It is good you brought this up Ian. The flight levels over there are unlike most of the others we are used to seeing. The cruse altitudes I posted are right off of the VATSIM Portugal VACC website preferred routing. I can't explain the reasoning though.And what's this stuff about you may not making it sunday???

Mike,Please add another aircraft to the fleet. See you on Sunday.Tom Haug - BCA45Britannic Charter Airlines Group

Mike,Holiday weekend for me this weekend, so my time is filled with obligations - I hope to join in late on Sunday - might be able to log on around 2000Z, only time will tell.As I mentioned, I did do a flight from Portugal to Madeiras yesterday evening. I originally figured that the FL was an error on your part, and filed for FL360. Once I reached cruise I started looking at Servinfo ( I love checking out who is flying, what they are flying, and where they are flying) and noticed 2 aircraft doing the flight FROM Madeiras to Portugal at FL360. Rather than cause an issue I climbed up to FL370 and that was that. Now that you and another have responded to my question, I understand that FL370 is the correct altitude.To my suprise, I had someone send me a private message as LPMA_V_APP telling me to call him as I start down. I quickly looked to see who it was on ServInfo and thought "oh great, a text only S1 - sigh". It was a few moments later that I realized the controller was in fact Mr. Pedro Rodrigues himself. After working out the descent profile, I called him on my way down to Porto Santo VOR. He cleared me direct FUNOL, which I did not appear to have and instead had me go direct to FUNOR, and informed me that afterwards I would be cleared to FUN for the VOR/DME approach.On the way down Pedro and I chatted about the approach, and the plan was that I would fly the VOR/DME approach, report the field in sight and then be cleared for the Visual approach to runway 5. I had the field in sigh just as I crossed the FUN VOR at 3000 feet and started out on the 213 and down to 1300. By 4DME I was doing 165 knots and had the gear and flaps down. I started my turn to 300 at 8 DME and had a LOT of problems trying to figure out when to start the transition from base to final. I had a tough time seeing the field from within the cockpit, and had to switch to the "VC" view and turn my head to the right a lot to get a good sightline of it. Hard to do all this while "Grabbing the stick" and manually flying the beast.When I rolled out, I realized I had turned too late, and I now had the field at my 1-2 O Clock. The mountain was CLOSE - I mean REAL CLOSE. Then I look at my winds, 210@15G21 - ouch. I had a hard time bleeding off speed as I headed for the threshold, and I almost broke my pedals with FULL LEFT RUDDER the whole way in - we needed to do a little bank about 3 seconds before touchdown and she straightened out for the most part just before the wheels touched down. We slammed the throttles into reverse and stood on the brakes - at least it's a long runway .After reporting down, Pedro had me turn around at the end of the runway and back taxi to Bravo (he even assigned me a parking stall).The approach is insane. Though I think I did an OK job of it, I certainly would have been screaming if I was a PAX on the aircraft.I think that we will have a lot of guys going around, and probably a few more losing their wings and gear on that mountainside on Sunday. All I can say is, is you have not tried this approach yet - make sure you have the charts available - it's a fun one.Finally, Pedro is a GREAT guy, knows his stuff, read his post on the approach - it appears to be bang on.We're going to have to come up with something pretty special to top this one. I think I'd like to see a group of us fly the famous IGS13 or maybe another fun visual in the US somewhere. I also would like to see some of our non north american friends suggest some great approaches to fly in their own back yards - it's always fun to visit somewhere new, and also fun to play "host" for an event like this.Good luck guys .Ian Elchitz CYWG

You should watch this video if you haven't seen it. Two balked landings by a TAP A321 at LPMA with a nice x-wind. :-)http://194.65.6.250/mbs/files/madeira.zipAbout 7 MB.Cheers,Graham

Late Scenery note.Freeware scenery available for LPMA & LPPD.'lppd.zip' from the FS2002 scenery section of the library here and..'lpmd10.zip' & lpmd10up.zip' from www.flightsim.comSome SIDs, STARs & Approaches available at http://www.navdata.at/EDIT:Missed two extra files for LPMD lpmd10u2.zip & lpmd10u3.zipSorry guys :-doh

Great video! And that is from the easy side, rwy 23. I hope this does not scare anyone off.

Having just installed the LPPD scenery I cannot reccomend it.There is only a localiser approach at LPPD so you need VASI or PAPI to help in the descent and this scenery, or the way it is installed, removes all visual glideslope aids :-(

I checked out the Madeira scenery and mesh by Toni Agramont and it's very good. If interested look for Madeira3.zip in the AVSIM library. This scenery even includes the lead-in lights.

Thanks Stiffy. I will check that one out.

Not finding it Stiffy ?????????Searched for Madeira3.zip, Madeira, and Toni Agramont,, NOT THERE.

Hey Stiffy,Thanks for the heads-up on that scenery, I had it on my HD but not installed.Looks better than the lmpd scenery but looks to have even less parking space :-eek Back to practice with the new scenery (-:

It's definitely available on Flightsim.com - if you can get on there.

I hope to make at least the first leg tomorrow. I've been practicing my LPMA 05 visual approach. It is definitely a good challenge, especially making the turnoff so you don't have to go all the way to the end, do a 180, and then back on the runway. I can foresee a fair bit of holding at FUNOR while people are backtracking on the runway.I've had good luck turning base at about 8 DME, 1000' MSL, flaps 30 gear down, at 150kts, bleeding it down to 140kts on my way toward the shore, and then 135kts short final. I was flying a bit light with ZFW 225,000 and GW about 235,000.Having the GELO and ROSARIO waypoints doesn't help much since they disappear before you get to them due to turn anticipation. Besides, its a visual!BTW, why are people crossing FUN at 3000? From the charts, it looks like you can leave 3000 at FUN033/7 (FAF) for FUN at 1430. I suppose ATC might change that.Lee Hetherington (KBOS)UAL337

Hi Lee,IMHO you have to cross FUNOR at 3000A, at FUN you are at approximately 1600 ft.Regards,KiekEHAM

Ugh. I'm not going to make it due to family commitments. Maybe next time.Lee Hetherington (KBOS)