Don't try anything like this in real life. I mean it. Owing to a variety of issues too numerous to mention here, for flatland pilots with no experience in mountain flying, approaches like the one described below are dangerous even in summer. In winter such an approach is dangerous for everyone, no matter how experienced and no matter what the equipment. (If anyone ever offers you a ride to Aspen by air in winter, politely decline. And if the ride is to be after sunset, decline impolitely. In winter, always stop at DIA and rent a car. And if I-70 is closed up in the mountains so you can't get there by car, instead take the train from Denver to Winter Park and go skiing there.)

Aspen is one of the airports in the IALPA "World's Most Dangerous Airports" list. Having lived in the Front Range area of Colorado for the past 23 years I am aware of the frequency with which the airport features in regional news stories.

(As in "An airplane from New Jersey with three people aboard disappeared last night while enroute to Aspen on a filed flight plan. Eagle County Search And Rescue was alerted at two a.m., five hours after the aircraft had been expected to land. Searchers expect to begin operations this afternoon. In other news for this day of September 20th, the National Weather Service has declared a surprise Winter Storm Watch for the Denver Front Range area from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs, with temperatures dropping into the twenties and accumulations expected to exceed 18 inches in the some parts of the Denver metro area foothills...")

And when crashes occur with loss of lives at the airport (as opposed to in the mountains), the airport makes the national news as it did last winter.

As I recall, Aspen also made the national news perhaps thirty years ago when some clown landed a corporate 727 there just to prove it could be done. He got in and he got out again, without crashing. Had there been a crash, and had there been passengers aboard, in my mind such a stunt would have amounted to negligent homicide, no matter what the actual cause of the accident. (Which could turn out to be anything from a frozen pitot tube to wind shear, not to speak of on-approach cockpit error.)

I think that 727 pilot was nuts. But we're talking FS2000 here. Our engines won't fail unless we want them to. We can make the winds zero, the visibility unlimited. We can inhibit the summer afternoon thunderstorms, and we can inhibit their winter counterpart, the any-time-of-day snow showers (such as the crew of last winter's crash probably encountered on short final at night)...And if we crash we walk away unscathed, as do our imaginary passengers. Nobody gets hurt, and everybody has fun.

So let's Dice With The Devil and try to put the Phoenix 747-400 into Aspen, VFR, on a windless clear summer day. Why VFR? Because the surrounding mountains make the approach incredibly dangerous under the best of circumstances. You might elect the published instrument approach, but if the conditions aren't VFR you'd be a fool to try it. So VFR conditions are the norm for flying into Aspen - and since that's what's realistic, that's what we're going to try.

Again, don't try this on your own in real life. I have no idea what the actual published approach is like and the method discussed below is one I worked out for myself, for FS2000 only, after three scouting flights in the Wilco 767, the PJD 747-200 and the PJD 747-400. (All three scouting flights ended with crashes, the first into a mountainside while I was maneuvering to get lined up with the runway, the second on a mountain down slope a half mile short of the runway threshold, and the third on the grass field alongside the runway.)

Having given all the requisite legal caveats (whatever happened to personal responsibility?), let's do some initial planning for making the trip in the PSS 747-400:

The scouting flights showed that the runway at Aspen is really short even for a bizjet. I didn't look it up, but when I got there it appeared to be maybe 5,000 feet in length. Given that the airport elevation is at least 7,000 feet (again, I didn't look it up, and I was too busy to look at the altimeter), the effective runway length is even less because of the way-lower-than-sea-level air density. [Editor's note: the real Aspen runway is 7004 feet long by 100 wide, elevation 7815 feet.]

So we're going to want to plant the wheels on the first inch of runway while flying as slowly as possible, with autobrake at the maximum setting, and using full reverse thrust.

