ABX manual CAT II certification revoked

[Rhoid]

What about ABX getting their hand flown CAT II certification pulled? Anyone think that Dasburg and Astar might be behind it? ABX is going to be in deep $hit because the SP-50s on the DC-8 and DC-9 are usually not capable of keeping the aircraft in the CAT II window. Manibusin (sp) the ABX VP of MX says that there is not much MX can do to the autopilots to tweak them to try and keep them CAT II capable. ABX has said that they will not spend the bucks to put in a HGS system that would allow them hand flown CAT II's and even lower mins too. I guess the playing field is evening up between ABX and Astar, now that Astar is working on their own CAT II program and ABX's DC-8 and DC-9 fleet are iffy at best on going down to CAT II mins on their autopilots. Any Astar guys know what Astar is going to do for their CAT II program?

 

[ABX9av8or]

Dasburg and Astar had nothing to do with the hand flown CAT II Issue. Most of our autopilots do a great job on CAT II approaches. Any autopilots that do not meet CAT II standards during a coupled CAT II evaluation or during an actual approach, is written up and repaired. Northwest Airlines has over 100 of the same autopilots and there is no issue because they use them on each and every CAT II approach and evaluation. At ABX most of our approaches are hand flown and the autopilots were not being used on a regular basis. As we use the autopilots on all of the CAT II evaluations, the problems that are out there will be worked out. The only thing that has changed is the autopilot will now be coupled during a CAT II approach. I have completed two evaluations this week and both passed.

 

[Rhoid]

But you will still be checked on your PC on the single engine hand flown CAT II. You have much more confidence than most other ABX pilots or even ABX flight management on the autopilots being able to do a CAT II approach. What you don't know and we'll never know is if Dasburg put the bug in the Fed's ear about you guys being the only ones doing manual CAT II's and that maybe he wanted that for Astar too, like ABX did, it's the cheapest way to go CAT II. But now with the computerized ops specs, there is no provision for manual CAT II without a HGS. So maybe when the Fed's turned down Astar's bid for manual CAT II, Dasburg said you let ABX do them why not us too? So maybe the Fed's finally pulled your authorization for that reason.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

Single engine CAT II?

 

[ABX9av8or]

We know who planted the "bug". It was not from the outside. I'm sure we will continue to get manual CAT II approaches on check rides. We also get a missed approach off of our single engine manual CAT II which is not required.

 

[Rhoid]

ABX does LOTS of things on their PCs that are NOT required!

 

[abxaviator]

Rhoid, That's a lot of "maybe's", not particularly helpful to speculate wildly when you even admit you don't/won't know.

 

[Rhoid]

Rhoid, That's a lot of "maybe's", not particularly helpful to speculate widly when you even admit yu don't/won't know.

It's a known fact that ABX has used it's CAT II capability and Astar's lack of CAT II to lobby DHL. With Astar now trying to get CAT II certified, the sudden and I mean sudden pulling of ABX's manual CAT II is just a little bit curious don't you think. And by sudden I do mean sudden, like Morgenfeld's phone rings, it's the Fed's and they tell him he can no longer do manual CAT IIs. Totally out of the blue with NO warning from the Feds.

 

[abxaviator]

Like I said, I find no use in speculation. I'm not privy to Bob's home phone calls or the reasons for the change, nor do I really care. I have flown most all of my actual CAT II approaches with the A/P and rarely have a problem, so I do not see any change in our performance or reliability. Too bad I'll still have to do the single-engine CAT II miss on my PC.

 

[goastar]

Does'nt matter what I think.We use the retirement club for that. (Those over 60)

Individual in charge of the study (seems to like the hand flown cat II idea) said there are 2 carriers out there doing hand flown. ABX and ? , he never said the other one. I personally would rather see another alternative instead of the hand flown idea. We should know mid april early may. Crossing my fingers. Astar seems to always worry about the moment and never plans for the future. (Like cat III).

 

[ABXbooger]

It's a known fact that ABX has used it's CAT II capability and Astar's lack of CAT II to lobby DHL. With Astar now trying to get CAT II certified, the sudden and I mean sudden pulling of ABX's manual CAT II is just a little bit curious don't you think. And by sudden I do mean sudden, like Morgenfeld's phone rings, it's the Fed's and they tell him he can no longer do manual CAT IIs. Totally out of the blue with NO warning from the Feds.

Why wouldn't we lobby with that info? It is a necessity. Ask UPS or Fedex.

Also, it wasn't sudden. The Ops Specs were re-written several years ago with a limitation on hand flown Cat II. It was not removed at that time. Company says they are working on re-gaining approval.

 

[Rhoid]

It's pretty sudden when Morgenfeld gets a phone call out of the blue from the Feds prohibiting manual CAT IIs.

 

[abxaviator]

I believe you already said that, do you have anything new or at least useful to say?

 

[Rhoid]

I believe you already said that, do you have anything new or at least useful to say?

How about what your esteemed colleague Jetlag once said in the sim.... "excessive deviation, sort center in sight 12 o'clock"! You'll probably be saying that more and more now since you are not hand flying any more.

 

[LarryinTN]

Single engine CAT II?

Yep. Up until a week ago we could have hand flown a single engine CAT II in the DC9 or a three-engine CAT II in the DC8. I don't think anyone's every done one for real. Neither airplane's autopilot can fly an ILS with an engine out.

On each checkride both the Capatin and F/O must each hand fly a CAT II ILS with an engine out. If they can't get the hand flown Cat II authorization back then they will drop the requirement on the checkride. For now they are continuing to do them on checkrides so that everyone will still be qualified if they they succeed in getting it back.

What ABX9 was getting at is that up until now a majority of the Captains hand flew all of their CAT II approaches and a majority of the pilots hand flew all CAT II Eval approaches so the ILS mode of the autopilots were not frequently checked. I have always tended to couple any CAT II Eval approach that I flew because I wanted to test both the flight director system AND the autopilot system. Over the past 7+ years I'd guess that 90% of my eval approaches were satisfactory. That number should improve with everyone doing coupled evals and problems being found sooner.

 

[LarryinTN]

ABX does LOTS of things on their PCs that are NOT required!

No, not really.

The hand-flown, engine-out, CAT II approach was required in order to have hand-flown, engine-out CAT II approach qualification.

The engine failure during a missed approach was required by one of our FAA guys in DTW FSDO even though it wasn't in the regs. That meant that it was required for us. That Fed has moved on so that procedure is no longer required by our Feds and they stopped doing them a few months ago.

So, Rhoid, why are you being so aggresively negative towards ABX? You sound like that UPS guy, a few months back, who took any chance he could to bash ABX. Did we bump you off a jumpseat once, or what?

 

[LarryinTN]

It's pretty sudden when Morgenfeld gets a phone call out of the blue from the Feds prohibiting manual CAT IIs.

It wasn't out of the blue.

 

[hvydriver]

Rhoid is a baiter. Ignore him is my advice.

 

[propsarebest]

Rhoid is a baiter. Ignore him is my advice.

BUT HE HAS "FLOWN" A CRJ FTD, AND THAT MAKES HIM MUCH MORE PREPARED FOR FLYING WITH THE BIG BOYS WHEN HE GROWS UP.


PFT ASS

 

[LarryinTN]

Now the FAA has decided that we can resume hand-flown CAT II approaches in the DC8 and DC9 while they consider our request for a permanant exemption.

One of our DTW FAA guys says that he expects a decision on that within 30 to 60 days.