YSBK Seaplane landing procedure?
 

Was just out riding the bike about 5:30 this arvo and happened to have the pleasure of witnessing a Caravan Amphibian or whatever you call em landing at Bankstown on 11C...

Now what interests me is why this plane flies the base leg right up to the runway threshold and just turns onto final really low right over the runway. Is there a specific reason that seaplanes don't establish themselves on a normal final at YSBK, or anywhere else for that matter?

No doubt it's standard procedure and all that, but it does look pretty spectacular from the ground...

The Beaver is coming in from the east at 500' from Sydney Harbour R405.

Late final turn is so the pilot can see runway.

He lands with controls crossed in in order to see runway on final.

If your refferring to the Beaver that is operated by Sea King airway then it is a monetary based thing.

A few months ago I was wandering around on the tarmac and he happens to park just accross on the other side of the taxiway from our aircraft.

He went through all the financials of why flying no final leg saves them a few minutes in the circuit... but in the end you would be amazed it actually saves them $12000 a year in fuel savings. It costs 1200 an hour to run.

PM me if you want the finer details.

M/E

The reason why the Caravan flew little or almost no base leg is because SeaPlanes are excempt from flying the 500 metre final leg. This excemption was designed more for water operations so the pilot can get a better view of where he's landing, or perhaps if flying into a valley, etc, prior to landing. It wasn't really designed for landing at Bankstown... a little play on the rules if you ask me, but you didn't, so there you go.

Merry Christmas.

You'll also see the Seawing Beaver conduct early crosswind turns rather than climbing to 500' on upwind off 29 at Bk. Whether or not this is for the same reasons multi_engined mentioned is another thing....