Who can land in 'fog'

I had an waiver to go to 150' on a cat 1 approach for fog seeding. I had to
take a
check ride in the 182 with the FAA. It was an easy ride, and on one
appraoch, he kept me under the hood thru rollout. I regularly took off under
W0X0F conditions, (indefinite, 0 ceiling obscured, 0 visibility in fog.) We
could generally burn it out to 300 and a mile after 1 hour. (We poured a 1
pound coofee can full of ground up dry ice out of a hole in the belly,
during a 150' pass down the active.)

Al


"RK Henry" wrote in message
...
On 23 Nov 2005 12:58:14 -0800, wrote:

I read a report about a local airport with this statement:

"With existing Instrument Landing System (ILS) technology, inclement
weather, such as fog, is not a material obstacle to commercial service
operations."

I was under the impression that the FAA says fog is 1/4 mile
visibility. Can anyone legally land in fog?

That raises another question: Who here has gotten the certification
for non-commercial Cat II? How difficult was the certification? Was it
worth the trouble? How difficult was it to maintain the currency? I've
thought it might be cool to be able to fly Cat II in a Cherokee, but I
doubt it's worth the trouble.

RK Henry

"Al" wrote

I had an waiver to go to 150' on a cat 1 approach for fog seeding.

(We poured a 1 pound coofee can

Is that anything like a coffee can? :-))

Really though, that sounds very interesting. What were the results of the
testing? Are tests still going on anywhere? Tell us more!
--
Jim in NC

He he, you are right. It was very similar to a "Coffee" can, Folgers in
fact.

In Medford, Oregon, in the '70's and '80's, we flew fog seeding for
United Airlines. Equipment was a older C-182 with an inspection plate
removed in the center of the rear seat floor. We would grind up 15-20 lbs of
dry ice, and on repeated passes, pour 1 coffee can worth out the hole
through a dish pan, during a low approach. (The approaches were flown both
ways, front course to 150', climb to 800 agl, do a 90-270, and fly the
backcourse with no GS to 150' on the way back. Localizer flag indicated the
end of the runway).

If the conditions were right, we had great success. The fog had to be
between 33 and about 25 degrees for good results. We would seed for 20
minutes, wait for 20 minutes, and see results for about 20 minutes. (Later
known as the Bill Warren 20-20 rule of fog seeding) After 20 minutes of
seeding, (3-4 passes), it would snow on the ground for about 20 min. and the
visibility would improve. It was not uncommon to go from ceiling of 0 and an
RVR of less than 600 to 300 overcast and 1 mile. These results were very
local, just before you arrived at DH, you would bust into this "Clear
weather tube", the length of the runway.

This was "fascinating" flying. The first United flight in the morning was
due at 06:15, so one had to start seeding around 5:00. This, of course,
meant solid IFR at low altitude, at night, in a single engine airplane, in
icing conditions. With each pass, we would climb to VFR conditions, where
the temps were a lot higher, and burn off the Ice. I only did it for a year,
but there were pilots there like Bill, and George DiMartini that had done it
for years. Once on a training flight, I pulled an engine on George who
calmly shot a "No visibility" ILS to touchdown, deadstick.

I always felt more "lost" on the ground. After loading the aircraft, I would
start it, turn on the baggage light under the left wing, and put the left
main tire on the yellow taxi stripe. I would taxi out to the hold short
line, and shut it down for a minute while I climbed out and broke off the
3/4 inch of ice the prop had built up during taxi. Re-enter, re-start, and
taxi on a heading of 90 until the localizer for rwy32 centered, then a left
turn to 320, and depart.

Total pay was $15 per flight hour, so if you got 1 1/2 hours in the morning,
and the same in the evening(6:30pm departure), you could make almost $50 a
day before taxes. Instrument currency was never a problem, and you got
REALLY good at holding a heading.

Sometimes it almost seemed like a video game, or simulator. Once I had done
the twenty minutes of seeding, and the RVR was very slow coming up. United
was 30 North, so I decided to shorten my pattern, and drop a load right over
the RVR meter. After making a pass southbound, I started a left turn toward
the RVR meter and simply forgot to climb. Apparently there is a hill called
"Coker Butte" just east of the runway at Medford. It is about 100' high, and
passed under my left wing while I was in the turn. It has a white house with
a yellow bug light on the porch. There was a white 63-64 Chev Impala parked
in the driveway under the bug light, it had current Oregon plates.

Al






"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Al" wrote

I had an waiver to go to 150' on a cat 1 approach for fog seeding.

(We poured a 1 pound coofee can

Is that anything like a coffee can? :-))

Really though, that sounds very interesting. What were the results of the
testing? Are tests still going on anywhere? Tell us more!
--
Jim in NC

"Al" wrote

Apparently there is a hill called
"Coker Butte" just east of the runway at Medford. It is about 100' high,
and
passed under my left wing while I was in the turn. It has a white house
with
a yellow bug light on the porch. There was a white 63-64 Chev Impala
parked
in the driveway under the bug light, it had current Oregon plates.

That story belongs in the big scare thread!

Is the procedure still widely used today?
--
Jim in NC