> That fog had nearly caused me to divert; zipping down below cloud and finding
> the runway in the crud was rather challenging and I was very glad to find it.
> The runway lights were inop so it was a good thing I had flown from that
> airfield for a number of years and could work from feature to feature back
> home . . .
My friend did a nighttime zero zero (CAT III) into Anchorage several
months ago in his 180. Pea soup fog so thick that he couldn't see the
taxiway lights so he had to work his way across the airport with the
google earth map in his cellphone. It took him longer to get to his
Lake Hood tiedown where he keeps his SuperCub than it did to fly 150
miles. (Lake Hood and Stevens International are at the same location
and you can taxi between the two airports, crossing a couple of
roads).
It's bad when you can see only one centerline light at a time and you
are on top of it.
He said that it wasn't quite as easy as doing it in the 747s he flew
for years as he had to keep approach speeds at the max for one notch
of flaps, until the middle marker and then had to get woa'd up in time
to reduce his vertical speed to the point where he didn't flatten the
landing gear and get a prop strike as he drove it into the unseen
runway. His 747s were equipped for IIIc ground operations.
I think I would still be trying to extract the seat fabric from my
butt. But he said that it was rather fun, and it kept him current.
Just another day "in the office".
Even his SuperCub is equipped for CAT III, but he wouldn't generally
try to fly it in those conditions because his highest cruise speed is
still too slow to get queued up for landing at Stevens International.
And the SuperCub is NOT the aircraft you want to be flying into icing
conditions. Icing is always a problem here.
AG Schnozz
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