X-pilot 3rd Fly In Lukla VNLK

[AnonymousUser68]

Details will be posted soon but the location has been decided. It will be at Lukla airport VNLK also know as the worlds most dangerous airport!

Tenzing-Hillary Airport (IATA: LUA, ICAO: VNLK), also known as Lukla Airport, is a small airport in the town of Lukla,[1] in Khumbu, Solukhumbu district, Sagarmatha zone, eastern Nepal. In January 2008, the airport was renamed in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, the first persons to reach the summit of Mount Everest and also their efforts in the construction of this airport.[2] The History Channel program Most Extreme Airports, ranks it as the most dangerous airport in the world.[3]

The airport is popular since Lukla is the place where most people start their climb of Mount Everest. There are daily flights between Lukla and Kathmandu during daylight hours and good weather. Although the flying distance is short, it can easily be raining in Lukla while the sun is shining brightly in Kathmandu. The paved tarmac is only accessible to helicopters and small fixed wing short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft such as Twin Otters or Dornier Do 228. There is about a 700-metre (2,000 ft) angled drop at the end of the runway to the valley below.

[AnonymousUser68]

Ok details for the fly in.

VNKT-VNLK

Date:        Sunday 3rd of October

Departure Time: GMT+0 (London) 1.00PM / GMT+10 (Melbourne) 10.00PM / GMT-5 (New York) 8.00AM

Duration:        Around 1 hour

Departing:        Kathmandu VNKT

Arriving:        Lukla VNLK

Route:               Direct

Length:              70 NM

Aircraft:        No larger or faster than the mentor

Type:                VFR

Scenery:        Kathmandu http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=9869

                       Lukla http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=5885

Website:            http://www.xplaneaustralia.com/weeklyflyin.htm

Hello all to X-plane Australia's fifteenth Fly In and X-Pilots third. On Sunday we fly from Kathmandu to the worlds most dangerous airport Lukla which is around 70NM. Lukla is usually were climbers start the trek to Mt.Everest so there are daily flights from Kathmandu.  I will be flying in the Mentor and I personally wouldn't fly anything larger. To understand the difficulty of this approach I advise you practice it a few times before going online.

[Lukasz]

Veni, vidi...

I was deeply engaged in some work, when I felt tired and thought of looking to x-pilot forums as a relief. Awww, fly-in details are posted! Quick glance at my second watch, set to GMT - I have 5 minutes to go! A little bit late, but it'll do. Quick connection, got all messed up in Katmandu, finally all was set up with engine running. But... there was no one else. Quick look on vRoute - no one even inbound to Katmandu. After some 15 minutes of idling on a ramp and pretending I'm filing a flight plan, I took off to Lukla.

It turned out, that you need to really hurry only, when chased by a bear or anything similar. Direct to GPS at some reasonable FL may be good for flatlands, here I had to change altitude 3 times and course 2 times, to avoid peaks and clouds. There were beautiful cumulus all over the sky, really outstanding thanks to REX textures. The only problem was what was hiding behind them, so I preferred to avoid them and mountains altogether. The wind was playing tricks too, with occassional up- and downdrafts.

Finding an airfield in the middle of Himalayas is actually more... entertaining than it looks like at first. Last time I was there, was in FS9 few years ago. After a 360 with one eye on the GPS map I've entered a valley and soon found Lukla hidden on one of its sides. When I got closer, it became apparent, that the runway is totally overgrown with trees! Darn, should have installed that scenery - if I had a time to do so, that is. Nevermind, I'm pretending that there are no trees. There is no spoon, afterall...

I've set up for a perfect approach and just when I was going to scratch the runway with wheels, A BUS comes out of nowhere and hits me like a baseball bat. Why, of course! There is a highway going right through the runway, how nice. I really should have installed that scenery...

I've reloaded aircraft (no, no "hard crash" - only engine separation, not bad for an encounter with a bus) and taxiied to the ramp. Aww, even in a simulator the view was outstanding! I guess that's why all of these people are magnetically atracted to this place and these mountains. In reality it must be absolutely breathtaking! I wonder, how would that it be in X-Plane 10?

I mean, the Trans-Himalayan Highway

[AnonymousUser68]

Sorry I posted the details way to late. I think we should try to do this same fly in again next week. Next time I won't leave on the dot.

[scubajuan]

I tried the route today and its a fun short flight, definitely will try to make it on time next sunday

[AnonymousUser68]

Yes but make sure you have sloped runways on, it makes it a lot easier to pull up at Lukla.

[AnonymousUser68]

If your coming can you please put down your callsign so that we know who is flying.

I will be there as ZE003.

[Airace]

I'm interested in doing this fly in to Lukla, but I've never used Vatsim . have installed it and connected online but now what?  How do I find other people as all the airfields I've gone to are empty and no chatter anywhere?   I went to Kathamndu and sat there for a while with no life anywhere!lol   Any advice please is appreciated as I do want to fly Sunday! Thanks

[Lukasz]

VATSIM stands for Virtual Air Traffic SIMulation. It's a kind of multiplayer platform that allows users to fly together. You can read everything you need to know on their website, especially in the following sections:

What exactly is Vatsim:

http://www.vatsim.net/about-vatsim/

How to join:

http://www.vatsim.net/about-vatsim/members/joinvatsim/

What to do and how to do it after you've joined:

http://www.vatsim.net/pilots/

Rules and regulations, also lessons:

http://www.vatsim.net/prc/

It looks like a lot of reading, but if you're a fast reader and have previous knowledge of real world operations and ATC, you can get the hang of it in one day. The rest you'll learn as you do The fly-ins are basically for that, to introduce new Vatsim pilots (like myself) to the joy of online flying. We join on a remote and less used airfield and then try our best not to antagonise any of the controllers ;D

The most important is to make an account and download XSquawkbox:

http://www.xsquawkbox.net/

The account is totally free and the XSquawkbox is a freeware X-Plane plugin needed to communicate with server your plane's position, as well as receiving positions of other pilots.

