Paro (VQPR) Airport (Bhutan)

[RandallR 451]

Friends, if you haven't tried this airport give it a go!  If you survive the approach, you get to see one of the more unique airports that I've seen - is this really a default airport?

 

 

 

 

[Cpt_Piett 4,893]

Instead of making a new thread, I'll revive this one! 

After doing some approach practice in the Fenix A320 and the PMDG 737-700, I'd like to add some information which could be useful. Having flown "all around the world" since the release of MSFS, this has to be on top of the list when it comes to challenging approaches. Forget Innsbruck and Santos Dumont. Getting into this airfield in an airliner requires some serious skill. The first time I tried I completely misread the RNP approach charts, thinking they were "straight in" approaches, which made me do several go-arounds. 

Even after doing a bit of reading, I did a serious blunder in the final stages of the approach, leaving me to climb around 10,000ft to get clear of the surrounding mountains. Not fun having "terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up!" screaming at you for several minutes. 

Some information from Wikipedia: 

Paro International Airport is the sole international airport of the four airports in Bhutan. It is 6 km (3.7 mi; 3.2 nmi) from Paro in a deep valley on the bank of the river Paro Chhu. With surrounding peaks as high as 5,500 m (18,000 ft), it is considered one of the world's most challenging airports, and fewer than two dozen pilots are certified to land at the airport.

In the sim, VQPR Paro is an enhanced ("hand crafted") airport which is included in the standard edition of MSFS. The runway length is 2265m / 7431ft.

The RNP procedures are actually "cloud-breaking" procedures with the purpose of taking you down to a minimum safe altitude at some point in the close proximity of the airfield. That's the easy part, if you have some practice doing RNAV approaches. After that one has to make a circling approach descending down towards the runway. Which is easier said than done in an airliner, flying with flaps out at low speeds with towering mountains around you. One of the most straightforward of these cloud-break procedures is RNAV (RNP) X, which takes you down to an altitude of 10630ft around 4nm southeast of the airport. The airport elevation itself is more than 3000ft below at 7364'. 

Next comes the challenging part, the circling approach. Although the visual charts are absent from Bhutan AIP, it's possible to find some information using Google. To help manage the visual circuits, I highly recommend a freeware addon by kychungdotcom which can be found here. In addition to an excellent written (PDF) tutorial for the visual circling approaches, he has included some very useful POIs to guide with the first practice attempts, until one is familiar with the area.

If you like flying a 737, I can also highly recommend a video by RW 737 pilot Flightdeck2sim here. He made the video in July 2020, just before the release of MSFS, using the excellent 737-800 Zibo mod in X-Plane 11. There's no need to watch the whole video which is close to 3 hrs. Just start around 2hrs 09mins for the circle-to-land, or around 2hrs 18mins for the RNP approach. 

To finish off, I also made my own video, showcasing the visual circling approach into RWY 15. I departed from VNKT Kathmandu, Nepal. The flight time is just around 45 mins with a distance of around 250nm. Prior to the start of the video I came in via RNP X. At the start of the video I'm descending down to minimums in the valley just southeast of the airport.

I tried to make the video quality as good as possible. I've got all my settings on ultra, terrain LOD at 400, object LOD 200, shadow maps 4096, HDR10, resolution 3840x2160. And yes this put some real stress on both CPU and GPU. At some point I saw the reported VRAM usage was around 20(!) gigabytes. RAM also around 20. I recorded the video in the same resolution using a bit rate of 60Mbps. I just uploaded it so it might take a while for YouTube to finish processing the 4K version.  

I guess quite a few simmers here already have tried getting into Paro, and a few have probably even mastered it. For the newbies trying it out, don't make my rookie mistake of trying a straight in landing from the RNP approaches. It's just not possible in the 320/737 - believe me, I've tried! My first attempt at a landing resulted in this situation: 

One more thing. If you mess things up during the visual circuit and need to get out of the valley quickly, increase speed to the minimum safe speed (the "green dot") whilst retracting landing gear and flaps, and hit the EXPED button on the FCU. This will make the Airbus climb at the green dot speed all the way up to the altitude you select, resulting in maximum climb rates. 

