Narsarsuaq

[tres2]

As I am dictating this post, the Mooney is on its way from its home at Marshall County, West Virginia to Goose Bay Newfoundland, your last chance to decide that attempting to cross the big pond in a small airplane may not be such a great idea.
I was poking around, yesterday, trying to decide where to go next. I decided that it would be in the Mooney, probably my favorite airplane. By chance yesterday afternoon I came across, on this web site, a mission created by a fellow named Robbie Alberts to a place called Narsarsuaq. The title of his mission is something like "most dangerous airports".
Now, I have been to Narsarsuaq many times. It's at the south west tip of Greenland and if you're flying a small airplane translant, you really have to stop somewhere in Greenland which is not a very friendly place for aviators. In his intro to the mission, which I have not flown, Robbie says that Narsarsuaq is closed during the winter months. I didn't know that, but I'm sure he's right; the weather always, always sucks. It has a nice big wide concrete runway, 7-25, and when you can get it in sight, landing is a piece of cake. The runway seven approach is up at the end of a long winding fijord with steep sided hills everywhere. It's not at all unusual to have 500 foot ceilings so the trick is you have to get under the ceiling and just pick your way up the fiord. You're probably going to need to keep the GPS handy because you'll be referring to it all the time as you work your way in. And be careful in the last half mile because seven has a little hillock at the end of it and it can give you a nasty surprise just when you think you have got it nailed.
The 25 approach is not a picnic either, but it presents an entirely different set of issues. From its craggy rocky coastline, Greenland slopes up several thousand feet. So when you're coming in the 25 way it's a very long descent, following the downhill slope of the ground. This would be no big problem but the visibility is usually 2 miles or less and the ground is always as white as the fog you are in so you have to descend very carefully, constantly making sure your air speed isn't building while you are trying very hard to concentrate on where the ground is. You don't want to come over the numbers at 150 knots, which is what will happen if you aren't paying attention to your airspeed. Of course, you could always go around, but that's not very much fun at Narsarsuaq.
By the way, IFR is not recommended on either of these approaches. Why? Because flight simulator air traffic controllers are stupid. By the time the electronic controller who is working you, sitting on his butt in Reykjavik Iceland or somewhere like that, tells you to make a certain turn, or a certain descent you might be several miles past where you should have done it. They just aren't quick enough on the uptake for this kind of flying. Maybe the 25 approach could work out OK; at least they should be able to give you good decent information. Personally, I just suck it up and feel my way in there. I'll bet there are a lot of guys who have a lot more experience at this then I do. If you are looking for a challenging Airport to fly into. Narsarsuaq is as likely as anywhere to give you a laundry bill.

[Tim_A]

Last time I flew into Narsarsuaq was the Summer of 08. I was in the Carenado Mooney, crossing the Atlantic heading West. There had been particularly strong headwinds, and it was a struggle to maintain even 100kts over the sea/ice. Least unfavourable winds put me below 6000' across the ocean, but of course I still had to climb above 12000 to clear the Greenland ice sheet.

As a result, I was using more power than I'd planned, and of course, more fuel. So there I was, about 20 miles East of Narsarsuaq, at 12000ft, when it suddenly goes very, very quiet. Now, there's nothing like a silent donkey to engender a certain brownness of the trouser. But, professionalism crept in(!), and having trimmed the aircraft for best glide, I radioed a mayday (this was on VATSIM), and turned everything off*.

My approach was going to be a straight in to 25. Fortunately this was into wind (with the strong headwinds across the ocean, it darn well *better* be into the wind, and I didn't have the glide capacity to do a turnaround. A missed approach was definitely not going to happen! Again, as luck would have it, I also had good VMC, despite the strong winds. Now, when you make a glide approach, you don't aim for the runway. You aim for a point well beyond the runway, and only right at the last minute, practically over the fence, do you even think about lowering the gear and flaps. The long sloping valley down to the airport really worked in my favour - if the ground had stayed high until close to the airport, I wouldn't have made it. As it was, I made the perfect touchdown, right in the LZ, and coasted to a stop. Then I just had to sit there and wait for someone to come aand push me onto the apron...

* With no power from the engine, I had to save the battery for when I needed to deploy the gear and flaps.

[tres2]

I hate that westbound leg. I go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it, sometimes, especially if it's going to be 100 knots in my face. I am sitting in Goose bay right now, preparing to make my first fsx trip to Narsarsuaq. One of the most noteworthy disadvantages of being a pilot based in Europe is the fact that you have to go west to cross the ocean. Many times before I have just kept going east, clear around to Yelitsovo and home through Alaska. I will probably just do that this time as well. I'm like a kid in a candy store with this FSX scenery!
But Tim, where were you coming from from on that fateful glide-in on vapors? The UK? I'm an old pilot, but I'm not a bold pilot; I would have gone into Reykjavik. Of course, dying in the flight simulator world is not nearly so inconvenient as dying in the "real" world.
Do you like that Carenado Mooney better than the default one? I am very fond of the default Mooney. I have never bought an airplane in ten or more years of doing this and I have downloaded scores of freeware airplanes. It's not against my religion or anything. I don't know, maybe part of the reason I am hanging around on this forum is to get a feel for the conversation on things like freeware and payware.
By the way, I am continuing to look for animals. So far, Jim Skourna is turning out to be right; no animals yet. I'm still hoping at least for birds. It just doesn't make sense that they would only let them be there in missions.

[Tim_A]

I think that flight was from Keflavik - I try to vary the route slightly each time. So that particular trip was via Wick, Vagar, Keflavik, Narsarsuaq, Goose Bay, then on to Toronto and Oshkosh (I was going to the virtual Oshkosh fly-in. It was around 20 flight hours spread across several days to get there)

The Carenado Mooney is a nicely built and modelled plane, but it's an older variant than the default, and significantly less performant. The default is fast and turbo'd up, while the Carenado is somewhat asthmatic in comparison.

You will see birds in the sim if you switch on natural thermal visualisation, since they spiral in the thermals. Also look out around ships and lighthouses. Many addon airfields also have birds around them. I've only seen animals in addon scenery and missions, but depending on the scenery, there can be lots of them.