Originally Posted by Vancouv
I was just wondering what the view from the cockpit was like? At what height were you visual with the runway, and were the conditions particularly bad or not that unusual?
Well I can't answer the last part of your question about it being unusually bad as I wasn't flying that day, but I can answer what heavy rain and low viz is like for me.
I've only been flying jets for a couple of years but I still think back to PPL flying when the weather is horrendous and sometimes think how I wouldn't even have driven to the airfield clubhouse in conditions which I find myself doing 4 sectors. Flying through really heavy rain I can only describe as like being in a submarine. The water just flows over the windscreen in a wave. You get no impression of rain drops. I suppose the nearest equivalent is when you hit a deep patch of water in your car on the motorway and temporarilly lose all visability and the wipers are hopeless.
Of course this doesn't continue down to the landing (or at least hasn't for me) otherwise we wouldn't be able to see to land. Generally for the last couple of miles of the approach as we slow down to around 140 kts the wipers are on full and the view inproves a bit.
Almost all the approaches I do are CAT I so the height at which we decide to land or go-around is at 200ft above the runway. This is reached at a distance of about 800 meters from the start of the runway so if the visibilty is also down at the minimum figure for a CAT I landing of 550m all you will see initially is approach lights, then a few seconds later the runway lighting. I find it concentrates the mind. Mind you, it is rare to get torrential rain with really bad visibility but not unknown.
To answer 'at what height do we see the runway' well for me we only do CAT I landings so we must see the runway by a height of 200ft to land otherwise we go around. At 300ft the pilot not flying calls '100 above' and that is a cue to get ready to go around. It is not uncommon to see absolutely nothing at this point which is quite interesting since we are descending at 700ft per minute and have to decide in 100 ft which is about 8 seconds later. Sometimes you see the lights/runway right at 200ft and continue. Its all good fun, but I still love taking a light aircraft up for some good old fashioned tight glide approached into a grass strip!