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Old 27th May 2021, 23:33
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WHBM
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
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Originally Posted by DaveReidUK
I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I'd be interested to know what date you have for that.
It needs a bit of clarification

First Auto-flare with pax by BEA Trident : 10 June 1965 (the one referenced above).

First full Autoland with pax by Air Inter Caravelle : 2 March 1967
First full Autoland with pax by BEA Trident : 16 May 1967

but all of these were in CAVOK conditions (bit of a cop-out then).

First Cat 3 Autoland in actual Cat 3 conditions with pax by Air Inter Caravelle : 9 January 1969 (along with much of the rest of that day's services at Lyon).
First Cat 3 Autoland in actual Cat 3 conditions with pax by BEA Trident : some time in 1972.

The Caravelle, with a Sud-developed system, did seem to be generally ahead. They did the first jet Autoland as well, back in 1962.

What really dismays me is, following all this work to make the BEA trunk short-haul services reliable in winter, when fogs come down nowadays such is the complete tightness of normal slots at Heathrow that with the reduced landing rate Cat 3 imposes, the widebodies continue to come in while it's always the BA flights to Glasgow/Edinburgh etc that are the first to be dumped - the very flights that all the Autoland development work was done for.
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