visibility minimums in Europe

[NoHeat]

There was heavy fog at the Budapest airport in December while I waited for my Lufthansa flight. Visibility on the ground was bad.

Watching out the window, a truck followed by an airbus A320 became visible at (I'm guessing) 500 feet as it taxied up to the terminal. I'd bet for sure it was less than 1000 feet. I was amazed they could land in that stuff - it looked as thick as pea soup, and I was even more amazed when we boarded and took off.

The approach plates show Cat II ILS approaches, which are all similar for all the runways. Here's one of them

Looking at the bottom of the plate, if I understand it correctly, there's a minimum radar altitude of 95 feet, but I don't see a minimum visibility.

So what's the minimum visibility for takeoff and landing there?

 

[Piloto]

In many instances the visibility ground report is useless since the measurement is taken at a different angle and location from the pilot perspective view. Also visibility conditions changes quickly. This is why the MAP procedure at the MAP point is based on the pilot actual view of the runway lights rather than a visibility report. Circling approaches have no MAP point.

José

 

[poadeleted20]

It's been near 25 years since I was flying over there regularly, and Hungary was on the other side of the Curtain then so had we flown there, the rules wouldn't have mattered, but what I do remember is that each country had its own flight rules, and they were not the same. I suspect that all the places we did fly are now standardized under the JAR's, but I don't think Hungary is part of the JAA, so whatever the rules are elsewhere, they probably aren't the same in Hungary. And whatever they are, the airline's own ops specs will have their own mins included, and no matter what Hungary's rules, the airline can't launch with less that what it says in their own ops specs.