on the HUDs & the entire fleet is being Cat IIIb trained as we speak. We've got dual HUDs and they won't go into A3 (Cat III) unless the AP is off by 500 RA. That's the reason they're hand-flown under our setup...I guess WN's is the same way?

Interesting, I am kind of surprised the AP has to be disconnected at 500. I was just confused because I thought the Feds always trusted the computer over us.

Mainly because the HUD makes it pretty darn close to routine. We had the same setup in the Navy. Our C-40's (737-700's) also have a HUD. Although we are not certified to fly CAT III in the Navy you can easily hand fly a CAT III down to CAT III minimums even with a single engine - which we usually would do in recurrent if we had extra time. It is a very sweet system.
Our 737's at DAL are also CAT III capable via the HUD, and I am pretty sure these are certified for single engine operations.

Scoop

SWA hand flies the Cat II&III because of the HUD and no ATs.

With the HUD hand-flown Cat II/III approaches are a piece of cake.

Hi cgtpilot, I'm confused. I take it jb means jet blue, which flies airbus and E190. Both airplanes (I thought) are cat III certified anyways. What's the advantage of HUD v. the inherent capacity of the airplane. I thought a HUD is a customer prefered option. Why get it if the a/c is already capable of cat III?

Thanks