Reported Visibility

Timbeck2 said:
Everything is automated now. At my airpatch, weather has lasers at each end of the runway pointed straight up in order to get the ceiling height. On several occasions there was ONE rogue cloud directly over the laser which recorded a ceiling of something to every human as being ridiculous since the sky was otherwise clear.

Gone are the days when a weather observer would step out of his shop with their clipboard, stand on the yellow footprints and take observations of the sky and then go back in and type up the observation to be recorded on the ATIS.

I had a chief controller in Korea that walked up to the tower cab and asked the visibility. We told him a mile and a half. He looked around and told us "bull***t, I can see a mile and a half that way and a mile and half that way, visibility is three miles, we're VFR."

He was totally serious.
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Years ago when I was giving Stearman rides, it seemed like the tower in some places would wait until we decided it was too ugly to fly before they turned the beacon on.
 
Timbeck2 said:
Everything is automated now. At my airpatch, weather has lasers at each end of the runway pointed straight up in order to get the ceiling height. On several occasions there was ONE rogue cloud directly over the laser which recorded a ceiling of something to every human as being ridiculous since the sky was otherwise clear.

Gone are the days when a weather observer would step out of his shop with their clipboard, stand on the yellow footprints and take observations of the sky and then go back in and type up the observation to be recorded on the ATIS.

I had a chief controller in Korea that walked up to the tower cab and asked the visibility. We told him a mile and a half. He looked around and told us "bull***t, I can see a mile and a half that way and a mile and half that way, visibility is three miles, we're VFR."

He was totally serious.
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I’ve also seen broken at 2000 when AWOS was reporting no clouds because a small break happened to be over the laser.
 
Yeah our comment when the AWOS is reporting overcast on CAVU days is that a bird must of pooped on the sensor.

But I've more often seen it the other way, the thing reporting "CLEAR BELOW ONE TWO THOUSAND" when it's far from that.
 
luvflyin said:
That surprises me. Every Towered airport should have a certified weather observer and they can override the machine. Usually it’s the Tower controllers. What is an airport where this has happened to you?
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Salty said:
It's happened to me twice. Once at KPIE and once at KBKV
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Has happened to me at KPIE as well.
 
Once upon a timeI was flying back from Oshkosh in my mighty Cessna 150, and I pulled the plug. The vis sucked so bad I decided to land and wait it out. I landed at a delightful little field and probably could have stayed. I was talking to the local pilots and asked when they though the conditions would improve. They said "about October". Then they said that even if vis sucked, I was only going 80 miles an hour. What was I going to hit that I wasn't going to see first? Made sense to me, I took off and the vis cleared about the time I hit Illinois. I bet I had 3 the whole way. Around here if you have 7 it's a damn good day.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
Maybe ground vis is worse than looking down and seeing it?
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That's what I have always assumed. That the main haze layer stays close to the surface.. it's not several miles thick going from the top so it's easier to see down through it

This past weekend Oceano was reporting some apocalyptically loves ability.. 1-3 miles, but I easily saw it from 12 miles out..
 
Timbeck2 said:
Everything is automated now. At my airpatch, weather has lasers at each end of the runway pointed straight up in order to get the ceiling height. On several occasions there was ONE rogue cloud directly over the laser which recorded a ceiling of something to every human as being ridiculous since the sky was otherwise clear.

Gone are the days when a weather observer would step out of his shop with their clipboard, stand on the yellow footprints and take observations of the sky and then go back in and type up the observation to be recorded on the ATIS.

I had a chief controller in Korea that walked up to the tower cab and asked the visibility. We told him a mile and a half. He looked around and told us "bull***t, I can see a mile and a half that way and a mile and half that way, visibility is three miles, we're VFR."

He was totally serious.
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I have received the ''magic mile'' a few times in Alaska...... It really helps when a person is friendly with the flight service personnel.

Once in a 207 I was holding outside the Class E waiting for the observer to take his observation. When I got the ''magic mile'' I asked for a received a SVFR into the Class E. Just as soon as I got the clearance, another pilot asked for special VFR but was told ''the visibility has dropped to less than a mile, say intentions.'' That other pilot was the Director of Operations for the company.....

The DO was in a twin so he just got a pop up IFR and did the approach, but he sure gave me a hard time about that..... And I did send ice cream to FSS, making sure to include grape jelly, because one guy likes vanilla ice cream and grape jelly.
 
I've had the opposite. Very humid day at ABE, dew point > 70 and temp / dew point spread was small, an afternoon flight after morning thunderstorms. ATIS reporting 7SM and clear, approach tells me field is at my 12 o'clock 4 miles and I couldn't see jack. Knew it was roughly 4 miles because of the landmarks I could see under me but couldn't see the airfield at all across the river. Finally picked out the approach end at about 2.5 miles and got put on downwind, even then turning base (their call, it was extended) I lost the field again and basically followed known ground points until it showed up again.

Haze/smoke slantwise vis isn't the same as the vis the sensor/tower sees. Kind of like the JFK Jr. crash.
 
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