Innsbruck is one of my favorite airports in Flight Simulator- a real challange. The airport is at 1900ft MSL, sitting in the center of a valley and surrounded by alps that top 12,000ft. Since the valley curves a bit, there is no direct approach to the airport. In fact, the ILS, while terminating at the landing threshold, is *not* in line with the runway- at decision height, you have to make a quick right turn to line up. Not that it made any difference in this case (more below.)
Pushed out at 2:34PM in Athens, for a flight of 788 NM, cruising at FL360, at 275KIAS. Radios went from Athens ground, to tower, to departure, to center, then Tirana Center, Belgrade Center, Zagreb Center, Ljubljana Center, Milan Center, Vienna Center, Innsbruck approach, then tower.
Watching the winds, I had been expecting runway 26 to be active. I usually approach 26 for ILS via transition at the RTT intersection, a ways east of the airport. Pretty simple- fly to RTT, descending to be at 13,000 at RTT, then descend into the valley to intersect the beam at about 3,900, then on in to the runway. Today though, nothing doing. The controller assigned the dreaded runway 8 visual approach. In the real world, I would have to assume that the controllers take the actual landscape into account, but no such luck in FS 2004. (Note: in FS10, there is actually an ILS approach from the west at Innsbruck, and while it is complicated, at least it does exist. FS2004 has NO approach from the west other than the visual.) So, I followed the vectors, and sure enough, control put me at 11,000, right over the top of a mountain, only 12 miles from the runway. I radioes I had the runway in sight, so approached passed me to the tower, but rather than contacting the tower right away, I circled once (very tight circle, between the walls of the valley) to descend about 5000ft, then contacted the tower. A massive no-no in the real world, but in the real world I would not have been in that situation in the first place. I had to maintain a pretty high rate of descent- high enough there probably would have been barf bags coming out, but since this is a simulation, I don't have to give any refunds. (!) Landed a little long, but since I was so slow on touchdown, there was no problem with rollout. That's another issue with this airport: the runway is 6550ft, which is useable, but a tad short for jets- no margin for error.
Well, that's part of the challenge. Interesting flight.
Warming up at Athens
Number One for Takeoff
Climbing Out
Ascending over Downtown Athens & The Acropolis
Over The Agean Sea
The Italian Alps
Making a turn towards Innsbruck
Wait- this was supposed to be a VISUAL approach...
Landing- still a little high
Wilkommen bei Innsbruck