Also I highly recommend downloading freeware software vRoute (Download Standard):

http://www.vroute.net/content/view/79/52/

It's a combination of community platform, server info, traffic radar and flight planner. I like it so much, that I'm going to buy the premium version.

[AnonymousUser68]

I would also advise QuteScoop so you can see exactly who's on http://xivap.linuxpunk.org/index.php/QuteScoop . Remember that in the preferences have it set to your server IVAO or VATSIM. One last thing is that I will be flying on VATSIM

[AnonymousUser68]

Also thank you Lis for putting this info up. You've definitely helped airace.

+1 ;D

[Airace]

If your coming can you please put down your callsign so that we know who is flying.

I will be there as ZE003.

I'll be at VNKT GMT 13:00.    callsign;  G7752

[Lukasz]

Flight booked, SP-KTL as always I have yet to decide what to fly and how to get to Katmandu, maybe an orbital drop would do?

[AnonymousUser68]

Remember that Lukla is very short. I'm flying the Mentor which I think is perfectly sized.

[Lukasz]

Last weekend I did it with the Mentor. Easy one, once I've found the place and didn't bother with trees Besides, I'm helicopter qualified  8)

[scubajuan]

I will be flying the Mentor as well Callsign : XA-JAM

[AnonymousUser68]

Sorry everyone Time Change

Due to the clocks changing there has to be a time change

Melbourne +10 is 10PM / London +0 is 11AM / New York -5 is 8am

Sorry for the inconvenience

[Lukasz]

Now I'm confused. Summer and daylight saving times around the world give me a headache. May I suggest posting time in Zulu/GMT/UTC format, like in real aviation? This way we would have only one single hour to stick to and I'm sure that everyone could figure on their own, which timezone they're in and how much time offset to add or subtract.

If not, there is an excellent timezone calculator:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?year=2007&month=2&day=11&hour=16&min=0&sec=0&p1=224&p2=176

[Airace]

Had nice flight to lukla and back!  Struggled with the Cessna 172 there for height,making lots of course corrections,missing the airfiled by 6 miles then nearly overshooting on my my first landing!     Waited an hour for others to arrive then flew back to Kathmandu!

[Ben Russell]

Aviation standard time is ZULU. Use it. Everyone else can work out THEIR OWN offset.

[scubajuan]

Here are two pics, one inflight another on approach.

I had problems stopping at the end of the short runway and got stuck in the mud, but was a really nice flight. Had to adjust the time to have some daylight, would not dare the approach around this peaks at night time.

[Lukasz]

I've checked how things are going in Nepal at 1300Z and there was only one pilot at Lukla. It took me some time to find out by his callsign, that it was in fact Airace. Once I got online in Katmandu, Scubajuan was just taking off and heading east. He was so nice that he waited in holding while I was getting organised, warming up the engines and finally pushing Duchess to get to altitude We were flying direct to Lukla, with nice descend into the valley at the end of route.

I've set up to rather good approach, flaps down, low and slow, in order to make the most of the short runway, without the ability to go-around. I had installed custom scenery, so there were no trees, alright. Now you can imagine my reaction, when just after touchdown the plane was booted into the sky in a milisecond and brutally trashed aside the runway. Darn the runway hump! So much for the custom scenery... Had I come to landing even a little bit faster, there would be hard crash for sure.

While I was reloading the plane, Scubajuan got offline and Airace was flying back to Katmandu. I've joined him there and we have a short chat, after which he also left. So I took MU-2, filed a flightplan from Katmandu to Lhasa and took off. It was very nice and uneventful flight. No ATC, no other planes, no clouds, no turbulence, nothing. Only steady wind at altitude, but that wasn't any problem for double Garrett engines

Once I got to my destination, I've set up for a VOR approach and proceeded to the runway. When I got to about 3 miles from it, X-Plane happily loaded whole jungle all over the place. Hmmm, let's just pretend it's a green shallow fog layer from nearby water bodies. But just as I was about to touchdown, I saw between the tree... I mean patches of fog, a step. Yup, it was there. A sudden and almost vertical rise in terrain, for the height of the whole plane or even slightly more.

I've punched throttles, engines whined almost in pain and plane lazily jumped up, just enough to make something like a come-low carrier landing. Good I was carrying a little bit of extra speed on this one! I pulled the power back to idle and engaged reversers, to save on brakes. When the plane slowed down to about half of the approach speed, came another runway step, this time down... I wonder how the landing gear was able to withstand that slam into asphalt below? Good I was at low gross weight. One more minor jump and finally I was shutting down at a ramp.

"Life is like an airfield in X-Plane - you'll never know what you get"

[AnonymousUser68]

I was sick I slept through the flight 

[AnonymousUser68]

I get confused with daylight saving. Can someone please work out a time and then I will organise the next fly in. Sorry for missing it  I explained in the post above

[Goran_M]

I did a nice flight a few weeks ago.  It wasn't big but it was interesting.  St Maarten to Saba in the Duchess.  FYI, Saba has the shortest runway in the world.  Anywhere in the West Indies/Bahamas looks nice. 

Just my 2c worth.