Colour State?

[Nightstop]

Some METARS from joint civil/military airports (eg Treviso, Italy) include the Colour State eg WHT. Can anyone explain what each colour state means? Thanks <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[Bigears]

<a href="http://www.flyer.co.uk/weather/weatherw8.php" target="_blank">http://www.flyer.co.uk/weather/weatherw8.php</a>

[Nightstop]

Cheers for that link Bigears <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Aaahh....the colour system - soooo simple:

GREEN rated pilots can get airborne in RED but only land in AMBER unless ,of course, there's a miraculous hole in the cloud or you've got Cat III (unlikely) whereas a WHITE rated pilot can't get airborne in RED and gets in on YELLOW or maybe on an AMBER if he's lucky. An AMBER rated pilot is lucky to get airborne in WHITE and if he strays near AMBER he/she's in deep poo!!!

Any questions? :)

[Nightstop]

Oh dear, I don't understand any of that Scarlet P. Glad I operate to JAR-OPS minima <img src="wink.gif" border="0">

[spekesoftly]

I've got a 'MASTER BLUE' rating - if the sky's the same colour, I go flying! :)

[Lucifer]

Scarlet, the question was about airfield colour ratings, not Instument Rating claases.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

I know <img src="tongue.gif" border="0">

[ORAC]

Just be aware that there are more exceptions than rules as each nation does it differently.

The NATO manual which defines the colour code (AWP-2) has one page for the standard and 2 pages of exceptions.

France, for example, also use RED when the cloud base is below the published minima for the Approach Aids at an airfield.

Even in the UK it is not standardised with 11Gp(sic) and RN splitting Yellow into Y1 and Y2.

Just use it as a rough guide.

[ 19 January 2002: Message edited by: ORAC ]</p>

[myrddin]

Airport colour coding, what a bloody good idea. I f JAR were to adopt this principle it would probably prevent alot of un-necessary GA accidents