PIC Autoland in Boston - Not a practice approach

[Guest MB327]

Wow! After a great evening in Canada with Rob, Dan, Lee, Stiffy, and Steve, Steve Drabek followed me down to Boston for a 0440Z arrival. The weather turned bad, real bad. I have had other landings that were almost this blind but not with the high caliber ATC that Steve and I had bringing us in this evening. Center, Approach, Tower, and Ground were all on line and were great about frequent updates on the conditions at the field.I have used autoland several times over the last year but NEVER in conditions that would have made it IMPOSSIBLE to land without it. This was it, the crappy flying weather of crappy flying weather. I had no visual on anything till the green FLARE lit up. I did not touch anything after setting the airspeed to 140 knots and dropping the last notch of flaps until ROLLOUT lit up and I dropped her into reverse thrust. It was so bad that I had to have ground issue progressive taxi instructions because I was too hard headed to switch to a top down view. The "12" in the FSMeteo Decoder box below is for 12 Meters, all you could see is enough to tell if you were on a runway or a taxiway, that was about it.I know that many runways have a bad combination of FS2002/PIC ILS Navdata running together. All I can say is runway 04R in Boston with the PIC 2002 update data by Jason is right on the money.Steve agreed with me after landing. We have no other aircraft in our hangers that could have managed that landing. PIC RULES!THANKS to the Boston controllers this evening on VATSIM - GREAT JOB guys...

[Guest Dan_Pergau]

Hi Mike,I'm sorry I missed that... sounds great! I was in definite need of sleep though =) I hope to see the guys out again tonight... no doubt I'll chat with Rob during the day (pending work email availability).Regards,Dan

[Guest WorkingStiff]

Sorry to bail out on you guys; that approach looks like a lot of fun. My computer crashed for the second time just when I was holding for departure clearance from CYYZ. Since my 20-month old was acting up and refusing to go to sleep I didn't bother to log back on.I'm very puzzled by the recent problems I've experienced with this computer....I started getting fairly frequent crashes after upgrading to Windows XP two months ago. I've eliminated most other likely causes for the crashing so I think it might be power related. I get these crashes when using heavy graphics applications; sometimes I can hear the pitch of the cooling fans change when using FS2002 for example. I was looking at my power supply recently and I was surprised to see it labeled 250 watts; I'm pretty certain when I purchased the case the power supply was 300 watts.Anyway, hope we can do this again soon; I'll try to log on earlier.

[Tabs 2,790]

Wow, wish I could have seen this...Something tells me if conditions had been that bad IRL though, you would have had to divert. 12 meters sounds below CAT IIIB minimums to me and as far as I've been told, CATIIIC isn't authorized in the US and even if it was only a handful of runways across the country can support it...

[Steve Dra 7,579]

All I can say is that had to be one of, if not the best flightsim experience I've ever had!I was a few minutes behind Mike the whole way on the same flightplan, and had the luxury of listening to the controllers give him instructions, knowing I was getting the same commands a few minutes later! I'll lead next time Mike. :)I can say with absolute certainty that Mike and I would be sitting at our alternate airport right now if we were not flying the PIC panel! It performed perfectly, even with some pretty good chop down the glidepath. (maybe that was some wake turbulence off of Mike's wings!). :-lolAnyway, I had MUCH better visibility than Mike

[Guest WorkingStiff]

>To anyone who is not flying online with real-time, real-live >controllers

[Guest Dan_Pergau]

That's one amazing setup Steve! I had 2 PCs running at one point (one for squawkbox/servinfo) but I donated it to my relatives for my cousin's schooling requirements. Their antique dinosaur was about to buy the farm if you know what I mean.Dan

[Guest]

Despite the accusations that I used Autoland on the PAR...jeesh...I had a great time last night ;-) I think you guys are just jealous! I had done a PAR in Halifax a few nights ago with Mike Oxner - another real world PAR cert ATC - and the ceiling was around 500 feet...that made the PAR a lot harder as I had no runway in sight to judge the corrections. As for tonight, I may have to drive out to Guelph so I won't be home until later, around 10pm EDT. I will pop on, of course, and look to see whaasup, hopefully some low vis CATII stuff would be very cool. Halifax and Boston have good potential for a foggy night tonight given the weather forecast. Thunderstorms scheduled for Toronto this afternoon, but work is getting in the way of the fun weather this afternoon ;-(Bye for now,Rob.

[Steve Dra 7,579]

Hey Dan,I know what you mean about donating systems!I've donated systems, parts and spare time to more relatives, friends and neighbors than I can remember. Sometimes it

[Guest ilh]

Rob, the autoland accusations were just a joke, my fault. You must be REALLY good for the approach controller to say "on path, on glideslope" so many times in a row! Using the FD and V/S -700fpm for guidance was a good idea (no CMD).I definitely need to do more of those power approaches like at CYBG last night. Is there a good way to find them in ServInfo? Last night, I think ATC was PAR_.Mike, too bad I bailed on you guys. Had I known you were headed for Boston I would not have been able to resist. Yes, 4R is fine for autoland. I've been a passenger on what I believe were real Cat III approaches to 4R, pretty eery looking out the window and seeing nothing pretty much until touchdown.Lee Hetherington (KBOS)

[Guest]

I heard Win98se can only utilize/recognize up to 512MB RAM, the rest will be ignored?? Don't know how or why, that's what I hear from a number of people who "know"FYIRob.

[Guest]

Hi Lee,I know you guys were just "giving me the gears" ;-)...I did have some help...A/T set at Vref+5 until 200 feet, plus I had the FD cue me on a 700fpm descent after I go the instructions to descend on GP, the localizer was providing a lateral cue for the runway, but I did not need it as the visibility was no factor at CYBG. Without the FD cues and the A/T, coupled with clam winds on Meteo weather, I am sure I would have done much worse.Next time there is a PAR, you should check the ServInfo OBS Controller listing for anything with "PAR" in it. Mike Oxner annd Sylvain X are the real world PAR-app cert you want to look for. I am hoping we have a foggy night in CYHZ soon as that is a real challenge. It would be a bonus if the PAR controllers would post a time/day they plan on doing this as it is a fantastic experience.Rob.

[Guest Dan_Pergau]

Hi Steve,Ironically I am doing the opposite. I provide computer support for a department which is part of the Federal Government of Canada on behalf of a big blue company ;-) I recently wrote my ability exam for NavCanada and I hope to get in to Air Traffic Services training soon. It's always been my goal to get in to the aviation industry in some capacity.... even if it meant being good with a mop and bucket.I'm currently working on my PPL here in Ottawa. Shame it doesn't have an Auto Land like Rob's does :-)

[Guest]

It's no wonder I have problems with my blood pressure with freinds like Dan ;-)Rob.

[Steve Dra 7,579]

No problem Stiff