TheOddOne,
Sorry, my bad! Obviously, I trust you guys to give us the correct runway state - and will of course happily accept a WETx3 runway. In that case no need to get the FC, since WET is a well-defined case performance-wise.
But I still find it hard to accept that ATC will not give me an FC for a contaminated runway. It just cannot be right that a crew must accept to act as guniea-pigs for everybody else in the stack (as ShortApproach? described it). My point is - yes, there is no way to scientifically link a measured FC with that experienced by an aircraft. But at the same time - when you pass us an FC, it leaves us FC in an unambigous position legally speaking. The manufacturer has supplied data that determines the aircrafts' stop cabability as a function of FC. If we recieve an unambigous FC from you guys, based on an unambigous reading by e.g. an SFT - then there is no doubt, an overrun (or other incident) can only be tributed to 1) Flight crew not following established procedures 2) Wrong interpretation of data (e.g. misreading tables) 3) Wrong transmission of data from ATC to A/C 4) Manufacturers performance data are incorrect 5) Systematic errors in the measuring equipment 6) Operator has applied the data in the wrong manner.
I therefore feel that the responsibility for determining the relationship between the FC (as measured by a given piece of test equipment) and the stop cabability of the A/C lies with the manufacturer (and the operator who applies the data) - end of story. They make the thing, they test it, they supply the data, we operate it.
There will of course still be cases, e.g. wet snow or wildly varying results from multiple runs - where the FC must be reported as "unreliable", and in those cases we must make up our minds if we want to divert or act as/wait for a guniea-pig. But withholding information from flightcrew - for what appears as legal concerns - I find less than impressive. If all scandi airports adopted that blanket policy, that corner of Europe would shut down for 4-6 months a year!
I wonder if an FODCOM has been issued to describe this new UK ATC policy? This forum was the first I heard of it (yep, I know, that's kind of sad - need to get out more
) - it seems very harsh that just because an airport gives e.g. 1019 3000 -SN BKN007 - that airport could theoretically not be able to keep the runway to WET x 3 status, deposits might still exist - and therefore, I must consider it below planning minima!
only because ATC is not allowed to pass the FC...
Then again - prolly a 'very British thing' to do
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