BA and Fog at London 30 May 2012

[Chris Trott]

Interesting that. I guess it's probably fair to say that the requirement for CAT IIIb enabled aircraft and crews is much less now than it was before and during the days of the Trident.. over here anyway and fog may be considered occasional rather than a regular occurance by the airlines. Still.. it's a pretty bad show. I find it difficult to grasp that crews aren't trained for these conditions though given they have regular sim time where they practise for every concievable eventuality. That said, if the aircraft aren't capable.. training would be pointless I guess

I think the problem most of us have is that in this day and age where modern aircraft are particularly difficult to crash, this sort of 'cover' isn't in-built as a matter of course

ATB
DaveB

The problem is that the number of pilots coming in isn't meeting the number going out and the cost of initial training continues to rise exponentially. As such, we're in a position within the industry where instead of the airlines doing what they did back in the 1960's and creating schools where they train pilots from the ground up, they are simply pushing to have the requirements lowered and the airplane automation increased to allow them to take lesser trained flight crews. It's a dangerous course that they decided upon, but there are indications that this course may be changing after the rash of high profile accidents and incidents traced back to lack of basic training by the airline of the crew and their low overall hours. There is at least one US airline that has recently started work to setup such a training academy for new pilots, but we'll see if they go through with it. Now, don't necessarily blame the airlines. We the consumers are a large part of this problem because we demanded deregulation and "affordable" ticket prices. As such, we setup a situation where cost was the only thing that mattered to us, and thus the airlines'. That doesn't excuse the poor fiscal management by the airlines in other areas, but when your driving factor is cutting costs, everything you see is a potential savings.

[cstorey]

Despite the earlier authoritative pronouncements , I doubt that it is anything to do with a lack of Cat III pilots . Since our winter weather is amongst the most unpredictable, and BA does not operate seasonal contracts , I doubt that there are any BA pilots on Cat III equipped aircraft who are not current. What does cause the problem at Heathrow is lack of capacity at peak times . Whilst in good vis this may not show as a problem, in fog the runway capacity is severely diminished , not by an inability to land the aircraft, but by the time it takes to clear the runway when taxi speeds are severely limited . 40 years ago, traffic density was lower and thus this did not cause such dislocation . Even in my day as a pilot, (pre-1991) LHR would sometimes give land after instructions at peak times, and this of course is not possible in low visibility

[Tonks]

It's not the aircraft or the pilots; even with my limited civvy flying I am CAT IIIB qual'd... its the physicality of launching and recovering the ac when it is foggy... the normal 1 landing/departure every 90 secs or so is not possible when the visibility is very poor. AC on the ground cannot hold so close to the runway as they will be in the protected area of the ILS and you can't get the ac on the ground as quick as you can't get them as close together on the ILS as again other ac will be in the protected zone of the ILS. Once on the ground the hardest bit is getting off the runway which again slow things up as ATC have to be able to guarantee that the runway is clear!

So the problem is that an airfield like Heathrow and Gatwick is planned to work at max "good vis" capacity, so as soon as the weather gets so bad that Low Vis procedures are required the landing/take-off rates have to be hugely reduced...

Going into Gatwick even on a normal day is very hard work as I am finding out... ATC leave no room for error what so ever; when I landed there on Fri morning I saw the lights at 300 feet with another ac on 5 miles behind and they got one away in between us! There is no way you could do that if the vis was really poor!

Tonks

[DaveB]

Makes sense to me.. cheers matey Relieved to know its not because we can't afford to equip aircraft to CAT III or train our pilots to use those that are

ATB
DaveB