Most difficult approaches & why?
 

Hi Gents.
First of all i'm sorry to bring up a such old and stereotype questions.
I'm in a phase of my career that i think i need some new challenges to satisfy my hunger.After all with 6000 hrs and mostly being radar vectored ,i still don't think to be able to mastery the full approaches in case of radar outages and and also some difficult environments of flight such as thunderstorm & one Eng out procedures.
I appreciate your experiences and opinions.
Fly SAFE for everyone.:ok:

ok, this is mostly a turboprop or bizjet airport, but try looking at the Lugano and Innsbruck IFR arrival procedures-very very interesting!

I agree, the amount of vectoring we get and 'shortcuts' ATC give us definitely help erode the basic IF approach skills we do in our basic training and skills tests!

gil

Forget about any IFR flying skills in EU.

Radar coverage everywhere... vecotors to an ILS app 99% of the time. Occasional VOR. Rare though!

Innsbruck is interesting, haven't been to Lugano.

Sion with an initial altitude of 17000 feet and six degree glide (ad elevation about 2000 feet) is at least very scenic.

Samedan (St Moritz) is relatively tricky considering that it is VFR only, lots of high mountains (msa about 15000 feet) and lots of aircraft at times in all sizes between small sep to G550 and the like. And it is not a controlled airport.

I went to Lugano lots of times in a Sabreliner. Naver seemed a problem tho I was P2 and the Capt seemed to know what he was doing!!

Nice takes planning, skill, and experience to do well...

Some of the ones in little old New Zealand must be up there. Two of my favourites are Te Anau/Manapouri and Kaikoura

I appreciate a lot Gentlemen.
Please keep coming and share more of your experiences and unique approaches and places.
:cool:

BIIS, Isafjordur in Iceland
 

Aspen, CO (KASE) can be an eye opener! I don't have any pics but search of You Tube should work

GF

I agree 100%. It can get very, very interesting in marginal weather and/or at night.

London Heathrow is by far the most challenging airport I've flown into.

I've heard many rumours/stories that some pilots can't handle the pressure for landing at Heathrow so they divert to Manchester and/or quit their job.

I've also heard of many potential runway incursions, mid-air collisions during climb-out/final approach, etc. Scary stuff!

Err, right...................:rolleyes:

Since Aviophage claims to fly the A340-600 for Virgin, he must be based at LHR. Or is that just in his wildest dreams?:confused:

Heathrow challenging? In a way certainly since its a very high traffic density, but the most challenging? Certainly not, thanks mainly to simply brilliant ATC and pretty well designed procedures.

Aspen is pretty interesting, as is Courchevel (sp?)

The approach to RWY 13 at Kai Tak (Hong Kong's old airport) via the IGS with a near 90 degree turn at 400 feet at the chequerboard took real flying skill, especially in a crosswind. Checkout this video and you'll see what I mean:

YouTube - Most Extreme Airports Crosswind Landing Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport 1998

And from the cockpit it looked like this, two videos, one with sound and one without:

YouTube - Real Landing at Hong Kong Kai Tak 13

YouTube - Boeing 747 Cockpit video landing Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport ?? ???? in rain IGS approach

They don't build approaches like that anymore!!

Most difficult approach
 

Got to agree with "On the beach". Rwy 13 at Kai Tak was certainly the most difficult/challenging approach in its time. Anyone tried the easterly approach into Sarfait (Oman/Yemen border) during the monsoon? Not really an airport, but interesting!:eek:

Not exactly exotic, but Blackpool has quite a tricky approach onto rwy 10, low platform, high minima, step descent, made life for the LPC/OPC rather frustrating!
http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/eadba...2008-09-25.pdf

Any cat "C" airport would be classed as "demanding" as the consequences of getting it wrong would make the airfield/approach, less forgiving. These airports are still within the capabilities of the "average" pilot.

I saw a film years ago of Ag pilots in New Zealand operating off planed ridges with steep almost vertical sides just to name a few examples. Some were bent like a banana, steep slope, taking off into rising ground, etc., etc. An immediate turn would be required after takeoff on some examples. Passengers are not allowed to be carried on those ops. Some of the airstrips in Papua Nugini would follow a close second, if not on a Parr. The pilots who operate from those sorts of "airports" show exceptional skills IMHO and are demanding.

I am hearing allot of what...not allot of why some approaches are demanding...some ideas...

Work backwards from a sunny VFR day, flat farm land, no hills, a missed could go any direction, you have fuel to fly anywhere..

Now your flying an approach that has multiple navigational turns, least amount of info...NDB for instance, where you have to make a final turn at the marker for final...so you get that wrong........mountains all over...low on fuel, you can only miss in a very particular direction and alt, and you have to enter a hold...and sit there...no radar, no one is babysitting you...your flying a plane that can't get above the ice, and your picking up ice...your by yourself...the gear on your plane is minimal...no dme, all timed, no gps...you radios suck...your climbing at 500 fpm in the mountains...you have passengers nagging you....it's very loud and your not pressurized, so your ears are popping all over the place.....now you just lost and engine...your at 5000 ft and that's about all you can do single engine...you got go back down..because your not getting over the hills...so now you gotta fly that approach below mins..it's a one way trip, so you gotta get this right...so you come out of the hold doing 120 kts at 6000 ft, barely holding alt...weather just went down to 500ft on and approach that has the MDA at 1200 ft...

Have fun...