Lukla Pilot - Q and A

starting now g'day everybody my name is jimbo and i used to fly into lachlan for those that don't know look there is an airport in nepal known as the gateway to mount everest it's also garnered a reputation as being one of the most extreme and dangerous or deadly airports in the world it's been on a number of tv shows where it has taken out the top spot it is just over 9 000 feet up so just below 3 000 metres not far from mount everest the largest mountain tallest mountain in the world the runway itself is about 500 meters long or 1700 feet long it is sealed and it's a one-way airstrip so it's it's uh situated on a hillside and you land on runway zero six and you take off on runway two four that is regardless of the wind conditions and i flew in nepal for two and a half years and lochla was was one of the airports we flew into quite regularly particularly during the busy season which was when the trekkers were going up to either climb mount everest itself or base camp which was where the majority of people have climbed it's quite a bucket list item and i was head hunted to go and fly there to teach the locals how to fly this particular aircraft the pak 750 xl or extol as it's been called and originally supposed to be there a couple of months teach the locals get out of there but they were also short on pilots themselves so that turned into two and a half three years i ended up being the chief pilot at one point and also became the senior check and training pilot so any any pilots coming up through the ranks i would take them into locklear and and sign them off so they were all cleared to go and go in and out of there as p1 we'll start off with pronunciation it is pronounced look i know there's a few various shows out there that have called it luckler but if you want to win the locals over call it lochla and same with the country nepal very phonetic language now i got the job because i was head hunted the aircraft has mentioned the xl was new to the country a new type to the country and at that stage this 2009 when i first started there there weren't very many pilots experienced on this particular aircraft i just happened to be one of them and this outfit found out and got in touch with me and i was at the time living in queenstown new zealand which was a great place to be when you're young and i said no to them a couple of times but they eventually reeled me in and of course after seeing the youtube videos of luckler and seeing what it was about was actually an easy decision in the end and one i'm glad i took so some challenges flying into luckler itself the obvious it's in the mountains the the elevation just over 9000 feet up you're that that in itself is is very high but you're also very low in the valley and when you compare it to how close in proximity you are to mount everest which is just below 30 000 feet so that that can put it in perspective for you even though you're actually up very high you're still at the base of all the mountains there the strip is quite a steep one you know it's a challenge to learn how to to approach to land and take off from an airstrip that is so steep because of the steepness it has the effect of looking like you are coming in a lot or too high high elevation you're at 9000 feet up when you're on the ground so we need to be to cross the last pass 12 12 and a half thousand feet just as we enter into the valley of look wind wind can play a huge part the they can change so much in the morning with the the changes of the ketabatic and antibiotic winds you can go from a headwind to a tailwind within the space of a few moments and it can pick up during the monsoon season just so quickly you've got to be very careful very onto it and very aware of the situation the current climate what's happening you can be sure it's going to change that's the easiest way so plan for change cloud same thing cloud can just bumper come in there while you're on approach and it's something you don't want to be messing around with there's videos out there of what can and does happen when you do get caught out same thing you've just got to be on your on your game all the time density altitude is huge there can get very warm in summertime you can be on approach at ten thousand ten and a half thousand feet yet your density altitude can be two three thousand four thousand feet higher than that coupled with a tailwind on approach uh while i was there i think up to 1415 not tailwind on landing was the maximum we'd go to now i believe that tower wind is a hard cut off for these stove strips once you hit 10 knots regardless of the direction the airport will close to fix winged operations so it's not uncommon to be on finals and for us we'd have a indicated airspeed of around 85 knots and at times we've had a ground speed of 110 knots and that's all because of that density altitude coupled with the tailwind with all of these things there's such a small window of opportunity to get in and out of there and that's why a lot of these videos you see is just jam-packed with planes it's quite congested heavily congested at peak times and it's something that we need to keep in mind as we're going there because while it is busy if we are in rush hour we've got five minutes on the ground so we'll land the aircraft will keep one engine running if you're in a twin at times we've just kept the engine in feather while the ground staff will off load so we can get out of there quickly because there are there's literally aircraft on their approach waiting to take your spot so it's no mucking around but even so considering all of this you would think there should be some pressure for us pilots to fly and i can honestly say that pressure was not there there's a very good attitude amongst the pilots that if it's no good if you decide for whatever reason that you're not comfortable going there you don't go there you you'll never get questioned you'll never get asked why perhaps they might ask out of curiosity for their own record keeping but there's just never any pressure to go anywhere and i i absolutely loved that not having that that weight on your shoulders to get there and to to move passengers to move people to move freight cargo what have you just it it has such a huge positive impact on my time there at least now let's get into some questions you guys have asked i appreciate you asking and submitting all of these by the way mike says cracking video jimbo thank you mike do you need a special permit license to fly into lochla or is it open to any pilot you need to be a local pilot to fly into lochla and you also need special clearance to land there as pilot in command you'll go through a training phase and before you even get there all the pilots that do fly into locklear have flown into looklet as