PMDG NGX CYVR - CYCG

[Chairman]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Aug 9 2011,9:54 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Nice one Gary , I tried the HU and you can land on a teaspoon using it,

Challenge accepted ! :-) As before these are just rather big thumbnails, click to get the full version if you want a better look at the displays.

I think I have mentioned that the silliest thing I've ever done in flight sim was to land a 767 on CYCG Castlegar runway 33, so it seemed like a good place to revisit. There are some IVAO approach charts here if you want to have a go, although they won't help - the only approaches are for runway 15, because you'd basically have to be completely bonkers to even think about coming in the other way.


It was a fine sunny morning when the bonkers express left Vancouver



and turned south towards Friday Harbour hoping to scare the bejeezus out of some noob in a microlight.




Microlights were thin on the air though so I pointed the nose to the East



and set course for Castlegar.



It was a brilliant day for touring



but all too soon the ND suggested that it was soon going to get interesting.



It wasn't kidding. Far too soon for my nerves we arrived over Castlegar which promptly vanished behind a cloud. That was ok, but I'd quite liked to have still been able to see the mountains ...



We turned to follow the valley, still letting the autopilot follow the magenta line. None of the intersections on the charts are in the NGX database so I'd had to enter them all as position waypoints, I was impressed that it was working so well.



We've gone far enough downwind, now it's time to turn base. Note the vertical profile on the FO's ND which I've cloned on what is normally the engine instruments screen. If it had been of any use (a.k.a. if we'd been doing something even slightly sane) I'd have brought it up on mine too, but because of the interesting nature of this arrival it wasn't much help. It looks flash though so I left it there :-)



Notice the big yellow patch of terrain out of the left window on that last shot ? I picked a bad time to turn base, nearly flying straight into it. Suddenly it went from yellow to red and every possible alarm went off. I yanked the yoke over which disconned the autopilot (adding yet another alarm) but it did the job and I managed to fly around the hill instead of into it.



About now I figured that since this was all about the HUGS (doesn't that sound all warm and friendly LOL) I should flip it down, so I did, and everything got a lot easier. Not because I didn't have to look down at the instruments, but because of that circle that tells me where I'm actually going. In this case its telling me I'm going over the ridge instead of through it which is perfect, all I have to do is keep the circle just above the ridge and we'll be sweet. The circle is actually called Flight Path Symbol (not the flight path vector, that's what it displays). I'll keep calling it a circle, it's shorter :-)



Damn the alarms, damn the PULL UP warnings, damn the huge splashes of red on the terrain display, damn the radio altimter and it's scaremongering 530 feet, I'm descending at 900 fpm and the circle is above the ridge and all is good in the world.



Quick check - one more ridge to go, and the track actually looks like I thought it would. And given I've been hand flying since the left turn away from the river it's remarkably straight !



The problem with performing a completely visual approach to a shy airport hiding behind a hill is that you don't know exactly where it is until you get onto the same side of the hill. You may well find it's not where you thought. Oops !



Not a problem for the bonkers express though, we'll just drop the circle on the corner of the airfield and sit back and relax




while the passengers on their way to roaring fires in ski lodges gather some firewood - after all we are only 250' AGL ...




Still on course for the correct bit of the airfield, and now with 600' under the wheels. The ground must have dropped even more sharply than I am :-)



Eventually it's time to begin the turn to line up



There is the ridge we just came over at 250' !



The circle is bang on where I want it



and so is the plane. Flaring is for pussies.



Actually I probably should have flared a bit as it was definitely more of an arrival than a landing. But even after the huge bounce, with max autobrakes and reversers down to 60 kts I stopped before the last turnoff. In this shot the plane is stationary on the runway (probably waiting for the firemen to inspect the brakes).



Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bonkers Express ...



... has arrived.

[Adamski]

A great series of pics! Even at mini size, those images speak for themselves. I always enjoy these "narrative" sorts of posts- thanks for posting

BTW - I haven't even visited the PMDG forums since I bought it ... but is there (not) any weather radar?

[Chairman]

No, PMDG won't do an FSX weather radar. Their reasoning is along the lines that rain in FSX is a random visual effect and only exists at the location of your plane, so while there is data showing locations of clouds (until you load a weather update and they get redrawn) whether those clouds contain any rain or not depends basically on a roll of the dice when you fly through them. So it's possible to do something called a "weather radar", but what it would actually be is a "cloud finder which makes guesses at whether clouds will contain (random) rain or not and if so how much".

