There’s a difference between actually doing them and being approved for them. I’ve done just a few Cat III approaches, far fewer than 1%, but because there’s an expectation that I might have to do one, 100% of my flights with my most recent employer have been Cat III capable as far as the aircraft and crew are concerned. On the other hand, previous employers have not been Cat III approved, but they also haven’t been scheduled passenger airlines that get bad press when the people on board don’t get to their destination.
Not much to add to the factoids. Here’s some more context.
I’ve been a Cat IIIa capable pilot flying Cat IIIa airplanes for 90% of my airline career. And I’ve been a Cat IIIb capable pilot flying Cat IIIb capable airplanes for 5% of the time. I’m nobody special, all 15,000 of my co-workers are the same. Other semi-major airlines don’t invest in the capability, and some airliner types simply weren’t / aren’t available with the capability: mostly the older RJs nowadays. I spent about 5% of my career on those less-capable oldies but goodies back in Ye Dayes of Yore.
For scale, we’re descending at roughly 15 feet per second, and need to start flaring at 20-30 feet AGL depending on airplane type to avoid a “firm” landing. From when HAL announces “50 feet” or “minimums” to the flare action point is therefore 1 to 2 seconds. In go-arounds started from 50 feet it’s common for the gear to bounce off the pavement as you’re transitioning to an upward vector. More often in larger airplanes (767 & up) than smaller (737 & down). Any delay past the 50 foot mark before initiating go-around pretty well guarantees the gear will touch down.
In all my years I’ve done maybe a half-dozen serious no-shitters where we clunked onto the runway just as we started to see outside (Cat 111b) or we saw the required visual references 1 or 2 seconds before needing to go around to avoid clunking on blind a couple seconds later (Cat IIIa).
There’ve been innumerable times regardless of the minimums where we saw the required visual references just 2 or 3 seconds before needing to go around. And having seen them, landed normally. Just another cloudy, rainy, or snowy day on the job.
Plus a dozen-ish events where we didn’t see references at the decision point and went around. But really, in 33 years I know I’ve made less than 20, and probably less than 10, go-arounds for lack of visual references at DH. Far more likely to have diverted 30 minutes ago than to try, fail, and then divert. At least for my predominantly domestic US career.
But I’ve flown a metric boatload of Cat IIIs to both dead-on minimums and to an I-see-nothing go-around in the sim every few months. Over and over and over. By policy we also practice them on sunny days about once a month. It gives the machinery a workout and keeps us sharp.
FYI, that 787 scene in @Whack-a-Mole 's YouTube was in a simulator. And that’s pretty typical of Cat III operations. You sorta see a couple lights just as “HAL” announces “minimums”, then the gear clunks on. Mildly alarming the first time you try it for real.
Interestingly, the 737 I now fly is different. The autopilot cannot fly a Cat II (100 foot minimums) or Cat IIIa/b (50 foot or no foot minimums). Instead, the Captain hand-flies those approaches taking guidance from / through the HUD.
In that mode we’re equivalent to Cat IIIa, where any malfunction, loss of redundancy, or pilot goof means “go around”, and we need to see the appropriate runway lights at 50 feet to continue to a landing. But it’s all on the Captain; the FO is carefully watching their instruments and malfunction indicators, but should not see a damn thing until they’re slowed to taxi speed: their job is 100% inside on the instruments, while the Captain’s is 100% outside/HUD, following by hand the symbology that should coincide with the real world until the real world appears dimly in the gloom moments before impact with whatever is out there. Ideally it’s an unoccupied runway, but you’re never sure until you’re sure. Fun times.
Last item: At least in the USA, the terms “Cat IIIa” and “Cat IIIb” are now deprecated. Lots of people and resources still use them, and anybody in the industry knows what they mean. But the correct current terms are, as @Richard_Pearse said, “Cat III Fail Passive” and “Cat III Fail Operational.”
Although the term “Fail Passive” isn’t used for them, that concept also applies to all other less-capable grades of approach, the ILSs Cat II, Cat I-SA, and Cat I, and to all manner of what are now called “Non-ILS approaches” such as the newish ones predicated entirely on RNAV/GPS, and the old-fashioned ones predicated on old-fashioned radio navaids like the Localizer-only, the VOR, or the NDB approach.
If you are a Canadian pilot, you may have a problem:
Our government is in such disarray that just getting your medical paperwork can now take over a year, and getting your permanent pilot’s certificate the same. It’s grounding pilots when we already have a pilot shortaege, and starting to impact flight schools:
Transport Canada claimed that the medical delays were due to the 'complex medical circumstances" around Covid. But that’s horseshit because the same delays are hitting people who pass their checkrides and just need their permanent license. The temporary your instructor signs is good for 60 days, at which point you are supposed to have received your permanent. But they aren’t arriving, and people are being grounded as a result. Including people in the middle of their commercial training.