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[Farlis 2,331]

I did this approach in the Aerosoft A319 in P3D quite a few times. Now it's time to do it in the 737 in VR. (I'm not doing it in the A320. I don't need to make it more difficult than it is in real life)

Your visual circling approach is way off though. There are some videos to be found on the internet that explain how this is supposed to be flown.

They should have included some of those visual referene points in the sim. The monastery that you aim for on approach on the left side of the valley is missing.

 

Here you can see it partially but there were once where the steps are even explained. You see clearly that they fly on the left side of the valley and then basically make an s turn onto final.

 

Edited May 25, 2022 by Farlis

[Cpt_Piett 4,893]

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

Your visual circling approach is way off though. There are some videos to be found on the internet that explain how this is supposed to be flown.

I get your point. Should have stayed on the left side of the valley, then made a right hand turn. That wouldn’t have required such a steep descent on short final.

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

They should have included some of those visual referene points in the sim. The monastery that you aim for on approach on the left side of the valley is missing.

Agreed. I recommend the addon which I mentioned above. It’s a good way to get familiar with the area, along with the written tutorial. 

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

(I'm not doing it in the A320. I don't need to make it more difficult than it is in real life)

Don’t get this point though.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[odourboy 1,291]

What are you using for video capture here? The quality is great! 

[Cpt_Piett 4,893]

9 minutes ago, odourboy said:

What are you using for video capture here? The quality is great! 

Thanks. I’m using GeForce Experience. Tried with OBS, but I get terrible screen tearing for some reason. 

[Farlis 2,331]

5 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Don’t get this point though.

In real life they do it with the A319. Which is smaller, lighter and more nimble than the A320. The equivalent of the 737-700 as opposed to trying t with the 800.

It's all about the turns on this approach. So while it is certainly is possible to land an A320 there, which you have demonstrated, it is harder than what they are doing in real life.

[cianpars 1,218]

I've not done it in a jet, but the scenery and location is beautiful and the airport is handcrafted excellently.  Can't believe it is a default airport.

A great place for a flight if you haven't been there before.

[mrueedi 702]

9 hours ago, Farlis said:

Here you can see it partially but there were once where the steps are even explained. You see clearly that they fly on the left side of the valley and then basically make an s turn onto final.

 

Just as a side note, the turbulence in this video is way overdone! Airbus should add a slider to remove the shaking 🙂

 

[Cpt_Piett 4,893]

Blackbox771 did a livestream of Kathmandu to Paro in the Fenix yesterday. 

 

[Gazzareth 842]

On 5/24/2022 at 9:42 PM, Cpt_Piett said:

I guess quite a few simmers here already have tried getting into Paro, and a few have probably even mastered it. For the newbies trying it out, don't make my rookie mistake of trying a straight in landing from the RNP approaches. It's just not possible in the 320/737 - believe me, I've tried! My first attempt at a landing resulted in this situation: 

I've watched a few RL video's of landings at Paro before I attempted it. Would say your attempt is by far the smoothest touchdown. Most I have seen seem more like a controlled crash to avoid the situation that you ended up in.

At least it wakes the passengers up !

 

G

[WestEnd 33]

I'll need to try this approach in MSFS. I spent a couple of weeks in P3D practicing it in the 737 watching youtube real life videos to help. 

Getting the S turn on final correct is essential.

The other thing I found I had to do was have the aircraft fully configured for landing pretty much as I entered the valley. Full flaps, gear down, at VREF +5 etc. Without that it was very difficult to bleed off speed at the rate of descent required.

Edited June 10, 2022 by WestEnd

[MrBitstFlyer 3,910]

On 5/25/2022 at 10:43 AM, mrueedi said:

Just as a side note, the turbulence in this video is way overdone! Airbus should add a slider to remove the shaking 🙂

Love it lol! 😄

[Bdub22 1,639]

Every video I've watched of planes flying into Paro never have a circle-to-land approach. There are published RNP approaches for both runways and it's always a straight in approach once cleared visually. 

[Cpt_Piett 4,893]

This is the procedure that Blackbox771 used in his video. Instead of using any of the RNP “cloud-break” procedures, he went straight to PRO VOR then the visual approach doing a right-hand turn to base in the valley northeast of the airport. Finally a S-turn to final. 

On my attempt I did left-hand turns in the valley and ended up having a lot of terrain to clear on short final. I made it down somehow, but the method below seems better.

Edited June 11, 2022 by Cpt_Piett