Matarangi - Great Mercury Island + Tricky Landing

[FlyingKiwi]

Hi guys, inspired by Jan's recent bush flying I decided to have a go at landing on a fairly difficult airstrip myself. For this flight I chose the perfect aircraft for short field operations - the Grumman AA-5. Er, ok, never mind...

Enjoy the shots!

Taking off from Matarangi, a small public airfield on the Coromandel Peninsula, east of Auckland, New Zealand.


Heading further east, and offshore.


The weather today is reasonable, with some low cloud and a slight wind blowing from the east.


The Mercury Islands are just a short distance offshore from Matarangi, total flight time to get there is less than 10 minutes.


Flying over Great Mercury Island, the main island, and trying to locate the airstrip.


There's the runway. In real life this is a private airstrip, and although it does have a decent amount of slope, FS exaggerates this slope significantly, to make for an unexpected challenge!


Positioning "downwind" although technically it's upwind today.


A curved approach path is required due to the terrain.


You don't so much fly over the trees as around them!


On approach.


More shots in the reply...

[FlyingKiwi]

...the rest.

This is going to be exciting!


Need quite a lot of power to maintain a very steep flare.


Touching down, and managing to avoid a tailstrike through sheer luck more than anything else. Immediately need full power to avoid running backwards down the slope.


After some lengthy taxiing, I finally made it to the top of the hill and parked for a few minutes to gather my thoughts.


Taking off again downslope for the return trip to Matarangi.


That's all for this flight, hope you guys enjoyed it, it was certainly a challenge to fly! Here is a photo I took earlier in the year of the real life Mercury Island airfield:


As you can see, the runway in real life (to the right of the photo) isn't quite as steep as FSX makes it out to be, although it's still strictly one way.

Comments welcome!

[aircav1970]

Outstanding Set!It sure looks like you may have gotten some grass skids on the tail!Good Show!

[IronmanMLR]

That is a tough looking landing. When you were pointing out the runway early, I was searching everywhere for it and couldn't find what you were talking about.

Thanks for sharing your shots.

[flyboy208]

What a cool post Leo, and thanks for the perspective of the real pic. Nice aviating here Mate, looks very tricky! Mike

[mtflyer]

Very nice Leo!!
Great set of shots and nice real world pic.

Keep it up my friend!

[AlienA51]

Masterfull landing Leo great set of shots.

Gary

[peer01]

Spectacular Leo, great job Nice to see the real life pic to compare. The area looks beautiful btw

[Smutley]

Excellent post Leo.

[yv35p]

Amazing shots!..thats some tricky airfield Leo...<<<For this flight I chose the perfect aircraft for short field operations - the Grumman AA-5. Er, ok, never mind...>>> hehehehe..i think a a Turbo Porter would be slightly better

Best Regards,