And as commercial pilots come up for their medical renewal they may be grounded as well - in the middle of a major pilot shortage,
This is unbelievable. Couple this with the ArriveCAN fiasco and the resumption of random Covid tests in our already-chaotic airports, the government is doing a good job of grounding Canadians and harming Canadian aviation.
A year or two pre-COVID the FAA was having similar problems with this. We’d graduate from sims as a newly qualified pilot in a seat/aircraft type with a temporary certificate. The “paperwork” to request the permanent one was already filled out in the FAA’s computers before we signed the temporary.
60 or 90 days later (I forget the US timeline) the temporary expires and you’re illegal to fly. FAA was taking 120 days to click the [Approve] button on their own internal website. Something about “insufficient manpower.” Lots of us enjoyed a month’s vacation. My employer, who has rather a lot of clout in DC, was helpless in the face of this.
Funny, I hear that now this problem has been solved, COVID or no. Apparently it has migrated north for the summer. 
Tom Pobezney, retires President/Chairman of the EAA goes West:
Brian
I could have sworn he had already passed away. He timed it to the opening day of Oshkosh. I wonder if they’re going to bury him in his VW staff car.
Yeah, except the delays here are over a year long. Can you imagine starting a commercial license program then having to wait a year for your medical, then eventually passing your checkride and having to wait another year for your license before you could continue with your training?
Flight schools are warning that they are at risk of going under, and students are dropping out. Very few peopple csn afford to sit around for a year waiting for paperwork. so they drop out and go get a job doing something else.
I hear the problem is going to lead to a lack of ATC very soon, as they are also being forced to the sidelines because they can’t renew their class 2 medicals.
In the meantime, our airports are now the worst in the world for delays and cancellations, as our government is forcing everyone to use the ArriveCAN app, and it’s broken. We are also forcing random Covid tests on people again - the only country in the world to do so, as I understand it.
Aviation is in deep, deep trouble in Canada.
Sorry to hear about Poberezny. As a member of the EAA from way, way back, he seemed like a fixture who would always be there. He fought a lot of good fights fotr experimental aviation and GA in general. It’s a big loss.
Wouldn’t you need a new physical and currency training?
His father Paul WAS EAA. That whole airshow/museum is Poberezny. I don’t thing there’s another organization that grew to the size he made it. I wonder if they can bury him on Compass Hill near the museum?
If anybody is going to Oshkosh I saw a PBY Catalina in the War Birds section (I saw it on their web cam). I’ve never seen one flying.
We were planning to go to the Reno Air Races this year, but our government is making it extremely painful to travel across the border, so we will likely have to stay home.
They always have great warbird displays, ‘heritage flights’ and all that.
A guy with a PBY used to come to the vintage air show held every year at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. It must have been converted to a water bomber at some point, ‘cause I have video of him doing a low runway pass while dumping a huge amount of water. Since then, I’ve wanted one to fit out like that ‘RV’ concept from the 50s or 60s.
Well. Now I wish I hadn’t googled that N-number. The PBY was accidentally destroyed in the service of making a Nicholas Cage movie. The rescue team botched the lift and ripped the plane in half
There was a PBY-5A Catalina parked at MYF, where my mom worked (at Gibbs’ Flying Service) when I was a kid. I always wanted to fly in one. Then, when Jacques Cousteau had one, I wanted to own one. The only problem is that it weighs a bit more than 12,500 pounds, so it needs a copilot. Ditto an R-4D/C-47/DC-3. (Oh, yeah; and they’re hella expensive.)
But there’s that billion-dollar lottery prize, so…
I forgot to post this yesterday. A 1975 Cessna 150M ditched in Seattle. The pilot is OK.
I see from an article posted last night that the aircraft has been recovered.
Something I noticed yesterday.
That’s a lot of black on the underside of the fuselage. I’m wondering if he blew an oil line.
The original ones had a dedicated/remote engineer’s station in the middle of the plane. It was one of the first if not THE first to do so. They had a light panel that they used to communicate between pilot and engineer.
I wonder how they modified them to do away with that station.
Does a 150 have an oil cooler? Can’t think of any external lines. maybe they blew a jug and threw oil out the vent.
I don’t see one. You are probably right.
Interesting. That plane was owned by a club I almost joined twice. Once right before Sept 11, 2001, and once right as the housing bubble burst in 2008. Note to all: short the whole market if you hear about me flying again.
Not mentioned in this example: me almost joining a local club in 2019.
Gibbs Flying Service and Montgomery Field (MYF)… Boy, does that bring back memories. A friend took me for my first little airplane ride there. Cessna 150. We flew MYF to Santa Monica (SMO) and back. Hooked me for life… Got my private license within a year.
Are registration numbers in the U.S. assigned sequentially? The one taken out of the water at Alki is within 150 (ironically) of the plane I did my first solo in.