I was playing some flight simulator last night and decided to fly from somewhere that I imagined would be pretty hairy. I looked up "closest airport to Everest" in Google and came up with Lukla, Nepal. It was built in the 60's to support the Hillary expedition and sits at 9,300 feet MSL in some fairly mountainous terrain . Here is a photo. Anybody else got any hairball strips or airports?

Courchevel Altiport in the French Alps - 1720ft in length with a slope of 12 to 18%.

[Sorry Yellowbelly, I had to shrink those images -Zane!]

Well, despite it not being made of dirt, this airport and its surroundings got my respect this weekend:



That guy is not guiding the aircraft. He is performing a breathing exercise to stay alive. The airport is around 11,000 ft ASL, it was about 80 deg F. Use your Sporty's electronic E6B and you might find that the FAA would require him to use supplemental oxygen on a continuous basis.



Entering the runway at mid-field, I realized that the runway wasn't only high; it was looooong too. I think it's a bit over 11,000 ft as well.



About 5 minutes after takeoff, the flaps are still out and the cows and houses are still looking pretty big to me. That's because, despite leaving from 11k ft, we were surrounded by mountains. The Peruvian Andes have 50 peaks that are ~20,000 ft (6000m) or more. Definitely turbocharger country. Would I like to fly the yellowbellied Maule up here? Nah. When the turbulence kicked in that slapped the Airbus around, it was nice to have 40-50 tons of metal on our team.

BTW: Apologies for the large pix size.[/i]

Kai Tak, Hong Kong, an infamous hairball approach where the ILS ends in a hard right turn to the runway. Good little story here. Good to see those guys manhandling those 747's.

Hey, I hope this thread isn't dead yet.

I flew into Kai Tak in the mid-70's as a pax on Pan Am 002. I will always remember two things: first that checkerboard on the hill and second the sight of laundry drying on clotheslines just off the starboard wing tip on final. I could see facial expressions on the occupants of those apartments. In those days, the Peninsula Hotel picked you up in a Rolls Royce for the drive across town.

But, one of my all time favorites is Hulule in Male, Maldive Islands. It's an aircraft carrier in an almost literal sense. The entire island is consumed by airport and you have to take a water taxi to another island which is consumed entirely by a resort hotel. We flew in here one night in a B747 when there was a monster of a tropical CB parked over the island. We missed 3 approaches, each of which were just short of having the overhead bins pop open from turbulence. I was hoping the pilot would just decide to go away, but the alternate for a 747 is probably Colombo, Sri Lanka which might be 1000 miles away. I was convinced that our chances of a successful approach diminished logrithimically after the second attempt and that we were about to swim with the fishes, but we actually made a sweet landing. The rain had stopped by the time we took the water taxi and WOW!! the diving was definitely world class. This photo is from our Manta Ray religious experience that trip.