co-pilot pilot monitoring for a couple of years at a bare minimum so they've got as a base standard quite a strong knowledge of the airport itself when you're getting upgraded or clearance to fly into there you'll fly into other airstrips stolfields before this one the training itself is just to shoot i believe 10 approaches or it may have been five approaches with an instructor check pilot they'll go through everything which you already know beforehand as far as approach speeds uh your specific points where you need to be at certain heights on the approach your turning point your decision point for go around because you can go around it is quite early in the approach though and it is a fairly daunting missed approach because you're turning up valley which is sort of against what you're mostly taught typically if you need to go around and you're in a valley you'd turn downwind or down valley however in this instance because of the topography and the the cliffs and the hillsides that are there there's more room to turn up valley and do a big 270 degree turn and then carry on so once you do your specific number of landings provided they're all suitable and within limitations you'll you'll get signed off and you'll be in there for pilots wanting to do a one-off landing or something like that it's very unheard of i don't think it would ever happen yet i mean money talks if you really wanted to you could spend the money to go and as as a training pilot and have someone like myself as a as a senior advisor why i don't know laligt it's so old aircraft new aircraft should be by yeah i think what you're getting at is uh they should buy new aircraft and these aircraft are old and in actual fact nepal is probably on the leading front of of promoting new aircraft in the country you cannot purchase an aircraft that is so old uh from memory i think it's got to be 10 years or younger might even be five years or younger if you're going to import an aircraft otherwise buy new and that's what we're seeing is as companies buying new aircraft you know it's just brilliant quite unheard of i don't know any other country that does that perhaps you just misguided their lily these aircraft are new the ones i was flying the xl they were brand new when i went there and in fact one or two more arrived after i started that came fresh off the factory 420 sesame street are you a kiwi if so you guys are at home in the mountains yes i am a kiwi i'm from new zealand that is where this aircraft the pax 750 is made and yeah we do have a few hills around here my day job now is an agricultural pilot so i do top dressing and we land on airstrips which i'd actually consider a lot more challenging than lochla itself so i guess you could say yeah we are at home in the mountains i might have this name wrong here etienne apologies if i've got your name wrong locklear is nothing compared to crop dusting in new zealand well that ties in nicely with the last question yeah i i tend to agree in general as far as a challenge goes for flying the airstrips we use here in new zealand for top dressing are quite gnarly a lot of them semi-prepared one-way airstrips low-level flying the whole way however locklears and flying in nepal is something special and to feel so insignificant in amongst these gigantic mountains is is really uh a unique experience and and special and one i'm quite proud of to be fair top gear dell a couple of questions why does locklear exist is it because it has proximity and view of mount everest why so much air traffic tourists how did they get all the building material to that remote location to build the town like this i think i might have touched on a few of these already top gear dell lochler exists mainly because of mount everest it is the starting point to go on your trek if you want to go to base camp or summit mount everest itself there's no road access you can't drive there an aircraft is really the only way the only efficient and economical way to get there fast it can take months to walk there or if you're going to get a car to the nearest spot i i don't actually know how long it could be weeks or days minimum to walk from the end of the nearest road to lochler itself but then you think about the equipment you need if you're going trekking it's a lot it is a heck of a lot it's so high up you need so much it's a necessary thing there's no view of mount everest from luckler itself you need to travel further up the valley and around the corner to see it and why so much air traffic and that goes back to that small weather window we can go days at a time without having access to lochla because of weather it can be cloudy and socked in for days and days and days it can be fine in the morning and by 10 o'clock it can be terrible torrential rain and just not fun at all so when it's good enough all the companies with the correct aircraft so we've got the dornier 228 got twin otter the lit 14 and the antonov or y12 and i believe no longer uh their single engine aircraft but while i was there we had the excel we had the caravan cessna caravan and pilatus porter how did they get the building material there it was all flowing in the largest and heaviest stuff was brought in by a helicopter mill 8 and anything else was brought in the twin otters we'd do a lot of cargo ourselves uh building material was quite a common thing corrugated iron and wood we'd taken and at the same time we'd take out rubbish with us fernando dude fantastic stuff thank you fernando you deserve a lot more subs i particularly appreciate the microsoft paint that's annotations some highly detailed stuff i do i'm thinking about putting my application into pixar so you never know thanks for sharing video it's one of the dangerous airport in nepal one of the most dangerous airports in nepal it's got that reputation yes it does i've flown into most of the stole airfields in nepal not all of them though and it is quite tricky because of everything mentioned i think there are a few others in the country that are also quite challenging dolphur is one in the west in radha or it's another one i may do a video on those approaches in in the future keep an eye out for those peter that was great thanks for sharing i had the opportunity to ride in a pack 750 in miami florida a few years back was a skydiving operation and the pilot asked if i'd like to go up with him what a thrill great short approach and stole capabilities cheers thank you peter yes the pack 750 is used quite a bit on skydiving operations i believe that was its original design to fly skydiving then of course moved into a lot of stall field operations and has performed quite well in that role we do use that aircraft for ag ops in new zealand top dressing there's a modification done to that aircraft and same thing i performs