Mountain Airports

Download the PDF File (recommended)

April 5th 2003. A few weeks to go for the May FOTM which I volunteered to write. I hate to  break it to you guys, but I'm a little sadist when it comes to this kind of stuff. This FOTM  won't be an easy ride, it will demand 110% of your piloting skills, if not more.

What could possibly be so difficult about an FS2002 flight ? For starters we're all used to  nicely paved long runways, no excessive down or up slope, no trees on short final right before the threshold and much more. Throw all that away right now: you'll be facing the European Alps for a round trip. Take some extra underwear with you, just in case… Main  goal of this flight is to fly some unfortunate skiers out of the Alps to an airport where they can  receive thorough medical attention. And while you're at it, take some supplies with you,  these "remote" airports are in dire need of a shipload of French wine to brighten up the après- ski parties. No one was found stupid enough to accept this flight, but you are not just any  pilot…you're a toomuchfs.com pilot, capable of landing a 747 on a postage stamp…or close  to.

Highlight will be an airport that's situated at 6580 feet MSL, rather high but that's not the  difficulty. You'll be landing at Courchevel airport. It's an international airport in the heart of  the French Alps and the Dash 7 and 8 are daily visitors. Landing here requires a special 
authorization from the French CAA.

So what's the big deal then ? Well, for starters you'll be landing upslope, and not just any  upslope: it's about 15% !
Think about it: you'll actually be climbing during the flare.

This flight will be mainly a VFR flight with only the occasional use of a VOR. At the altitude  you'll be flying i.e. "on the deck", you wouldn't receive them in real life anyway.

So take your book 'Mountain airports for dummies' and catch up on some desperately  needed knowledge.

This sounds sooooo cool ! What do I need Wolfboy ?

1.Since Microsoft forgot to include these fine airports, you'll be needing a freeware  addon scenery: FRALPS2K.ZIP. It's not that easy to install, but it's certainly worth the  effort. Be sure to read the readme.txt because you'll need to use the "Flatten"  command in your scenery.cfg. It was made for FS2000, but also works for FS2002  (what did you expect?). Although I've noticed that running FS2000 specific sceneries  within FS2002 has a bad influence on frame rates.
2.In case you're having troubles with this scenery, there is another freeware scenery of  the airports available here: http://bravomike.free.fr/altiport.htm

3.You'll also need to have additional textures installed, but they are also freely  downloadable from Flightsim.com, in their "must have files" section.
4.You definitely need to print out the VFR map that is included in FRALPS2K.ZIP, it's  great if you plan to divert a little (or a lot) from the route I'll be describing.

One last word: there is a mesh scenery available for France. Since I have it installed I don't  know how the flight will be without. I just hope the standard scenery is just as exciting as the 
mesh. I actually believe it might even be better than the mesh, since the addons are more  compatible with the standard scenery. 

Now strap on your virtual seatbelt, have a quick look at your flight plan, tell your wife to go  make a vast quantity of coffee and advise your children that it's way past their bedtime: we're  embarking on a 1 hour "mountain flying mayhem" ! 

I hope I've aroused your attention enough because I'll be going through the route with you  now. Word of caution: take an aircraft with a VERY GOOD short field performance. Don't do  what I did and fly this route with the Antonov-24. I've done some maintenance on the tree  vegetation using my wings and propellers… A Dash 7 would be a nice choice but feel free to  try it in the Club 767 anytime.

Leg 1: Challes (LFLE) – Albertville (LFKA)

Your plane is based at LFLE. A (very) small airport a little to the south of Geneva. Take  your shipload of wine on board and reduce the fuel load to the bare minimum for a 1,5 hour  endurance.

If the standard scenery resembles the mesh, you'll be facing a rather steep hill once you're  lined up with runway 15.

Take off will be hair-raising and if all goes well you'll be clearing the mountain ahead by as  much as a fuselage height. Immediately after you clear the mountain you'll need to turn left  and follow the road and river to the northeast: a ground track of approximately 60°. You 
should see a small airport dead ahead: Albertville (LFKA), famous ski resort. Put it down here, no ILS, no VOR, nothing, just plain old stick and rudder. The runway is  long enough so you won't have any problems here. But it's a prelude to your next leg.

Leg 2: Albertville (LFKA) – Courchevel (LFLJ)

Alright then, it seems you've covered the first leg in an acceptable fashion, the plane is still in  mint condition, the Glühwein was good and everything promises a midnight run for the flight  to Courchevel…or not.

