PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Challenger crash at KASE
View Single Post
Old 3rd Feb 2014, 23:01
  #354 (permalink)  
glendalegoon
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: glendale
Posts: 819
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
just using google satellite views, I would do a ''circle'' (VMC ONLY, DAY) as follows:

depart the airport between threshold of 15 and midfield on about a 100 degree heading, hugging the mountains to the left, starting a descent * at vref plus 20 fully configured for landing at min spoolup n1/2*

over the town itself reverse course using my best constant radius turn skills, avoiding gondolas and establish myself following the road back to the airport, by this time I would have reduced altitude and though not seeing the airport, knowing the road would take me to the threshold on an angle.


on the satellite image the road is marked as 82.



I would also remember the following, or consider the following:


if circling to 33, I would have a bit of a tailwind while starting my reversal over downtown, so this would be the steepest bank. By the time I was on a heading of about 300 or so my ground speed should be reduced by the headwind associated with a 33 landing.

Yes, there are gondolas/ski lifts, noise concerns, visual miscues from the mountains but pre planning some headings, a good copilot calling airspeed/sink rates and bank/pitch angles would help.


I would also measure the distance from the over the airport fix for the entire turn around back to the threshold and compute (by hand) the mileage and amount of altitude to lose so as to be at the threshold just above field elevation. I would plan my rate of descent accordingly. In some ways this reminds me of the expressway visual to runway 31 at KLGA. But I digress

And the first few times, indeed always, I would be ready to say OH SHIRT and go around with max power.

Don't make the mistake of pitching and banking via total visual references, use instrument/visual scan.
glendalegoon is offline