Lukla landing - cockpit view

g'day everyone we're in nepal on route to look like the gateway to everest we're flying a pax 750 x doll i'm in the left seat pilot flying and my colleague on the right is pnf pilot not flying i'll talk you through the approach we've already been handed over from kathmandu control to monitor look the tower on one two zero decimal one five we're unable to contact the tower yet as we're obstructed by mountains but we monitor the frequency and communicate with any outbound traffic katmandu control will pass any traffic information before our frequency change lookle can get very busy with aircraft movements as there's typically a small window to operate with a lot of people and cargo to move by mid to late morning the sun has reached most of the valley causing antibiotic winds and the landing tailwind gets too strong we're about to cross tucks and pass you can see the temple hopefully highlighted there on the left most single-engine fixed-wing flights in nepal are operated as two crew in this flight my colleague is pnf and will work the radios and be a second pair of eyes to help locate any traffic we're now in an area known as north of paplu and gumba this is where we make our initial contact with lakla tower they'll advise us of the wounded look pass on any traffic information and ask us to report entering the valley for our navigation we have two garmin gps systems an ehsi second vor and an adf the aircraft is ifr equipped though all flights into stall fields are strictly vfr you can see the terrain guidance depicted on the gps all the red you see is high terrain which is everywhere once we cross this ridge we'll begin our descent and start getting set up for our approach locklear is coming into view now we will report entering the valley and the tower will advise us to report on base we keep to the west or left side of the valley for a couple of reasons it gives us the most room for our approach and you can be passing outbound traffic and need the best separation possible and if we need to turn back for any reason we have plenty of room to do so the aim from here is to keep our descent going and aim towards this rock face and we want to be at 9500 feet when we begin our turn to finals for runway 06. setting the rudder trim and we'll make our radio call on base and tower will advise us to report final i'm a little lower than i want to be here so i'll keep my speed up just slightly and lower my flaps to nudge us back on profile now just did our final checks prop fuel flaps break now we're perfectly set up as we turn onto finals our go around decision must be made early here about when we cross the dudekoshi river below we should be at 9 300 feet and stable if not or veer right initially then make a left turn through 270 degrees and head back down the valley but to be honest if you're not stabilized by your turn onto finals don't risk it just go around have another go as we complete our turn onto finals about 500 feet per minute rated descent works for these light winds 85 knots is our final approach speed you can see my left hand and thumb there flicking the trim just to keep us on profile the tower will inform us of the wind and let us know the runway is clear the tower is a flight service so no clearances are given as we approach the threshold i'll keep power on initially during round out and flare just to keep elevator authority then into beta on touchdown it's about now all the claps and chairs start and your ego goes through the roof but this flight's a cargo flight with beer and noodles yeah they don't clap as we pull into the apron flick the lights off you'll see there's a dornier ready to go so we'll follow behind them to keep out of each other's way it can get very hectic here during russia the idea is to look for the guys in hives for taxi guidance and wingtip clearance you'll be able to see them in front of the building shortly and i'll just keep an eye on the wingtip of that dornier as it goes past pretty handy being the only low wing aircraft in the country everything else is eye wing and there goes our guys guiding us around now we park her up prop into feather sit our heading bug and trims for takeoff then shutter down i'll leave the masters in avionics one on just to keep the ehsi aligned otherwise it can take too long on startup and timing's critical on the ground we've always got aircraft coming in can you see the chopper there coming in from the left to screen once she's landed the dornier will take off there goes the dornier heading back to kathmandu the pnf is filling out the flight logs meanwhile i'll be talking with our load manager about the return flight cargo if any now's the best part for me silence at lochla i'll leave a few minutes to myself super cuppa tea the kai and ground staff have made admire that view catch my breath before jumping back in for the return leg during peak flow you're allocated only five minutes of ground time because there are aircraft literally on approach wanting your parking spot with cargo we try to time our arrivals between the passenger flights to maximize ground time and reduce the workload on staff flying in the himalayas brings many challenges and must be treated with the utmost respect discipline is mandatory do that and you'll be rewarded with some flying you simply could not experience anywhere else in the world [Applause] i hope you enjoyed the ride

Channel: Jimbo Burgess

Views: 788,556

Keywords: Aviation, flying, Lukla, Nepal, Cockpit, pilot, Landing, fs2020, flight simulator, Jimbo Burgess

Id: 1tC1h1ZCuV0

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020