Viperdoc wrote:
Recently, on a long cross country from Portland, OR to Wisconsin, we stopped
at Helena, MT for a gas and pit stop.

Just flew that approach from a few different IAFs in the sim with wx set
for 200 above minimums and 2 miles vis and I have to agree -- it's a
tough approach. Not as ridiculous as Aspen, but it still makes you
question the sanity of the TERPS guys.

Tried it from 12K on the southern arc and 10 on the northern arc at
120KIAS. 750FPM seemed to get me where I was going through the
transition to final, but the final approach segment itself required
around 1000FPM just to reach minimums at the MDA.

Not exactly the kind of approach I'd care to shoot in hard IMC and in
icing at the end of a long day, but aviation is all about the challenge,
right? :-)

Oh, and speaking of mountains, if you think the terrain is bad on this
approach, check out the southern arc landing on 27. They have you
inbound at 10900 then drop you down to 9100 only a few miles from a peak
at 8499. Yikes.

-Doug

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Doug Vetter, ATP/CFI

http://www.dvatp.com
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