The same ones that get done in the Airbus?

Heathrow between 1400z to 2000z on a Sunday on vatsim, when the kids are off school. 

 

Most of the time you find the tricky airports are in quite out of the way destinations, but one which is not - being located in Europe, albeit out in the Atlantic some way - which has been mentioned by a few people already, is LPMA (Madeira), colloquially known as Funchal Airport, but officially named Christiano Ronaldo international after the Portuguese footy player. On most lists of 'dangerous airports', it usually makes the top ten and it does require some additional training for crews in order to operate from there. Over the years there have been a number of fatal landing accidents there, which is really not that surprising when you see the place.

It sometimes gets tricky weather and it's not that great with regard to close-by diversionary airports either (typically the diversion airport is Gran Canaria), which means flights sometimes get cancelled to that destination if weather at alternates doesn't look good, which is not unknown since these are out in the Atlantic. Worth bearing in mind too, that one potential diversionary alternate would be Los Rodeos airport (GXCO), which as most people know, is the location of the worst airliner accident ever, when two B747 collided with one another (largely as a result of very foggy weather, but also some ATC confusion and poor crew decisions), so this general area is not the easiest of location to be operating an airliner. In diverting, you'd either be forced to land at LPMA, or find yourself right on the ragged edge of having enough fuel to make it to a mainland European airport if those other islands were socked in.

The airport used to be nicknamed 'the Kai Tak of Europe' because of the requirement to make a late and low altitude tight turn to avoid mountains for a line up, and the runway was originally notoriously short too, before being extended (twice). The final straw, with regard to prompting changes, was the crash of a TAP Boeing 727-200ADV in 1977 (TAP-425) which was making its third attempt at landing there in poor visibility and stormy weather, causing it to touch down approximately 2,000 feet past the touchdown point and unable to stop in time to avert going off the end of the runway to encouter a 200 foot drop down to a beach where the thing ended up in pieces.

Here it is pictured at the time of that accident in the 70s, and it's not difficult to see how dangerous it was back then:

As noted, the crash of TAP 425 finally prompted the decision to extend the runway significantly, which is now over 9,000 feet long, meaning you can get a 747 down in one piece there nowadays, but it is still a very tricky airport to land at, not least because of the operational difficulties owing to the weather conditions.

LPMA is actually worth a look in MSFS, because it has an unusual runway which is built out over the water on a raised platform in a fairly unique feat of engineering; one which has won many architectural and engineering awards, but you can see that this is still a runway which is going to be difficult in any sort of crosswind or bad weather and will be prone to downdrafts on short finals what with that severe terrain drop just before the threshold; not to mention your radar altimeter is not going to be of much help either. Vref will be fairly high to quickly penetrate any downdrafts, so you probably will need to stomp on the brakes and use reverse thrust if you land long.

Edited August 25, 20223 yr by Chock

34 minutes ago, Chock said:

 it's not that great with regard to close-by diversionary airports either (typically the diversion airport is Gran Canaria), which means flights sometimes get cancelled to that destination if weather at alternates doesn't look good, which is not unknown since these are out in the Atlantic

Or Porto Santo with its 3000 M long runway just 55 kilometers to the north east.

Problem is apron space is limited to around 5 planes, once that is full, traffic will have to go elsewhere (Canary Islands or even Lisboa).

On 8/25/2022 at 7:27 AM, Chock said:

 

It's also a great place to go on holiday as I can now attest 

🙂

deleted

 

 

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by Noooch

On 8/24/2022 at 4:20 PM, 177B said:

There it is!

 

LFMN RWY 22 Approach for both Runways. 22L and 22R.

On 8/24/2022 at 4:20 PM, 177B said:

There it is!

 

I havent flown all the suggested approaches in this thread but I think everyone should try the Paro Int (Bhutan) RW 15 approach as you have to bank hard left just before actually landing on the runway.  I believe many airports you might need to do some turns before lining up for final approach which makes it a lot easier than still being in a banked turn literally 100 feet or so above the touchdown zone. 

We have quite a few approaches in SE Alaska that involve rolling wings-level on final at 300-500ft above ground.  Good times ;).

On 8/21/2022 at 1:18 PM, iliasr said:

LFKC rw36

Now that‘s a thrilling approach! Thanks for the tip.

 

How about Bern LSZB circling city approach to rwy 32: chart https://www.vacc.ch/file/388 

 

SKCL. Corsica is good, don't know the code.  Great idea: Look up accidents involving CFIT.  There's your flight.

Fly by hand with minimum visibility at night. 

I would like to suggest MHTG Tegucigalpa Honduras RNP RWY 02. I like to load the aircraft at MHTG, fly the BTO1 departure. I climb to FL120 and before I get to BTO I vector myself around to Melvo at 9000 to begin the RNP RWY 02 approach. I do a touch and go then depart back out towards BTO again, then vector back to Melvo. Wash rinse and repeat. It definitely keeps you busy in the flight deck. 

Edited August 29, 20223 yr by Bnash00