The operative phrase is "as slowly as possible", meaning that we should make the flight with a minimal fuel load. (Ten thousand gallons should be OK.) Flight tests with the PJD 747-200 and 747-400 showed that when lightly loaded, with full flaps and the gear down, the stall speed when below the Aspen area ridge tops was on the order of 110 knots. (Was I at 8,000 feet? 10,000? I was too busy to notice, it being necessary to put the nose down right now even though I was probably about to crash, which I didn't, at least not just then.) This low stall speed surprised me so I reran the tests with the PSS 747-400 and got a stall speed of 120 knots.

(With a near-full fuel load, the PSS 747-400 stalls at about 150 knots when "dirty", i.e. with full flaps and the gear down. So the effect of off-loading fuel is substantial, much greater than I would have guessed. I will also observe that at both the PJD and PSS simulations handle superbly at these ridiculously low weights/airspeeds. I don't know whether the real aircraft actually perform like this, but knowing something of the research that went into both product offerings I will guess that they do, a real tribute to the Boeing design engineers, and to the simulation authors.)

Add 10 or 15 knots safety margin and we should plan to fly the approach at 130-135 knots. But in fact, if we do everything right, we can hope to cross the runway threshold at 125 knots, or maybe even at 115-120 while just a little bit stalled (!!!). And if we're really doing well we will be at maybe 5-10 feet AGL when we do stall out as we cross the threshold (!!!). If so we can consider applying reverse thrust while still in the air since the resulting vertical speed impact with the runway should be modest. (No, I don't fly that well, but those are the considerations, the ideals to be striven for -- the opportunities to be taken when and if they present themselves.)

So much for theory, now let's go flying...

There is only one navaid we will use, the DBL VOR (Diablo, a/k/a Red Table Mesa), about 100 miles southwest of Denver and about 10 miles northeast of the Aspen runway. In the PSS 747-400 it is a pleasure (even for a purist like me) to simply call up the FMC, hit the NAV/RAD page key and then enter DBL for both VOR1 and VOR2 -- so we don't get confused by the HSI's VOR2 needle, which visually overwhelms the needle for VOR1. (If you are going to try this FS2000 flight but don't have an FMC, the DBL frequency is 113.00.)

As a courtesy to my simulated fellow citizens, for reasons of noise abatement I tend to use DIA runway 35R for departures. With a full load of fuel, on a summer afternoon any of my 747's will use up every inch of that runway while performing a conventional takeoff, so I often do a short-field takeoff, popping the flaps from 10 degrees to 25 just before rotating at around 140 knots or so.

But with negligible fuel this won't be necessary. Indeed, to my surprise, with just 10 degrees of flaps the lightly loaded PSS 747-400 takes off by itself while I am waiting for the expected Vr of 140 knots to happen...

I reduce the deck angle immediately after we lift off, being careful not to overdo it, and then I raise the gear as soon as we're somewhat stable in the climb. Then, as the aircraft accelerates I start raising the flaps, reaching a fully clean configuration at about 210 knots. I then start a climbing turn to the left, to a heading of 220 degrees, set the HSI range knob to 160 miles, and wait for DBL to appear.

While waiting for the DBL signal to come in, I nail the airspeed at 220 knots and continue a full-power climb to 20,000 feet, at which point I pull the power back to around 65% N1 (I think; I wasn't making notes). Maintaining 220 knots, I play with the power till I'm cruising in level flight, heading direct to DBL.

Now...

When we cross DBL we're going to turn left toward the airport, which will be 10 miles away, but while our current altitude of 20,000 feet is safely above the enroute mountain tops, it is much too high for a safe approach into Aspen.

Accordingly, when maybe 70 miles from DBL I lower the flaps to 25 degrees and put the gear down, pulling the power back to maybe 30% N1 and controlling the airspeed down to 170 knots. At that point I go to full flaps while continuing to control the airspeed, this time all the way down to 135 knots. I also engage the autobrake now, so I can't forget, setting it to maximum.

My goal is a descent rate of 1,000 feet per minute, down to 15,000 feet, which is the altitude I plan for crossing DBL. While descending I play with the controls, getting a feel for how the aircraft is behaving. At 15,000 feet I play with the power till a nice, slow, level cruise is established...

