WR... We ought to to talk!!! The Brits were nowhere near first to do either autoland or Cat III !!!
Col. Carl Crane was already doing autolands at Wright Field (Aug 23, 1937)
in a C-14... with Stout and Holloman...
The first ILS autoland was in '42, also at Wright field in a B247 NC-11
The Wright Field troops carried the SCS-51 over to UK and that help start what would eventually become BLEU...
Oct 1944 – B247- did autolands in a joint USAAF/RAF program
using a Minneapolis Honeywell C-1 Autopilot
and the SCS-51 ILS
On Sept 21/22 1947 an AAF C54 flew a completely automated takeoff to landing flight across the Atlantic, including an autoland, from Stephenville to Brize-Norton
12 Aug, 1957 - the Navy was doing autolands in a Douglas F-3D-1Skyknight
using the Bell Aircraft ACLS – on the “Antietam”
And the Dash 80 [B367-80] was routinely doing autolands with a jet transport configuration in '59
Further, on 29 Sept 1962 – a French Caravelle SE-210 – was doing ALs with a Lear AP (Lear 102) MC-1 AP
So yes, the British did a lot at BLEU, and contributed much, especially to the "math" now used in autoland lore, and operationally later with the "Ground Gripper", ...but they were by no means first to do either autoland or Cat III !!! See my 2015 SETP paper on this subject, relating the history of Autoland and All-Weather-Operations!!!
PS. Any B737NG with the EDFCS AP configuration is capable of doing LAND 3 Fail-Op autoland with rollout, if the airline selects that AFM and AFDS option. There are several AP and HUD configurations available, that the airline can choose.
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