Phantom Flyer

In my 7 years of experience on the 767-300 and 777, I flew 3 actual Cat IIIB autoland approaches to roll-out. The first in Milan, one at JFK and the last in LHR.

All three were the same and as CE750 said, the critical part is monitoring the systems and briefing everything so that IF anything fails, the Go Around is initiated immediately. Other than that, you have the best seat in the house. The weird aspect is when the A/C starts a slight nose up pitch to check the rate of decent and the throttles start retarding and you still can't see anything except a few centerline lights.

At JFK, we finally found the exit lighting, were able to taxi to a point where we knew we were clear of the active and then reported same to the tower. We shut it down and had to wait for the tractor to tow us into the gate. Couldn't see *&@$#%.

Be careful out there Gents

frozenboxhauler

It's actually really fun! It is time consuming as there are more detailed and additional briefings (eg. low vis taxing, where we're going to exit the runway, ect.) prior to starting the procedure. I tell the F/Os during our briefings (they will be the pilot flying and I'm the pilot monitoring) that their "whole point of living" between 500 feet and AH (Alert Height) is to find any reason to Go Around.
Our company procedures are more "quiet" with far less required calls than are heard in the youtube video.
fbh

jonnyjetprop

It's far more difficult to do a Cat II approach as you still have to see something and then make a decision as to continue or go around.

oldfr8dog

In my first 10 years on the 767 I only flew 3 actual CAT IIIb approaches (ANC twice and once in STN) and then in one week in HEL I did 4 of them.

DirectTo

DOH! Thank you, Windows 7, for bringing up the wrong window for replying.

bjack

We do hand flown CAT IIIb to 50 ft RA at Horizon Air with the HUDs. My record is 5 in one day bouncing between SEA and PDX. Mins are 600 RVR across the board. Like everyone else said, the tough part is trying to taxi to the gate after landing. The part you have to get used to is looking BELOW the nose of the aircraft to see runway lights at 50', not out in front of it!

dundem

Small point, and I'm not in the US so forgive if I've forgotten what the US regs state, but I thought <50' was Cat IIIB. What you've described is still Cat IIIA.

dundem

To the OP,

My first Cat IIIB auto-land to roll-out was in VIDP (Delhi) of all places. I trust the A340 systems well enough and wasn't concerned about how they would perform. However, I was somewhat concerned about the facilities/ATC. If the guy on the bicycle that was powering the ILS transmitters got tired at the wrong time, it would've really ruined the weekend.

It was due really heavy fog- so heavy that ATC was asking aircraft on approach what their company mins were. Mysteriously, everyone got the mins that they needed- amazing how that works.

I remember thinking it was the coolest thing that I've ever watched the airplane do after we touched down. Speaking of touchdown, we saw the runway lights after the aircraft started its de-rotation (the back bogies were already down and I saw the 1st light just before the front bogies touched).

As others have said, the taxi after is really the toughest part. We took about 4-5 min on the runway to find the 1st exit. They sent us a follow-me and we had to ask the guy to slow to and maintain 3-4 knots as we lost him in the fog at any faster speeds. The fog was so thick on the ramp that from the (opened) L2 door we could not see the wingtip.

FNG1

I recently flew into Amsterdam, and found that they have a DH of 50ft in their CAT III. Can anyone shed light on why a DH?

Thanks,

Fred Flintstone

For US rules, Cat 3A is fail passive requiring a decision height, usually at 50 ft radar altitude. Cat 3B is fail operational (2 autopilots on) usually no decision height but a 100 foot "alert height". This is the one where the plane lands before you see much of anything. Our company has a 300 ft RVR minimum for Cat 3B, but in reality the plane doesn't know the visibility.

Some local terrain and/or equipment certification variables can vary the decision height and/or RVR minimums for a specific runway.

As well as the "see to taxi in" comments, another gotcha is to remember to turn the autopilot off (A320) before exiting the runway. It will try to steer you back to the centerline even if that means across the grass! You don't normally have an autopilot on on the ground so that one is easy to mess up.

Having flown Cat 3B in the bus as well as Cat 1 with HUD/EVS in the G450, I like the EVS view best, but trust the automation and low minimums in the Bus.

It also has alternate airport uses. If we use a Cat3 runway for the alternate, it only needs to be 200 ft ceiling and 1800 RVR to be a legal alternate! (US Ops Spec C055 for Cat3 certified 121 ops)