I'd suggest searching their forum for the official version but if you try that all you get is hundreds of threads of people asking about weather radars and getting told to search the forum for the official version

[Ian Warren]

Your BONKERS! , Teaspoon , I was meant to say a dessert spoon , you no how us kids like eating chocky pudd with a teaspoon

[connor]

QUOTE (Ian Warren @ Aug 10 2011,11:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your BONKERS!

Nah mate, it's just a show of how good a pilot really is. Personally though, I would of flared on landing.

[Chairman]

Any landing you can be personally sued for was a good one. Even if it is within 200 metres of the previous one

I'm not so sure you would flared, it's a 5000' runway at the end of a horrendously steep approach - your sole concern is getting the wheels onto the ground as soon as possible.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (Chairman @ Aug 10 2011,1:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

your sole concern is getting the wheels onto the ground as soon as possible.

You get to see many off those nose approach,s getting into Wellington on the bluster days

[scaber]

A great story and well illustrated with the screen shots. I't tempted to go and try this myself - though maybe in the Harrier or the Augusta 109 just to make it a little easier for me! :-)

[Chairman]

Coward !



I used the awesome 3D view in google earth to drop waypoints on the runway threshhold and the highest point of the closest ridge of Castlegar Hill in line with the end of Runway 33, then I played with the elevation of the waypoints until the pins just started to disappear. The elevation of the runway worked out at 1515' and the top of the ridge was at 3280'. Those figures will be wrong but the difference between them will be right - a vertical drop of 1765 feet. I was about 250 over the ground, so near enough 2000' to drop between the ridge and the runway. The waypoints were 2.56 statute miles apart which works out to 2.1 nm.

On a nice civilised 3 degree glideslope you's need to start descending just over 6.6 nm from the runway. Dropping 2000' in 2.1nm works out, if I've done the maths right, as near as damn a 10 degree glideslope. I was dropping at 1400 fpm so it was certainly spectacular (and yes I probably should have flared more than I did LOL). Can't think why you'd want a helicopter for that ........

London City Airport with a piddling 5.5 degree approach that requires special planes and specially trained crews ? Kindergarten stuff. Real men work in round numbers.

[cowpatz]

Just looking at the map view would it not have been easier to have flown the approach in the reverse direction and scoot up the valley with a close in turn to finals?

[deeknow]

Great pics, awesome approach, looks like a fun area, must have a crack at that

QUOTE (cowpatz @ Aug 11 2011,12:34 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just looking at the map view would it not have been easier to have flown the approach in the reverse direction and scoot up the valley with a close in turn to finals?

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking, when you look at the map it certainly seems the obvious direction, maybe too tight a left turn to get onto finals?
The IVAO charts linked there only seem to have published procedures for RWY15, so I guess you're on your own for a visual into 33

Love the note on some of the plates... "Mountainous terrain all quadrants" .. heh no kidding

[connor]

QUOTE (deeknow @ Aug 11 2011,1:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Love the note on some of the plates... "Mountainous terrain all quadrants" .. heh no kidding

Funny how approach plates manage to take the fun out of any place isn't it.

[Chairman]

QUOTE (deeknow @ Aug 11 2011,1:15 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking, when you look at the map it certainly seems the obvious direction, maybe too tight a left turn to get onto finals?
The IVAO charts linked there only seem to have published procedures for RWY15, so I guess you're on your own for a visual into 33

Be a very tight turn onto finals. Here's the google earth view of the airfield and the valley from what would be the approach to 15, it really doesn't look as though there'd be room to turn a 737. From memory if you follow the river down a couple of corners there's a large plateau on the right where you can turn a 767, maybe turn there and come back down the river and around the base of the mountain onto 33 - not so much a circling approach as an S Approach :-)



If you want to try something else fun in that area try taking off from CZNL (Nelson) runway 04 then turning around and following the river back to Castlegar to land on runway 15. It's a simple takeoff and it lands on the easy end of Castlegar, but there are two 'rules' that make it a bit tricky - One, you're not allowed to do any sort of approach pattern, you just fly down the river then when you see the runway you land on it. If you don't make it down first time you lose (so don't fly too high!) Two, you may not at any point climb out of the river canyon. CZNL 04 points away from Castlegar, so you have to turn around in a space about as wide as an average bedroom. Probably not a good thing to try in a Boeing but you can make it in a DC3 or a B200. Well you could in FS9 with Holger's addon scenery

Info about Nelson can be found here.

Gary