Borneo Wild Man
Sorry, should have been more specific. The friction group wasn't part of the TAF, it was part of our pre-flight company briefing package (of which the TAF formed a part). The main contents of the pack were TAFs, METARs, SIGWX, the charts that are now 214/215, upper wind charts, etc.
We were passed the figures as a telex from the handling agent in Sumburgh. They were performed using a Tapley meter.
ICAO Annex 14 Paragraph 6.7 says that friction necessarily has to be presented for each third of a runway.
ICAO Airport Services Manual, Part 2, ICAO Doc. 9137-AN/898 chapters 9 and 10 refers to clearance of Oil and/or Grease and Debris.
The airport had decided to make the friction measurement and present it in SNOWTAM form, which gave them certain problems in getting the required information across. You aren't supposed to use SNOWTAM for other contaminants. Hence the confusion.
If you look here
http://www.hilmerby.com/fom/proc_snowt.html , you will find a SNOWTAM decoder and you will note that runway friction is indeed stated as a reading for each third of the runway, with POOR being a coefficient of .25 or below.
If you ever get to fly a big jet doubtful any operator will let you land less than Braking action Medium even at CDG!
I have, and you are partly right - but we weren't in a jet, were in a Jetstream. Different picture entirely. My point remains that you are perfectly at lliberty to land in POOR conditions if your landing performance data allows you to. This data is part of your Ops Manual.