Mainline and Express operating in weather

[the turtle]

Mesa has some CRJ 200's that were CATIII certified, but they took out the HUD and collared the breakers. This I know because I routinely smack my head on what's left of the HUD display!

BTW, I think the ERJ's have the system capability to go CAT II, but Mesa won't train the crews.

Used to love communiting to CLT for the early morning show...I never left myself an out because DCA then had THREE 737's sitting at the gates, all CAT III, with the 6am to CLT the first one out. Plane broken?..pick another..missing a FA?..take one from the 630 PHl flight...man, that was one slick operation..the 6am Non-Rev Express to CLT...usually only 15 pax...10 were Non-Revs!!!

 

[speedbird86]

I was going from Clt to Phl last Sat. morning when the fog was in Clt. Our Capt. was commuting in from Knoxville and deverted to Avl. He should have come in the night before. The F/O made the PA about what was going on. US tried to get another Capt. and actually found one(pulled him off of his trip). We pushed back and were starting up, when the new Capt. came on the PA and said we were going back to the gate. Seems he was a International Capt. and there weren't any other Int. Capts. to take his trip later. So we went back to the gate while they tried to find another Capt. It was pretty embarrassing. After another 30 minutes, we finally got another Capt. I won't type the comments that were said around me. Hopefully, the original Capt. will get a good talking to about not being there the night before and not having a back-up flight.

This situation has nothing to do with weather, CAT this or that, mainline or express. The root of the problem here is that the captain failed to show up for work.

 

[PropPiedmont]

Piedmont's Dash 8s are CAT II approved. Our pilot group once was CAT II certified. We aren't anymore. The training costs weren't worth it.

Think about it. Maybe two or three days a year with one morning block of flying cancelled due to fog versus the cost of annual training and certification of pilots and equipment.

Its all about the money. Remember the Ford Pinto exploding gas tank lawsuit?

 

[Capecod]

Why doesn’t express get CAT III or CAT II capable/certified

The way I understand it, the CRJ/ERJ are not Cat III airplanes. You need autoland or HUDs to be Cat III and these airplanes don't have it.

Express airplanes can be Cat II and I know Mesa (says) they are working on it. It just requires additional training and changes to the manuals. The reason most don't bother is (in the East anyway) there are very few days it would actually matter. Maybe, .01% of our overall flights could go that otherwise don't go. The cost of keeping everyone certified (in Mesas case 1800 pilots) doesn't add up. But remember, the regoinals do what there partners require. If Airways wants PSA, AWAC or Mesa CAT II, they just need to ask and pay the increased cost.

IBTW, in your case, with the Vis at 1/8th of a mile, Cat II wouldn't do you any good anyway. -Cape

 

[NCflyer]

The DH-8 is equipped for CATII operations. In fact several years ago PDT started a CatII program. After manual revisions, maintenance certifying a/c, proposed pilot training for certification, and what ever else was required to be authorized for CatII operations the company decided it wasn't worth the cost, paperwork, & hassles to keep everything in certification.

I believe at the time PDT only operated into 11 airports with lower than CatI minimums. So part of the decision may have been based on the belief that CatII certification would only really help with early morning originators launching to hubs that were fogged in.

PDT also has single visit training once every 12 months for all pilots. I believe the CatII certification was going to require training visits every 6 months as well.