Twin Beeches have tailwheels. Castering tailwheels.
Fellas: there is no doubt that hairy-chested airmen can fly the pants off anything, conventional gear or not. An NDB is pure luxury, accustomed as we all are to audible range let-downs. I think that the "A" quadrant is germane here, as the "N" is reserved for the adjacent North Melbourne community.
That foolishness aside, a non-ILS approach to a major destination runway is unforgivable. To speculate that a foreign crew might be fatigued after an intercontinental flight is to parse the obvious. Why try to justify an obviously, clearly inadequate approach? An easy, vectored ILS is what long haul heavy crew ( and passengers, too, if they had a clue) expect. To provide, and require otherwise, is to compromise safety in its most basic form.
All readers of this post not current widebody captains who have seen more dawns than they care to remember need not respond with tales of daring-do. We were all young once, but now we have real jobs. Flying to real, fair-dinkum airports chock full of ILS approaches to every runway. While tired. And no holding, either, Jack.
Twin Beech. C-17 compass, tailwheel, carb heat, bfo, dit-dah, dah-dit. A cone of silence without Maxwell Smart, or the Chief. But with Agent 99 for sure.
Last edited by Twin Beech; 26th Feb 2013 at 14:55.