Take off from Albertville (where else ?) and take her up to about 7000 feet. You can follow  the valley and climb out safely or just turn right to 150° immediately after take off. That is if  you're confident enough of clearing the mountains ahead. Goal is to intercept the 126° radial 
outbound from Chambéry (CBY) VOR (115.40). Courchevel is 47 NM out from CBY VOR.  Once you're approaching the 126°/40NM fix you'll be able to see two airports: Méribel on your  right and Courchevel dead ahead. Set yourself up for a landing at Courchevel and enjoy the  ride all the way down. You will decelerate quickly since the runway slopes up 15%, hell,  you'll also be needing a LOT of thrust to taxi to the ramp. Do what you are supposed to do: 
drop off the injured skiers and take the wine on board or was it vice versa ? I seem to have  had too much Glühwein in Albertville.

Leg 3: Courchevel (LFLJ) – La Rosière 

Your takeoff from Courchevel should be peanuts and since you've obviously mastered the  Courchevel run on the first try it seems that things are just too easy for you guys. So let's  shift to a higher gear.

Actually we're not even allowed to fly to La Rosière: it's only 300 meters long, has a rather  excessive slope and in the even of a go around you'll be lucky to get out alive.

Again, it doesn't look that difficult: just fly straight in and hit the brakes. You'll see where the  difficulty lies when you're established on final: you'll find that deciding to go around won't be 
an option any more.

How do we get there ? Easy: take off from Courchevel runway 5. Try to fly a ground track of  80° which will take you over Tignes (another famous ski resort) shortly after take off. Turn  left to the north once you're over Tignes and follow the valley ahead. You'll see La Rosière 
coming up in the distance (I told you this was easy) and you'll also be flying almost straight  in, which makes it even easier. Ask yourself what your chances are for a successful go  around once you're on short final…

Leg 4 : La Rosière – Sallanches (LFHZ)

Anyone want to take off in northerly direction ? Guess not. Ok, we'll be departing to the  south then. Right after take off you'll have fly to the Geneva (GVA) VOR (114.60) and flirt a  little with the Italian border. On the way you'll also be passing the biggest mountain in 
Europe: Mont Blanc with a whopping 4807 meters above sea level. Since you've proven  yourself a true mountain flyer, I guess it's about time to relax with the challenges, I can pull  another one out of my sleeve, but you'll have to set course to Bhutan to fly it. Your disabled passengers won't like that idea either so let's just cut it short here and land at Sallanches, which is located halfway in between La Rosière and Geneva.

Taking off from La Rosière should be easy, only the trees in the departure end of the runway  could make life a little difficult. My Antonov proved to be an excellent "tree mower" my climb 
out and I had to seriously trim the plane nose up and took off with full flaps. You should  make a right immediately after take off and establish yourself inbound to the Geneva VOR  (114.60).

On your right you'll see the Mont Blanc, or as the French like to call it: 'La Dame Blanche'  (The White Lady). When you're abeam it might be a good thing to start preparing for your  last landing of the day. Due to the rather low altitude above sea level of Sallanches and the fact that you're almost flying at the same altitude as the Mont Blanc implies that you'll have to  descent with a steep angle. The terrain doesn't offer any opportunities for an early descent  either, so it's up to you to maximize your drag on the approach to steepen your descent into Sallanches. 

You'll see Sallanches dead ahead in the valley. There is a small city to the left of the airport  that can help identifying it. Another nice help is the VFR chart that is supplied with this flight.

Be careful because the runway is pretty short. Of course the others were short too, but there  is no upslope to save your pitiful excuse for a landing. Get that speed down to the minimum  possible safe speed and try to put your main gear on the threshold.

Epitaph.

Right…you've done it. You've earned yourself a place in the hall of fame of virtual mountain flying.  It's something to brag about really, not many people know these airports, and the next time  you hear someone brag about putting his chunk of metal down at Valdez, Kai Tak, Funchal,  ask him if he has tried proving his manhood at Courchevel already. He'll probably don't even  know what you're rambling about.

I hope you had as much fun flying this FOTM as I had creating it. It took some time to  investigate the possible options for a FOTM but as a result of my quest I've managed to  come up with some other exciting possible FOTM's. Although the other challenges are too 
far away from the French Alps to be doing them in this FOTM, I'm convinced you'll run over  them a few months from now.

Tutorial for scenery installation: Download

Rik Vyverman

(aka "Wolfboy)

rik@toomuchfs.com