really well done a couple of hundred hours in it myself and i really enjoy it eleanor how do people earn a living there to pay for the beer and noodles well trekking is and tourism in general is a huge money maker for the country and i'd say that it'd be the largest income per money maker but also it's the trekkers that are buying the beer and noodles mainly the trekkers marley no don't talk guitars looks like jaws flying with odd job carson hey jimbo do you live here in nepal love the video i finished full time in 2012 and i've gone back a few times since just to do some proficiency check flights and to fill in for a few months here and there at one stage i believe i was the only other check pilot on the excel in nepal apart from the one person who was living there but he needed someone to give him a check flight so one time i did have to fly over there from new zealand and arrive there and did an hour or i think it was two hours checked flight with this person and then flew straight home that was fun mike nice flying what is the icon used for at the bottom of the radio stack that's the hf that's what we use when we are out of vhf range which is hardly ever but we can dial that up at any stage and contact anyone anywhere in the country so we can be on the far west and talk to lukla tower if we needed to and it's also what those in the control towers or the little towers in these stall fields they communicate back to central command and kathmandu so any aircraft that departs or lands that information gets relayed back to kathmandu so there's a full record of it and no matter where we are we should and are able to contact a ground station through the hf but for the majority of the routes the vhf works just fine ricardo i did not see this question asked so here it goes at the beginning of the video is that mountain covered in snow at the top of the video the everest could be this here is mount everest you lose sight of it quite early in the approach you're still five to ten minutes away from the approach just because the valleys are so vast and huge looking at mount everest from around there is almost a disappointment because of all the other mountains that are closer they look larger than what everest is and the peak of mount everest actually sits below the perspective of the other mountains here but still amazing all the same pilots who land here are wizards also i don't get what it means at 503 by flight service so no clearances are given how do you get landing permission and not crash into each other that is a good question so the flight information service they just provide information but they cannot tell you what to do they'll advise you of any aircraft coming into land or departing so let's say when you're entering lochla valley and you contact the tower you say where you are and that you're coming to land basically and they'll come back with you to you with information on any aircraft that's departed so you can use that information for your traffic avoidance and where you're going to track and this is all there to help you formulate a plan in your mind and get that situational awareness to keep you and your aircraft and your passengers safe just before you land the tower will confirm the runway is clear so in my case b9 of juliet bravo windows zero six zero zero five knots runway zero six is clear and that'll be the clearance you'll get so they're not telling you cleared to land like usual it'll just tell you the runway is clear and same thing once you're on the ground and you're getting your clearance to go back to kathmandu or wherever that advise you of any traffic incoming so same thing plan your departure appropriately and before you taxi out they'll let you know if there's an aircraft on approach where it is on approach so you can decide whether or not you're going to taxi and line up and take off or hold and wait for that traffic but overall it just works and so seamlessly we're also talking to the other aircraft and coordinating our own separation hello what are the options if your engine fails when flying through the valley or right after departure are there some feasible strips or open fields down below short answer is no and no options after departure there's a river down there if something does go wrong you do your best like anything else fly the plane aviate navigate communicate it's not good if things go wrong there if you're high enough you could glide to a few airstrips nearby if you have engine issues you can attempt to land at a few as well i've landed this strip at least 50 times on x-plane 11. just curious have you spent much time in lochla i've never stayed the night in lochler i don't think not from memory i've stayed there for a few hours at a time on on the last flight if the timing's right and there's no other aircraft coming then i'll park up for a few hours go and have a cup of tea and some lunch and chew the fat with a few other pilots and friends other than that i probably haven't gone further than 100 yards from the apron david first time i've seen good quality front view landing and can say look isn't for the faint of heart but also the approach speed looks so much higher than 85 knots although the speed indicator says it is whilst you make it down safely it's hard for a non-pilot to understand and comprehend the aircraft's ability to stop in time thanks for the kind words david yes the speed ground speed generally is a lot higher than the 85 knots that density altitude can play a huge part in that a lot of the times in the late morning or early afternoon when it's getting towards the end of us flying there because of our small window opportunity we can be doing 100 110 knots ground speed on finals it's something we need to be aware of extremely aware of definitely in the twins but in the likes of the xl it's not such an issue the performance of the aircraft is that good the steepness of the strip is that steep that it slows you down well enough even if you do have a few issues getting it on the ground shall we say and that is us i hope you guys enjoyed it i will finish by saying i really did enjoy the few years living in nepal beautiful country lovely people especially those genuine locals that that we had the opportunity of seeing really enjoyed my time there and the flying was incredible and would you like to see some more videos about nepal i've got a few other approaches i've shot into some other airstrips a bit further out west if it's something you're keen to see let me know down in the comments below otherwise you guys have a good one

Channel: Jimbo Burgess

Views: 7,866

Keywords: Aviation, Low, flying, Topdressing, cockpit, cropdusting, pilot, Jimbo Burgess, Lukla, Mt everest, Nepal

Id: OppoUuL2AW0

Length: 25min 15sec (1515 seconds)

Published: Sun May 15 2022