The airport is known as a dangerous one. Wind conditions and the surrounding mountains make the approach challenging. Terrain is rising very quickly from the coast, leaving almost no flat ground between the relief and sea. The airport is then mainly constructed on a artificial base.

When I first visited it four years ago, flying a B737-400, I landed on runway 24 and two (!) missed approaches are reported in my flight logbook. Let's see how I will deal with the runway 5 approach on the new airport.

FUN passed. Serious things are beginning now! The airport is already clearly visible.

This is a visual approach procedure. No navaid, at all, is located on the airport. There is no question here of IGS, ILS approaches or automatic landing. In a word, this is a place where the good old hand flying skills are hard demanded. The procedure looks like a tight half turn, mainly above sea, whose downwind leg is about 2 nm (3.5 km) away from the airport and final leg, following the runway axis, is only 1.1 nm (2 km) long.

The very first part of the approach, however, is still under instrument rules: we fly on track 213° until reading 3.6 nm at the DME from FUN, descending to and maintaining 1140 feet (recommended) or 940' (minimum). Once this point (named MAP) is reached, the visual procedure begins. Autopilot is then disengaged. Recommended Indicated Air Speed is then 190 kt (350 km/h).

Passing MAP, beginning of the visual procedure. Runway platform is visible below the flaps.

Next, we proceed on track (theorically under visual) until reading 6 nm at the DME. At this time, the procedure turn will begin.

Downwind leg on track 213°. Gear down.

The turn path is given, on its end, by the two reporting points of GELO and ROSARIO, which should be crossed at 850' for the first and 460' for the second. They are located at the ends of the arc of a circle that follows the coast line. Between GELO and ROSARIO a curved LDIN approach light system has been installed (which, off course, makes us remember the famous Kai Tak airport at Hong Kong, now closed).

Things are happening fast, very fast indeed. I managed to follow, with a rather good accuracy, the turn procedure but I had trouble on the final leg, most probably because of this crosswind! Missed approach? Not so far! Crosswind landings are not an exclusive of Madeira airport and, despite some adrenaline for all the people on board, the bird was safely down a few seconds later. I agree, not right on the runway centerline, but considering the two missed approaches of my distant previous visit, it sounds quite like a good job.

Starting the procedure turn.

The tight half turn as seen from outside...

... and from the passenger's seat.

Between GELO and ROSARIO. Trying to follow the coast line to join the final leg.

Almost on final. We will have to deal with the crosswind now.

It looks not too bad. We are still able to be successful with this approach, but are still too high.

Yes this is a crosswind landing.

We've almost made it.

Touchdown! Left main gear on runway centerline. Not a perfect landing I agree...

Safely down.

Engineers have done a great work here.

After landing, a backtrack was necessary before exiting the runway via taxiway B (one of the two short taxiways of the airport facilities). We reached our parking position on the apron at 16:20z, after a 3 hour and 50 minute flight. We will take some rest and enjoy Madeira's sun for a little while before getting prepared for our return sector to Brussels in the late evening.

Arrival in the sun. Welcome to Madeira!

Final Leg: Madeira To Brussels

The return sector will be a night flight. Scheduled arrival is around 2:00 am local time at Brussels, a rather usual hour for a medium haul charter flight. The departure will though take place during sunset, at 21:20 LMT. Some CB clouds had gathered above Madeira but the wind, for its own, had calmed down, giving us no major worry for the departure sequence.

The bird enjoying the last sunlight of the day.

Taking off from runway 05, we'll fly the SNT 3N SID, which makes us turn right on track 089° immediately after takeoff. Once reading 4 nm from the Funchal VOR/DME, a left turn is planned on track 040° to join the PST (Porto Santo) NDB and then the Porto Santo VOR/DME.

Let's take a look at our return flight plan:

LPMA SNT3N SNT UN745 NARTA MAGUM BARDI UN873 ZMR FERMO PATEL RONIR RUXON NTS ARDOD SORAP EVX BELDI VEKIN UZ173 ARVOL ARVOL2A EBBR

As we can see, we follow the UN873 airway from the BARDI intersection, located south of Salamanca in Spain to the VEKIN intersection, somewhere southeast of Lille in France (the airway between VEKIN and ARVOL being used by inbound traffic to Brussels-National only).

