Contact Approach

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
.net...

If these observations didn't qualify as "reported" visibility they
wouldn't be in the system.


Does it matter how old the report is?


What field is this?

KHUA

"John Clonts" wrote in message
...

What airport is that?


KHUA

Fred is not an accredited weather
observer.

Yes he is. He just happened not to be officially on duty at the time,
but he made the same kind of weather observation he would have, as a
favor to Susan.

Jose

Fred is a certified weather observer, but the station is officially
closed.

Then Fred is not certified to take weather observations at that station.

If your FBO has a
certified weather observer on staff it's because he's at a certified weather
observing station.

Ok, I should have read on a bit more before posting. I take it that a
certified weather observer loses his certification every time the
station closes (say for the evening), and regains it whenever the
station opens in the morning. So if Fred goes there when the station is
closed, and does =exactly= the same thing he would have when it was open
(except for the reporting path), then the observation is not official.

Is this ultimately what it rests on?

Jose

Stan,
ATC cannot even send you to a known VFR airport that has no weather
reporting.
Some ten or more years ago a C-150 was trapped above an
extensive 1300 foot fog layer. They tried Concord, Oakland and
Travis AFB. The aircraft crashed near Travis.

During this time there was a VFR uncontrolled airport at 1800
feet with lighting within 30 miles.. ATC was not allowed to tell
the plane of the airport because it did not have weather reporting.
Item:
Bureaucratosis may wind up killing us all.
Gene Whitt

I have a feeling we don't have the whole story here.

I've never heard of any such restriction, especially under the
circumstances described.


On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 06:56:50 GMT, "Gene Whitt"
wrote:

Stan,
ATC cannot even send you to a known VFR airport that has no weather
reporting.
Some ten or more years ago a C-150 was trapped above an
extensive 1300 foot fog layer. They tried Concord, Oakland and
Travis AFB. The aircraft crashed near Travis.

During this time there was a VFR uncontrolled airport at 1800
feet with lighting within 30 miles.. ATC was not allowed to tell
the plane of the airport because it did not have weather reporting.
Item:
Bureaucratosis may wind up killing us all.
Gene Whitt

Ron Rosenfeld wrote:


Yes he was. There are actually two maps, depending on whether the
observation is taken from the (so-called) terminal building, or from the
intersection of the taxiway and runway.

There are four maps per station. A short range(0-3 miles) and long
range (0-x). X depends on your terrain. When I worked at GFK the
horizon was at 10 miles so that's as far as the chart went. Here at BIL
the farthest mountains are 100 miles away so thats how far the chart
goes out. There are two charts for daytime and two charts for nighttime

Gene Whitt wrote:

Stan,
ATC cannot even send you to a known VFR airport that has no weather
reporting.

We most certainly can, just not with a contact approach.


Some ten or more years ago a C-150 was trapped above an
extensive 1300 foot fog layer. They tried Concord, Oakland and
Travis AFB. The aircraft crashed near Travis.

During this time there was a VFR uncontrolled airport at 1800
feet with lighting within 30 miles.. ATC was not allowed to tell
the plane of the airport because it did not have weather reporting.
Item:
Bureaucratosis may wind up killing us all.

You have the story wrong.

"Jose" wrote in message
m...

Yes he is. He just happened not to be officially on duty at the time, but
he made the same kind of weather observation he would have, as a favor to
Susan.


No he isn't. Review the scenario. There are no accredited weather
observers at this location because it is not a certified station.

No he isn't. Review the scenario.

It's my scenario. I'm talking about my hypothetical, which I'll
reproduce below:

I don't know, but in the following hypothetical case (that you could I suppose argue would never happen) I can see it.

Fred is a certified weather observer, but the station is officially closed. Fred is also Susan's husband, and Susan is flying back from Kalahachee and getting ready to land at the small airstrip near their home. So Fred goes down to wherever he can make certifiable weather observations, looks out the window, and makes a certifiable (but not certified) observation, which he relays to Susan on the ham radio. (As it turns out they are both licensed amateur radio operators, so the transmission is perfectly legal). Susan forwards this observation to ATC and asks for a contact approach. Donna at ATC says fine and clears Susan for the contact approach.

Something Goes Wrong.

In the subsequent investigation, the FAA throws the book at Fred, Susan, and Donna, claiming that the contact approach should not have been requested or granted, the observation wasn't "official", wasn't available to ATC, and all that rot.

What sticks?

Does it matter that the weather at the time was in fact CAVU?

....to which I later clarified that Fred reported the ground visibility.

Now granted I stated that Fred was a =certified= weather observer, not
that he was an =accredited= weather observer. I expected my meaning was
clear, but just to be explicit, in the =new= scenario where Fred is not
only certified but also accredited, I ask the same question.

What sticks?

Jose