how do you REALISTICALLY fly in/out of major airports?

[briansommers 74]

How do you realistically fly in/out of major airports without driving an airliner?

I guess charter jets do but not that often. 

The only way would be small cargo planes, yes?

I'm trying to come up with realistic ways to fly in/out of major airports (I've bought a ton of them over the years for FS/P3d)  without flying airliners.

Ideas?

[hs118 707]

Check out youtube for videos of GA pilots flying in and out of large airports in California. Ton of videos will give you the idea.

For my money, you have to have live ATC....no way around it. VATSIM or, best of all, PilotEdge.

A secondary option is software like Pilot2ATC or ProATC. 

If you don't have ATC, flying in and out of larger airports in Class B or C airspace is just flying in and out of smaller airports.

Hope you get some other interesting answers.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

In Light Sport one of the additions to the license requires a takeoff and landing into a major airport, like Sky Harbor.  You do not have to get the endorsement and I would not have sought one had i finished my lessons, since the whole purpose of GA for me is to enjoy the smaller airports, even though some like Deer Valley pull in as many takeoffs and landings as the majors, or Falcon Field where I trained.  The smallest strip I ever flew from was Brenda, Arizona, which was barely 1000 feet long and you had to steer the trike or PPC (no fixed wing there, I flew trikes) carefully to avoid the high terrain on both sides of the airstrip as one climbed out.  I would fly almost due south until I hit I-10, then climb to the east until I reached 1500-2000 ft. AGL then proceed back to the northeast so I could practice landing on a small dry lakebed.  Biggest airport I ever flew a trike from was Double Eagle Airport (then home of the Eclipse jet) in Albuquerque NM.  Not too far from ABQ Intl.  I have seen some bizjets and small piston GA aircraft parked to the south of terminal two at Sky Harbor, near where Air Force One parks.   In fact I saw Obama just come in on Air Force one (he had not deplaned yet) as I once flew with my family to Orlando--not a GA aircraft but a pretty cool....uh...bizjet!

John

Edited October 14, 2018 by Cactus521

[BrianW 124]

It differs in different parts of the world, but in FAA land lots of large airports share air carrier and general aviation operations.  Operationally speaking the procedure isn’t really that different.  If you’re flying a slower aircraft ATC will usually keep you out of the flow of other traffic as long as possible. You’ll also get a squawk code flying VFR into class B and C airports, but that’s about it. Usually it's the steep landing fees that keep smaller aircraft away, not the size of the airport.

[Chock 17,769]

Realistically, you're not going to be flying in and out of major UK airports in a small GA prop too often, the runway, parking and ATS charges make it fairly impractical unless you've got money to burn (fair enough, the first few hours parking is free and the parking and ATS charges aren't that much, but you could be charged well over £2,500 to use the runway at a peak time at places such as Manchester International).

If you do have money to burn however, there is usually a small GA ramp at most UK airfields and landing and departing from even one of the major airports is little different from at any other airport in terms of most procedures, however, there are often minimum speeds and climb gradients to be achieved, which make it impractical for some private aeroplanes. At Manchester International for example, it would simply not be sensible to land a Cessna 152 or some such there when Manchester's City Airport (Barton) is just a few miles away. Both these airports are right next to the same motorway, so there's really no advantage in landing at the big airport and in fact there is a significant advantage in landing at the smaller one when it comes to the cost of parking a car, i.e. it's free at Barton and extortionate at Manchester International, unless you happen to work there, in which case it is free. A cup of tea is cheaper at Barton too lol.

Of course this is the advantage of a flight sim, you can pretend you have more money than sense and land your Cessna at Heathrow if you like, in which case, you'll be needing a copy of that airport's aerodrome manual. Usually these can be found at the airport's website.

Edited October 15, 2018 by Chock

[Jude Bradley 659]

17 minutes ago, Chock said:

you can pretend you have more money than sense.

This is probably true for most if not all flightsimmers right now. 🙂

[Paraffin 2,197]

Fly a helicopter? 🙂

Back when I was a commercial photographer, I chartered helicopters out of airports like Opa-Locka in South Florida, and out of several large International airports in Central and South America. Availability of mechanics, avgas and jet fuel mean that many helicopter charter outfits are based at large airports.

