own nav

The at least 2 miles when less than 1000 foot ceiling applies to uncontrolled airspace. 135.205

Controlled airspace or night time G would still be 3 miles. I retract what I said earlier about 1 mile and clear of clouds where that would apply to a part 91 situation, not the part 135.

Either way, if you have 10 miles you have more than the 2 or 3 required for this scenario with less than 1000 ft. ceiling.

The 500 feet would be applicable to 135.203. If it's a 300 foot ceiling, you couldn't scud run under the ceiling for several miles, you can only descend below 500 AGL for takeoff or landing.

bozobigtop

The last 135 operator I flew for a FAA inspector was trying his best to violate one of our pilots for doing exactly the same thing you are talking about. A number of pilots on this thread have ask you how do you attempt this approach knowing that the awos is reporting the airport below mins?????????
I am waiting for your answer to this one because the FAA loves violating people who didn't know any better or in your case it's on purpose!

own nav

"Ask a question, you're a fool for a minute..."

I think this has been a productive thread, and maybe you should read a little closer before you jump to conclusions here.

Around123

Look in your OPS SPECS buy Everything Explained for the professional pilot by Richie Lengel.

You need REPORTED VISIBILITY. The only time you as a pilot can use flight visibility is inside the marker and weather drops below mins but you determine you have the required visibility.

The weather can be reported below mins and you can see the airport 35 miles out and you are not legal to land vfr or ifr under part 135 or 121.

ackattacker

I don't think you are understanding the question at hand. Read the thread over again... for a VFR operation there is no requirement to have a reported visibility or ceiling. There is no requirement to have weather reporting, period. The pilot is allowed to use his or her own observations, or those of another person considered competent (i.e. another commercial pilot or dispatcher or trained weather observer) PROVIDED that there is no official weather report. If the weather is being *reported* below the visibility minimums (i.e. by a certified AWOS system), then that becomes controlling even for part 91 operations and this has been *definitively* answered by an FAA legal opinion.

http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...rpretation.pdf

In the original poster's question, he said the visibility was greater than 10 miles (legal for VFR) but the ceiling was reported at 300' and he specified controlled airspace. In this case, the field would be considered IFR because the ceiling is less than 1000' (91.155(c)). He then revised his question for an uncontrolled (class G) airspace, where there is no specific regulatory ceiling requirement but one must remain clear of clouds, and it would be illegal to operate below 500' unless taking off or landing. I don't know that this question has been definitively answered, but I suspect such an operation could technically be legal but would place the operator in a good position to get some unwanted FAA attention.

Around123

You are right by post is for IFR operations.

own nav

ackattacker, the link didn't work for me, any chance you could cut and paste?

ackattacker

the document is scanned, can't cut and paste it without some Optical Character Recognition software which I don't have. Maybe someone else will help you out, the link seems to work for me.

Panzon

Ack Attack, could you try re-pasting the link? It seems the "..." In the link is causing problems.

Since you seem to be well versed in the rules, what are your thoughts on these two real scenarios:

1. AWOS is calling the visibility 1/4 mile. You are 12 miles out and can see the runway. It is a beautiful day and actual visibility as viewed from the cockpit is probably 30 miles. Is it legal to land?
2. AWOS is calling the visibility 1 1/4. You can see the runway from 3 miles out. It is a crappy day, with variable visibility and ceilings, and rain squalls have been passing through for hours. Is it legal to land?

ackattacker

the "..." in the link is a consequence of this web-site automatically shortening links for display. I think the real problem is that the FAA used spaces in their links, which some browsers might have problems with. If you Google "Baginski FAA" it will be the top result, maybe that will work better for you.

In the two scenarios you posted, I believe that link will directly address the question. The FAA's position appears to be that a pilot report cannot supercede the AWOS, because a pilot report of flight conditions is not an official ground visibility report.

Scenario 1 actually happened to me once, flying 135. The AWOS decided to malfunction that day and report clearly erroneous visibility. In this case, it just so happened that our base operations manager was in fact a certified weather observer (even listed in our ops specs, believe it or not) and was able to issue to me a weather report over the telephone allowing me to depart for the airport, and over the radio allowing me to land. Without the weather observer, I would never have been legal to depart.