Most Difficult Airfield

[petitb]

A friend e-mailed me this link Most difficult landing in the world - Bhutan? - YouTube showing an approach to Bhutan, under the heading "Most difficult landing in the world?".
I would have thought that there might be other candidates for that heading.
Are there ?

[framer]

My word! I thought that was going to be boring but it definately seems like a chanllenge in a jet. If there were nasty winds or you lost an engine failure I imagine it could get pretty hairy! No idea if there are more challenging ones. Thanks for posting .

[18-Wheeler]

Pfftt .... most difficult my bum.
There's about a hundred more difficult runways in Papua New Guinea and no doubt many other examples around the world. And yes I used to fly into some of the easier ones in a Citation.

[Alloy]

Last four minutes are defiantly sporting!

[Dan Winterland]

My company trained the Druk Air pilots for a while. Our sim instructors were very impressed by their guys - they were very competant and particualrly unphased by their home base. We fly to Kathmandhu and think it's a bit special, but for the Druk Air guys - it's an easy day out.

Paro gets really interesting in an OEI situation. For that reason, Druk Air operate A319s with A321 rated V2500s. A real rocket ship!

[Exascot]

We fly to Kathmandhu and think it's a bit special

I did my command route check into there IFR The bs

[mcdhu]

Gilgit (OPGT, GIL) in Northern Pakistan in the Indus Valley is fairly hilarious. 5,000' up and 5,000' long surrounded by seriously high ground with minimal navaids (NDB only some years ago). PIA run Twotters and ATRs, the military use C130. We went in the Jumbolina.

Lovely fresh water pearls to be had there.

[lomapaseo]

I would be just as frightened looking out the window in some of those homes.

[bubbers44]

MHTG, Tegucigalpa, Honduras made it to second place in the worlds most dangerous airports in the world on the discovery channel. 1st place went to an Asian high altitude airport that jets couldn't fly in to. This was my favorite airport in the 757.

[epsum]

What about Courchevel (LFLJ),
elevation 6588ft, 18.5% uphill slope, and less than 1800ft length. Most astonishing, that this airport has served Dash 7's in history.

[Dani]

approach to Bhutan

not sure if it's the most difficult one, but surely one of the most risky. Established at 50ft AGL...

[Che Guevara]

Lukla airport in Nepal, not for the faint hearted....
See u-tube.

[Bill Macgillivray]

Difficult airfields

Try "SARFAIT on the Oman/Yemen border in the "Khareef" (monsoon) and/or in the days when the "other side" had a tendency to shoot at you!
Very life changing!!

[Flightmech]

epsum,

Courchevel? Didn't they film a Bond movie there? Lukla has my vote!

[V1... Ooops]

Akureyri in Iceland can be entertaining as well - the ILS is right up the middle of a mountain valley, once established inbound you can look out and see terrain above you on both sides. The arrow shows the runway. Once you get to the end, you see that the localizer is offset...


Akureyri, Iceland (BIAR)

[ck777]

I've been a lurker on pprune for many years and rarely post.

Last year I had the opportunity to sit in the flight deck on a C-130 flying from Islamabad to Gilgit. It was crystal clear and not a cloud in the sky. Being an aviation enthusiast this was really a dream come true to sit in the flight deck. I felt like a 10 year old the whole flight.

It was a spectacular flight and one I will remember for the rest of my life. The pilots were just amazing and I could tell they were enjoying themselves as well. It truly was amazing descending through the valley and the size of the mountains on both sides of the aircraft. They had been flying in and out of Gilgit for a couple of weeks and had some great stories.

A couple of days later I was on a C-17 flying into Skardu. Although I wasn't in the flight deck it was a pretty fun ride to the runway. I'm not in the military but had the opportunity to hitch a couple of rides.

Cheers

[semmern]

I'd say Værøy airport in Lofoten, Norway, is a pretty good candidate. It's not high altitude or surrounded by mountains or anything. It's on a small island on one of the outermost islands in the Lofoten chain in northern Norway. On one side is the ocean, on the other side is a steep hill, which makes for some VERY interesting downdrafts and constant turbulence on short final. This in an area of very rough weather on an almost daily basis. Widerøe used to fly Twotters there, as evidenced here:


Link to youtube vid. Stupendously huge scrotum made of hard metal required to try this approach

[Dg800]

What about Courchevel (LFLJ),
elevation 6588ft, 18.5% uphill slope, and less than 1800ft length. Most astonishing, that this airport has served Dash 7's in history.

A friend of mine's landed there in a glider as bad weather prevented him from making it back to home field and it was getting too late to get from there to anywhere halfway landable. Still better than the basically unlandable fields in that area but still something I wouldn't recommend trying, especially in an engineless plane which means you only have one chance to get it right.

[Zorin_75]

I would be just as frightened looking out the window in some of those homes.

This is the view you'd have:

[Dream Land]

Great video, really depends on the type of aircraft you're operating, Honduras in the 75 still looks the scariest, a Citation can go anywhere, no big deal.