The flight plan can then be dramatically simplified in this case:

LPMA SNT3N SNT UN745 BARDI UN873 VEKIN ARVOL ARVOL2A EBBR

... this short line entirely defines a 1465 nm (2700 km) journey!

Return flight plan stands in only one page. Last page (3/3) contains the STAR fixes.

A view of the 737NG virtual cockpit just before engine start.

Ready for takeoff.

So long Madeira.

Departure leg on track 089°

We're going home! Climbing to FL340.

The ARVOL 2A arrival procedure for Brussels makes us pass near the city of Tournai in the Belgian province of Hainaut, then through Flanders via the AKOVI, RODRI and KERKY fixes. Actually, this arrival procedure make us not fly directly to the airport but a rather long westerly detour as soon as we cross the France/Belgium border.

From KERKY, located near the Affligem VOR/DME, west of Brussels, we are likely to expect radar vectoring for an ILS runway 25L approach or being asked to follow the published approach path.

Weather at Brussels is quite good again, broken stratus at 3000' and good visibility (10 km or more). In that way, arriving from the West and landing in the opposite direction, we requested the base turn earlier than stated on the full ILS official procedure, whose downwind leg leads to Bruno VOR/DME (BUN transition), located almost 20 nm N-E of the airport. This time, the landing was also performed manually.

The Nav Display and the FMC PROGRESS page seen as we cross the Belgian border. We have a 25 kts tailwind.

Descending, approaching RODRI. Below is the city of Geraardsbergen.

Still descending, now on the downind leg. The illuminated road (A12) is one of the two highways connecting Brussels with Antwerp. Brussels could be seen in the distance, but is now hidden by the clouds.

Localizer capture. The runway is 3.4 nm (6 km) away.

Final.

At midnight GMT (2:00 local) we reached the Satellite terminal. If all the children on board may have been asleep, the airport was still awake... The faithful aircraft would rest a while before its next virtual adventure, taking passengers to the endless sun in northern Norway!

Welcome back to Brussels, it's 2:00 local time. Please remain seated until the engines and aircraft have come to a complete stop...

Credits

The following software was used to make this review:

Main:
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight

Commercial aircraft add-on:
737NG The Next Generation by PMDG

Commercial scenery add-on:
Wonderful Madeira developed by Luis Sa and Jose Fortuna (Aerosoft)

Commercial AI Traffic add-on:
Ultimate Traffic 2004 by Flight1 Software
Soviet AI aircraft taken from My Traffic 2004 (Aerosoft)

Freeware scenery add-on:
EBBR 2004 Brussels National airport scenery by Robert Buysen V3.2 (beta)
Ostend airport scenery by Benoit Facon and Hans Vandale (EBOS2002 Team)
Belgium VFR scenery V2.2-patch 3D by Freddy Bridoux
FS2002 replacement night textures by Chris Willis (FSW Group)
Runway replacement black texture by V. Nauta (RWYBLKNG.ZIP)
Portugal PPP scenery V2.2 for FS2004 by J. Diogo, J. Oliveira, M. Kispo, N. Chambel

SIDs, STARs, Approach Charts and Airports diagrams were all provided by SimCharts V3.0 by Jeppesen (commercial).

Further documents or inspiration sources include PMDG's 737 Flight Manual (Aircraft systems and cockpit overview, Normal procedures and checklists, FMC manual), Boeing official website, Wonderful Madeira's manual, real Jeppesen enroute charts for Europe (published on March 2003) and a real computed flight plan kindly given by the crew after a Virgin Express flight from LEMD to EBBR in July 2002.

Many thanks go to the developers of those quality add-ons, and also to the authors of feature articles and other flight reviews published on FlightSim.Com (the latter being 'Golden Argosy' by Tony Vallilo) that may also have inspired this one.

Note: some of the images that were given here, being reductions of the original FS2004 screenshots, have been slightly enhanced (contrast, edge) for better rendering.

Any comments of questions about this review are welcome. I already give you a rendez-vous in the future with a new trip around the world!

Read other parts

Cedric De Keyser
cdk@ngi.be