...and I sail over the mountains, admiring the scenery, getting an occasional "Don't Sink! Don't Sink!" from the GPWS as various "fourteener" peaks are crossed.

As I cross DBL the RMI stills read 1.5 miles DME from the VOR (because it is perhaps 8,000 feet below us). I immediately start a moderately steep left turn to a heading of 135 degrees (20 degrees of bank should do it). I pull the power back to flight idle, maybe 25% N1, and keep the all-important airspeed nailed at 135 knots during the turn. (We must not let the aircraft get away from us - there will be no time, and not much altitude, for recovering from screw-ups.)

Using the W key I keep flipping back and forth between outside view and the instrument panel. From the panel, all I want is the airspeed reading. Everything else I want to know is best obtained from the outside view using the Mark I Eyeball, plus listening to the engine sounds.

I roll out of the turn when the airport is in sight. I'm not exactly sure how far out I am, or how high I am, but I know from one of the scouting flights that the prominent white dot off to the right of the town of Aspen is the runway we want, Pitkin County Airport runway 15. I begin a final right turn to align the flight path with the runway...

... And from this point on the entire approach is flown visually, except for constantly checking the airspeed on the instrument panel. My method is to use power so as to keep the end of the runway from either rising or descending in the view. (I can't tell you exactly what moves I made at this point because I was much too busy to notice.)

Think about it: The spot on the screen that is not moving is the spot the aircraft will hit if the flight path doesn't change. All other spots will appear to move on the screen, to be streaming toward the edges of the screen. So at constant airspeed, you just play with the power, and with the ailerons, so as to make the end of the runway not move on the screen. (I won't say "center of the screen" because the position of the no-motion spot depends on the FS2000 zoom setting. For a variety of reasons I use 70% zoom but quite frankly I have no idea whether this puts the no-motion spot in the center - I'm usually much too busy to notice.)

There! The white dot has blossomed into the visual depiction of the runway, and oh my is it ever short! Now we start to sweat - because we're very high and a little fast - but we come back on the power all the way, being careful not to engage reverse thrust. And even though every instinct says to dive for the runway, we feed in immediate up elevator so as to slow way down, all the way to 125 knots, at which point we begin to drop like a rock...

...till we're happy with the altitude, at which point we feed in a bunch of throttle and lower the nose a bit...

...and approach the end of the runway, which is about 100 feet to our left, but who cares? -- 747's are built like tanks and we're going to land on the grass...

...which we do by applying reverse thrust when the GPWS callout says "10 feet"...

...and then we're down, and slowing, and we stop well before the end of the runway!

Whew! I can get almost as scared by the simulator as when I used to fly for real. (110 hours in Cherokees and Citabrias out of Princeton Airport, a long time ago.)

I made another flight after the one described above, with a much better approach, but I screwed up on short final and crashed on the runway when I again pulled the "reverse-thrust-while-still-airborne" trick...

And having proven my manhood, now I will learn the FMC, backwards and forwards, and I won't hesitate to make full use of it, because I know that my skills are now at the point where I can cancel the FMC at any time and fly manually like God intended.

By the way, I do this kind of macho flying with the keyboard alone, using the elevator control and never the elevator trim. (Because it's too hard to remember the trim position, and therefore too easy to get into a drag-producing configuration involving up-elevator with down-trim, or vice-versa. Not every aircraft features a minicontrols display, and when they do it often doesn't display everything you need.)

Sure, I have a joystick, but I save it for military combat simulations. For FS2000 the joystick makes life too easy: It commands absolute deck angle, and its throttle commands absolute engine RPMs. (But when using the joystick I do use elevator trim.)

I have a CHS yoke, too, but pride won't let me use it until I have more fully mastered the art of fly-by-keyboard, like Bruce Artwick intended.

Cheers,
Mike McCarthy
mikemcc@earthnet.net