I haven't seen this angle of St Barths before, usually it's the vantage point from the road up on the ridge.

http://youtu.be/4PrNmcmaOuM

I still don't understand why they always land downhill. I mean at least you can go around but gosh! landing uphill would be so much easier!

It sounded like there was some wind. So I imagine they were landing in to it. If you had a strong enough tailwind it wouldn't be any fun landing uphill and possibly be forced to do a go around into the rising terrain

I'm sure Twin Otter drivers on this site are wondering "Yeah, what about it ???"

Thats the prevailing wind direction, though it can be quite burbelly at times.
I was once tied down there watching the landings. There is a road paralel to the runway on left of this video view, a VW bug was driving steadily up the hill and a BN Islander suddenly appeared over the crest, the passenger door of the car burst open and the lady occupant threw herself out of the car onto the road, guess she thought a head on collision was imminent. She was pretty scraped up and chagrined

Beamer pilot wrote:I'm sure Twin Otter drivers on this site are wondering "Yeah, what about it ???"

For sure, just another day for that incredible aircraft. What I think makes this video so entertaining is the visual illusion from the vantage point of the camera. I watched this the first time on my phone and somehow missed the runway markings before the camera zoomed, so when he pitched down after dropping in over the ridge, I couldn't tell where he was touching down. I thought the runway was that road up on the hill and he was going to wheelbarrow it!

The wind howls out of the east there, so land downhill towards the beach. These videos always make it look worse than it actually is.
It's bumpy from the west but not that bad once you pass the round a bout.

I don't know anything about the dimensions of that strip, but there are a plethora of Youtube videos showing over-runs. I suspect the hill is pretty disconcerting to come in over, especially with traffic on the road. You'd sure want to have your final approach speed nailed!

Cary

Cary wrote:I don't know anything about the dimensions of that strip, but there are a plethora of Youtube videos showing over-runs. I suspect the hill is pretty disconcerting to come in over, especially with traffic on the road. You'd sure want to have your final approach speed nailed!

Cary

I think as long as they're read up on our Approach series, they should be okay.

The cameraman really needs to lay off the zoom button...

This appears to be an experienced pilot on type. He comes in way above a standard 3 degree glide path my guess due to both windsocks (far end of strip and top of hill on his left) indicating a cross wind from his left so he chooses to maintain some altitude for the approach to mitigate down drafts generated by the hill. He appears to have full flaps (37.5 degrees) for a full stol landing the problem now is the flare has to be judged perfectly or it will be textbook station 60 damage right behind the nose gear leg. The only critique would be that he appears a tad slow transitioning to tiller bar steering as we see him drift left of the center line on roll out. On a check ride that would only be a minor debriefing point marked as a 3.
A friend of mine ended his career on the South Pole not too long ago, we spent many evenings in Inuvik over caribou stew and Molson discussing Twotter technique and numerous videos of approaches gone wrong.
In the right hands (not mine) this aircraft will outperform everything else!

My wife and I were in St Barth back in March. We flew from San Juan PR in a PC-12 and had the seats right behind the pilots. It was bitchin to say the least. Those guys are handy. What we saw while we were there was a good breeze, but not a howling wind. Those pilots bring their A game it looked like to me. If the wind was ever opposite it would really suck taking off.

https://vimeo.com/110009231

Here's my iPhone vid of the landing. They really slowed that PC-12 down. And it was loaded too. He used about half of the runway and after watching a lot of planes land that week he was no rookie.