You'd want to follow the correct ATC procedures, but the advantage of a helicopter is you can stay well away from the arrival and departure paths for the heavies. A helicopter is also an ideal platform for sightseeing and appreciating a complex airport scenery file, although doing that may break real-world regs if you're buzzing the terminal and tower!

[pracines 823]

21 hours ago, briansommers said:

How do you realistically fly in/out of major airports without driving an airliner?

I guess charter jets do but not that often. 

The only way would be small cargo planes, yes?

I'm trying to come up with realistic ways to fly in/out of major airports (I've bought a ton of them over the years for FS/P3d)  without flying airliners.

Ideas?

Realistically? It depends on the airport, runway layout, weather, experience, aircraft capability, and more.  

Since your talking about a simulator it depends a lot on AI traffic:

If you're talking about GA single props into a major airport, time of the day can matter a lot as well. Before 6 am and after maybe 10 pm local may be best.

 

If one can, just fly to any number of close by GA airports if you want to fly/plan realistically. But again it depends, for example KOAK is very GA friendly because of the layout.

[fluffyflops 1,857]

Slots

Curfews

Runway closures 

EU ops restrictions (the dutch and French not playing ball) 

Dcn permits

Landing permits

Ppr

Traffic rights 

4th freedom rights

5th freedom rights 

Cabotage

Historical slot rights 

Crew visas 

Equipment on aircraft

Mtow 

Engineering coverage

Fire category of the airport 

The list goes on and on... Its not as simple as you simmers and most pilots think.

You might  land into an airport with an engine fire onboard only to find there's no fireman there to put you out, and no hospital to deal with your burns and then no engineering to replace your engine...

 bggw for example has this problem

Edited October 15, 2018 by tooting

[Chock 17,769]

Oddly enough, I was collecting a radioactive package from the cargo depot at EGCC yesterday night (you should have felt the weight of it, I assume the case it was in was lead-lined) and so I went over to the cargo ramp, which is behind the high 60-70 number remote stands, and what was on one of those stands? A Diamond GA twin.

It was dark and I was too busy to have time to get really close to it, so I couldn't say for sure whether it was a DA42 or the larger six-seat DA62, but in any case those stands normally have things like A330s, 757s, 787s and 747s on them, in fact the smallest aeroplane I've seen on there prior to last night, is an ATR-72, so it was very surprising to see a small GA twin there. I do know some airlines use DA42s for pilot training, so it may possibly have been one of those, but whatever the reason for it being there, it was there all night and still there at 6am this morning when I left work, so yeah, apparently there are some people with more money than sense lol.

[DaviiB 104]

You'd be surprised how regularly private jets (and props) fly into major airports. Just have a look at the GA ramps on Google Maps. Pretty much every major airport in North America has at least one FBO dedicated to private jet operations.

Some see more traffic than others.....but even LHR across the pond has an FBO (Signature Flight Support).

[MartinRex007 390]

Last time I flew out of a major airport at San Diego International (KSAN) we were taxiing onto Rwy 27 for takeoff in a Cessna 421 headed to China Lake and the tower told us to please expedite the takeout there was a 737 on short final..... never saw a pilot takeoff so quick!

[Chock 17,769]

That DA-42 was gone off the remote stands at EGCC today, but there was a Cessna Citation 550 parked on Stand 100 at EGCC all last night. It was still there at 6.30 this morning when I left.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Chock

[JRBarrett 3,070]

Biz jets regularly fly into and out of major airports. As others have noted, almost all large airports have at least 1 FBO dedicated to (primarily business aviation) GA.

In our corporate operation, if we have passengers who are conducting business in New York City itself, we will usually fly into Teterboro, but if they are catching an international flight, we would go directly to JFK.

It’s not a problem with biz jets, or even turboprops, since their speeds on approach and departure are comparable to airliners, so they do not disrupt the overall traffic flow. It’s more problematic with piston-powered aircraft.

Although, when I worked at a local FBO many years ago, we used to fly a Piper Aztec into JFK on a regular basis - but back then there was a short runway 14/32, adjacent to runway 13L/31R that was dedicated for smaller, slower GA traffic. That runway was removed in 1990.

[Rimshot 1,135]

Here's a nice video of an IFR arrival at EHAM in a Piper Saratoga: