Presidential 747 Autoland Cat III ILS

[mikenftsmith]

I realize the investigation of the airplane crash that killed the President of Poland is just starting but the weather was very bad possibly at or below minimums. Are the 747 aircraft that fly the President of the U.S. equipped to fly CAT III ILS approaches with the ability to autoland?

[cessna157]

Yes, it is a highly modified B-747-200, and you can bet your britches that it has autoland

[Cap747]

747-400 are... Yup!

Both Airforce ones have sophisticated systems (NGC documentary)

[Pilot3033]

Reports I read said that the airport the Polish President's aircraft was trying to land at was not equipped with any sort of precision approach (ILS, GPS, RNAV, etc) equipment. So it wouldn't have mattered in that particular case. It's my, speculative, opinion that after trying to land 4 times and having to go around so much, the crew came down with a case of "get-there-itis" and wasn't considering an alternate like they should have been (perhaps compounded by low fuel and the head of state).

I imagine that the modified 742's the Air Force use are equipped with all sorts of goodies, including autoland and the ability to fly some "reserved for military use" precision approaches.

[atcman23]

The only "military" approach I can think of is a TACAN approach and that is non-precision if I remember correctly.

[Marty Becker]

The only "military" approach I can think of is a TACAN approach and that is non-precision if I remember correctly.

There are PARs (Precision Approach Radar), but I'm not sure how many are left in service these days.  The GPN-22 that I worked on in the USAF in the early to mid 1980s had a 50 foot minimum approach altitude.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/18/PAR.png/200px-PAR.png

[djmodifyd]

The only "military" approach I can think of is a TACAN approach and that is non-precision if I remember correctly.

HI-ILS is a military only precision approach...don't see it very often though.

my airport has one and i've never seen it used

[sykocus]

The Airforce's (or other military agency's) TERPS office can draw up an approach and not publish it publicly thus making it a "military only" approach, be it ILS, TACAN, RNAV, etc.

[atcman23]

Yeah forgot about the PAR, and yeah I don't think there are many left.  But if it's not published then we the public really have no way of knowing what's out there either.