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Slick9

Lovin' the TSeven...

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My flying time is really tight like most people due to real world time constraints.  I rarely ever turn the sim on during the week and only get air time on weekends.  This weekend my son had a basketball tournament which was going to keep us away from home all Sat. afternoon and most of the day on Sun.  So at 8:30am I preflighted and by 9:30am I departed CYYZ (Toronto) enroute for VNTK (Kathmandu) with Air Canada 911 a 777-300ER.  After getting home from the tournament around 9pm, I checked the flight and all was well.  Around midnight it was time to head to the flight deck to prepare for the TOD.  

 

 

In the briefing the final approach and landing I decided some changes were needed from my normal protocol.  I usually take over from the autopilot at 9,000ft and manually fly the approach and landing.  But after reviewing the VNTK RNAV 02 approach (from Navigraph it snakes between the mountains while descending towards the runway setting you up for a turn to final about 5 miles from the threshold) I decided in my fatigued state, this was too complex to try on this my first flight. So we briefed an VNAV/LNAV approach and set the DA to 4650 feet. I also briefed using autobrakes level 3 just in case the landing was long.  After briefing we ran through the descent checklist and then shortly thereafter we were cleared to begin descending.

 

 

After flying the downwind leg we turned base and here I was a little bit worried because the lateral flight path on the ND looked skewed.  Instead of a smooth line from my base turn to the first waypoint on final approach, the line looked like a 3, I was worried the autopilot was going to try to follow the line and get confused while weaving back and forth.  However, the auto pilot left the final base waypoint and smoothly transitioned to the first waypoint on final, ignoring the crooked lines on the ND.  As we began descending between through the mountain passage we were flaps 5, 180kts, according to the RNAV approach at the waypoint KT530 you begin a 4 degree continuous descent to the runway, so at KT530 we went gear down, flaps 20, speed 165 with VNAV commanding and 850ft per minute descent.  At this point there were clouds up ahead and we flew into them.  The pucker factor was very high as we descended in a winding descent with mountains on both sides and zero visibility because we were in the clouds.  I had my hands on the yoke and throttle ready to hit TOGA twice to climb and get the hell out of dodge at the first sign of trouble.  It was a true joy to watch the autopilot weave its way through the mountains while descending, and the view out the windows was all white.  Finally, at about 8 miles out we were coming to the bottom of the clouds and I could see the VASI lights on the runway, so I went to flaps 30 and VREF.  (I forgot to mention there was a 4kt tailwind, from what I can see, jets can only land on runway 02 because of terrain so we were going 02 regardless of wind).  By the time we completed the landing checklist we were approaching 1000ft, at 1000ft the FO called “1,000 feet, approach stable”. A few seconds later the autopilot gently rolled us on the final heading and I was able to see the runway.   I disconnected the autopilot and began driving down to the runway.  The FO called 100feet just before the runway, and 50 feet as we crossed the threshold, I raised the nose about 2 degrees and let her gently settle on to the runway, then I engaged the reversers and by the time we were halfway down the runway we were down to 60kts and manual braking. Welcome to Kathmandu!!  I love the T7 by PMDG, can’t get enough of the immersion.

 

 

 

Richard Bansa

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Hi Richard,

 

Great story! Im in the same boat as you.

 

I dont have much time to be spent for flying, and on top of the time issue, I have also started a "general home cockpit project", which means that most of the time I have, goes into fiddling with the cockpit project. However, now the project is in a state that I could actually do some flying after 3 months or so and im planning to do that tonight.

 

Sometimes I wonder how the fellow simmers has the time to sit behind the cockpit for 8hrs (or even more) flight? If I would be doing that few times a week, my wife and kids would probably have something to say... :) so, I will try to fly when it does not interfere too much my family, ie when the kids are sleeping:) well, still have an unhappy wife, but we can manage:)

 

Anyway, reading posts like this makes me want to go flying with the T7 right, away as in my opinion, the T7 is as real as it gets!

 

Happy flying everyone!

Cheers

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