The landing maybe isn't backcountry, but there sure is some beauty in this!

This is my home airport!
You can actually see my house on short final.

Nice, thanks for posting!

Excellent Video!

Was that a published approach or home made? Beautiful scenery.

Beautiful...really cool transition through the clouds

I think I saw Frodo and Samwise on top of one of those peaks...

Beautiful.

Queenstown?

8GCBC wrote:Was that a published approach or home made? Beautiful scenery.

That looks like one of those curved RNP approaches, they work great in terrain like that. Sketchy when you are descending through a layer knowing that the mountains are right there.

Nice video! Looks like a fun approach, definitely more fun with terrain avoidance equipment.

Rezrider wrote:

8GCBC wrote:Was that a published approach or home made? Beautiful scenery.

That looks like one of those curved RNP approaches, they work great in terrain like that. Sketchy when you are descending through a layer knowing that the mountains are right there.

While watching, the descent through the cloud layer looked pretty serious. But, beautiful too. Local knowledge for sure.

It's a lot similar to the RNP approach into Jackson, WY: http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1312/00504RRY19.PDF All of my approaches into Jackon IFR were pre-GPS, so they were on this ILS approach: http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1312/00504IYL19.PDF. Either way, lots of rocks on both sides.

This video was sure cool, though. To me, there's nothing much neater than flying above the clouds, then descending through them on an approach to break out just right to land. It's doubly so when there are beautiful mountains along the way. Nice video!

Cary

A few years ago I was flying out of SLC to Jackcon Hole for work. Since almost all the pilots I was flying with were flatlanders and never flown out here before, the company required them to have a line check. So, one morning we launched into a blinding snow storm taking place in Jackson with a check airman on the jumpseat. ILS down to minimums, turned, and back to SLC. Check airman got off and we headed back to Jackson. By this time, it had cleared out. The guy I was flying with about crapped his drawers when he saw the terrain around the airport. With fresh snow, sun, and bright blue skies, the Tetons were especially impressive that day.

Very cool video. RNP approaches are very cool. I understand there are a couple of cool ones into Juneau.

I've had dreams like that. No airplane though, just me flying!

CW

Yes, Queenstown.

RNAV, RNP approach.

Only recently introduced, but it makes a difference to the reliability of service into the basin.

With the addition of the Multilateration system, it's all going on!:

http://www.airways.co.nz/about_airways/ ... llance.asp

Here are the actual approaches. Pretty cool! He landed runway 5. But if you look at the runway 23 approach that looks pretty crazy! Just think of the places we could eventually see approaches down the road as we get more advanced. The thing I think is stupid is that this has to be flown on the autopilot with a FD. Although we can easily maintain the required nav without an autopilot & FD. Notice there is no allows for Category A & B.

http://www.aip.net.nz/pdf/NZQN_45.1_45.2.pdf

Awesome video. A must why all of us should have our instrument licenses

In olden times, we didn't video much--the technology wasn't available, beyond 8 mm movie cameras or big clunky video cameras which took 2 men and a boy to lift. But memories can be indelible. Here's a night approach I made into old Denver Stapleton, probably in 1983 or so. I'll try to describe it so that you can "see" it with your mind--much like the old "theater of the mind" radio shows like Dragnet, The Green Hornet, and The Shadow (man, does all that date me!).

I was flying a friend's over-equipped Mooney 231 from Laramie to Denver to pick him up. It had been raining off and on most of the day--a warmish rain for winter time. The cloud deck at Laramie started at about 800' AGL. Before I climbed into the soup, since it was winter, I turned on the pitot heat and hot prop, and periodically I turned on the ice-light to look at the leading edges. But no ice was forming. The temp was just warm enough that the airplane was getting wet, but not iced.

The flight down to the Denver area was uneventful, except that I couldn't see the lights of Fort Collins, Longmont, or even Denver--the clouds were so full of moisture. Denver Approach offered me vectors to final for the north-south runway (not sure of its numbers now), but I asked for the full approach, in order to have time to set up for it. Approach reminded me that it would take longer that way, but I said that's what I wanted to do.

Incidentally, this airplane was fully equipped and capable of coupled approaches. Not only did it have the latest King flight director/autopilot, but it had color radar, radar altimeter, everything you could imagine could be stuffed into a Mooney panel--even a "Flite Phone". But I was hand-flying it, not trusting the autopilot to do its thing.

The route of flight took me south directly over downtown Denver, but none of the city lights showed through the muck. It was truly like flying inside a black hole. As I crossed the IAF and started into the procedure turn, I slowed to 110 knots, which was my usual approach speed. As I came out of the procedure turn and lined up on the localizer, I kept thinking to myself, "get ready to go missed". At the IAF, just as the glideslope centered and the outer marker lit up, I dropped the gear and the first notch of flaps and started sliding down the ILS. At 110 knots, the Mooney was as solid as a rock. Halfway down the approach, I did a final GUMPS check, flattened the prop, and watched as I came closer to the MDA. The radar altimeter came alive and its pointer moved closer and closer to the 200' minimum. At 50' above the MDA, 250' AGL, I started to push in the throttle to go missed.

Suddenly I broke into the relative clear just below the cloud deck. It was a sight to behold. The rabbit leading up to the approach end, the VASIs showing their red and white that proved I was on target, the centerline lights going off into the distance, the edge lights on either side of the wide runway--it was like that climactic scene from The High and the Mighty! Sploosh, I touched down gently on the wet runway.

As I taxied in the light rain, I felt that elation that comes from doing something right--a truly good nearly textbook approach. I walked into the Combs-Gates terminal to find my friend on the phone, trying to arrange a rental car--he was sure I wouldn't be able to get in.

The flight home was totally anti-climactic. It remained low IFR until about halfway home, the clouds started lifting, and by the time we got to Laramie, I didn't even have to shoot an approach.

I don't think that "picture" of seeing the lights as I broke out will ever leave my mind, it was so spectacular. In all these years, I have a lot of memories like that. I wish the technology existed that I could put those memories on video so I could share them with everyone. Such memories are truly why we fly.

Cary