436nm offshore is a Dash-8 is a long way to travel, especially in bad weather. Well, bad weather on the arrival, which is pretty normal for Lord Howe Island. We needed a mainland alternate for this particular flight. That's a fair bit of fuel tankering, plus working out a point of safe diversion that will cater for us to reach the island and then be able to fly back at 10,000ft depressurized, as that is the worst case scenario.
Anyway, all the flight planning hassles aside, and the distance, and the numerous different things that can go wrong, i did my first flight out to the 'rock.' The captain always flies out and lands and they need to be specially qualified and do simulator training for the privilege. Lord Howe has a small runway, only 1006 meters in length. It's one of the few places where the 3 different wind socks will show 3 different directions of wind of 3 different strengths. It was quite bizarre to witness. I was there on a very low cloud ceiling day, but we were able to get visual below a large gap as we approached. I'm told that the flight out is usually 2 hours of boredom with 30 seconds of sheer terror on the approach. Well it was pretty amazing for the first time. It's such a small runway and there is no margin for error.
Overall a good experience, which i had tried to not do for a while, but i'm happy i did it. It was good to do something different for a change!
Anyway, all the flight planning hassles aside, and the distance, and the numerous different things that can go wrong, i did my first flight out to the 'rock.' The captain always flies out and lands and they need to be specially qualified and do simulator training for the privilege. Lord Howe has a small runway, only 1006 meters in length. It's one of the few places where the 3 different wind socks will show 3 different directions of wind of 3 different strengths. It was quite bizarre to witness. I was there on a very low cloud ceiling day, but we were able to get visual below a large gap as we approached. I'm told that the flight out is usually 2 hours of boredom with 30 seconds of sheer terror on the approach. Well it was pretty amazing for the first time. It's such a small runway and there is no margin for error.
Overall a good experience, which i had tried to not do for a while, but i'm happy i did it. It was good to do something different for a change!
What? No landing video? ;-)
ReplyDeleteAwesome stuff! I'm just about to start my ATPLs, can't wait to start learning how to calculate PNRs etc. (not). I heard one of the Dash 8's had to do a single engine approach at Lord Howe not long ago?
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