Scary, scary scary!
Well that's Bhutan off my holiday list!
Great piece of flying tho'

"as of October 2009, only eight pilots in the world are certified to land at the airport", yikes!

I don't see the problem. I know it's not a Cessna but looked like they had lots of room and the weather looked beautiful.

Still cool location tho

Retard! Retard!

>> ^Lendl:

I don't see the problem. I know it's not a Cessna but looked like they had lots of room and the weather looked beautiful.
Still cool location tho


Banking into a mountain at low speeds is very tricky. Hills and mountains can generate updrafts which planes can't generate much lift from, the only cure is wide open throttle. At that altitude, given the extreme danger of updraft, is very precarious. In addition, a 180 degree bank at low speed, given updrafts and terrain is VERY scary. Banking 100 feet before touchdown over a river (rivers can generate crosswinds because of the temp gradient for water), anyone who has landed at BWI can tell you how fun it is to land with 40 mile an hour crosswinds. Furthermore, the runway was not visible on final because of the hill, you only catch a glimpse ones you clear the last marker, and that was in good weather! Also, the missed approach has to rapidly take you back to 16k, to avoid MOUNTAINS! I couldn't tell from the chart, it was bouncing around, but I would imagine it also don't have ILS or DME equipment on any part of the final.

Here you can see the landing from the valley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSRjPezTMOc&feature=related

As scary as that landing looks it really looks like a beautiful place.

Isn't the term most dangerous airport used quite bit too frequently.. like I thought Lukla was the most dangerous or others like that short runway on that island wich name i forgot..

So I looked it up and Paro Airport (VQPR) has a single instrument approach, a VOR/DME approach. The airport itself is at 6500ft and surrounded by 16kft mountains. The "hills" in the video are around 5k'ft, significant enough to worry about spiraling updrafts. The terrain itself makes "safe minimum" approach impossible, safe min is an industry standard for the min and max speeds, bank and rotation angles, and decent rate...there are more, but those ones specifically HAVE to be violated to make a landing at this airport. That means, every landing violates the minimum industry standard for what constitutes a safe landing. The flight path takes in you in parallel to the Himalayas, which must be a sight to see. going to load up the simulator and see if I can make it in a medium size jet.

And if you think landing is bad, check out the takeoff table

Yah, the idea of those safety guidelines is so that in the event of a worse case scenario you still have a little breathing room to salvage the plane. I imagine there is considerable less breathing room on this approach. Bad weather and even a rather minor mechanical fault could easily fuck shit up considerably given all that low altititude manoeuvering.

So yeh, I'll fly somewhere nearby and drive thanks.

Although given the extra training the pilots receive it could actually be a safer airport overall

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by kulpims.

Can anyone tell me wtf is in this area of Bhutan that you even need Jet liners?

I ask, because the population of the entire country is 750,000.