WINDWARD STOL Challenge: landing practice at Saba
Note: You may print out these flight instructions,
or consult them in-flight (press F10).
This flight assumes familiarity with FS2004 (FS9), its ATC,
and the add-on Winair Twin Otter.
About the flight:
This third landing practice uses Saba's famous runway 12, the "shortest
commercial runway in the world".
It lies like the deck of an aircraft carrier on a 138 ft high piece of rock,
with downward or upward cliffs on all sides.
Here it is imperative to touch down, and stop, as close to the threshold as
possible: since the runway is about 1000 ft long, you should be able to stop
before its midpoint.
There are no convenient reference points or navaids to help you here.
The weather is perfectly calm.
The plane is loaded at 80% of max. gross weight
(30% of max. fuel, 45% of max. passengers).
One way to fly this approach is to descend powered on a medium slope at about 70 kt,
while controlling the forward and vertical speeds with the throttles.
(Note: the default FS2004 scenery unrealistically places the runway
close to sea level on a flat island.)
Suggested procedure:
The flight starts at 2000 ft at 135 kt, on autopilot,
lined up with the runway, with flaps 0 (0°).
Do this:
- disengage the autopilot (press Z);
- slow to 70 kt for a powered medium approach slope, with full flaps 5 (35°)
and a descent rate of about -1000 ft/min;
- flare at the last moment;
- at touchdown, push the nose down hard, reverse thrust (F1 then F2), and brake;
- cancel reverse thrust when stopped (F1).
You may watch a video of one of my approaches: press Alt-O | V |
select Win0-STOLlandingpractice-SABa | Play Clip.
(Note: video replays don't show flap settings or flap movements;
and the plane can disappear underground when it stops, thus crashing.)
For the next practice flight,
load flight Win0d-STOLtakeoffpractice-SAB.
Press ESC to end the flight.
Further documentation:
Read the Word file FS2004 MV challenge - Windward STOL.doc,
located in the folder C:\My Documents\Flight Simulator Files\Windward STOL
(or similar path).
Copyright 2004 Michael Vone