Hey Puma <S>, I always enjoy your posts. I always felt I missed something not having the chance to fly a military jet in my career.
Do you recall.... Could you fly to civil limits in crappy weather? Did you have to do a GCA or maybe you had an ILS receiver? The Airline I flew for used to send us to Trenton (RCAF base) to keep us proficient at GCA's. Those guys on the ground were amazing.
Hey Busher! Thanks!
Wx mins were dependent on the command. For instance, my first assignment was as a T-33 pilot in the Aerospace Defense Command. We were trained to fly to field minimums wherever it might be. As a brand new, fresh out of the schoolhouse, 2nd Lt T-33 pilot, I led a four ship of T birds from Colorado Springs to Prince Edward Island, Canada. It was pretty much as far northeast as we could go on the continent. Of course, I had a very experienced, old head, crusty, seeing eye Major in my back seat. I had the responsibility for all the flight planning, fuel stops, etc for four jets and seven other pilots. We stopped at Scott AFB for fuel, food and pressed on, arriving at Prince Edward well after dark in a raging snow storm. We all flew PAR approaches to minimums. That was a half mile vis if memory serves me correctly. The T-33 didn’t have anything close to an instrument T or six pack on the instrument panel but, did have ILS capability. It was pretty much a hodgepodge of instruments that took some time to get good with.
In comparison, a visit with one of my pilot training buds during his six month Tactical Air Command F-4 school, revealed that his wx minimums were 1500 and 5 until he had X number of F-4 hours after the schoolhouse. It then ratcheted down as he got more hours in the jet. I think the lowest wx mins an experienced F-4 jock could get to was 500 and 3. I may be slightly off on the numbers but, it was surprising that the leading tactical fighter was so limited. At the time, Phantoms didn’t have ILS, only non precision TACAN, and the trusty old PAR.
Agree, the PAR controllers could work magic. That was always a fun and gratifying approach to fly.