Here we go…!
First leg for me will be a short hop from my nearest airport - Gastonia, NC (KAKH) up to an interesting airport that I was close to buying the farm at over two decades ago - Elk River, NC (NC06).
My one and only brush with Elk River airport was as a dim-witted copilot in a Citation II, pretty much just along for the ride at my experience level. We headed up to Elk River to pick up passengers and it was both the PIC’s and my first time there. It is a one way in/out airport with high terrain in all quadrants. Unbeknownst to us, it had also just been resurfaced with an asphalt sealant that was still wet.
My ride for the Christmas Flight is going to be the venerable X-Aviation Mitsubishi MU-2 Marquise - the very first complex aircraft I bought for X-Plane many, many years ago, and it still largely holds up even after all these years.
I went to fly the leg earlier this morning, but the weather (low ceilings) would have prevented getting into Elk River (there are no instrument approaches), so I set about getting familiar with the MU-2 and went over the checklist items. It is a very simple aircraft to get up and running…which will be a bonus on this long trip to Attu Island.
Thanks to some help from AVSIM user “Skrimps” and “Ither”, they got me fixed up with a GTN 750 integration to give my MU-2 a bit more capability…
Getting her cranked up for a test run of the cold start procedure and checking out the avionics…
By mid-morning the ceilings had lifted enough to make the short trip up toward Beech Mountain and Elk River…
The latest version of the MU-2 has most of the kinks worked out, even with XP11. I found that having the props a bit into beta range helped with taxi speed and kept me from having to use the brakes very much…
The “Moo” is a twitchy little beast and likes to roll quite a bit even on the ground…perhaps it is all the weight out in those tip tanks. I remember it being a pain-in-the-butt to fuel as a line person…
Powered up we are soon airborne…to the great relief of everyone on the ramp and nearby neighborhoods since the Garrett engines are absolutely obnoxious…
Turning on course toward Elk River…
I think the MU-2 is one of the prettiest turboprops ever built. In XP11 there is the visual artifact of streaming vortices from the wingtips…not sure how to get rid of that…
Crossing over the Blue Ridge Parkway…looking for @Magnum50 on his motorcycle down there…
A short flight up to Banner Elk / Elk River…coming across the field we will cross over, fly a bit to the northwest, then come back down the road valley on a slightly offset course to land on runway 12 - the only landing option available. It pays to get a bit dirtied up early…
Coming back around to the offset final approach course…
So the runway sits just beyond that crotch ahead where the road passes through. Back when I had my real life run-in with Elk River, my very experienced PIC just didn’t know enough about the airport to know that the normal approach is offset and through the cut between the two hills. Instead, he opted to go straight-in to 12, over the hill to the right. This was a problem because we had our nose pointed down, fully dirty, speedbrakes out, and couldn’t get slow enough to maintain Vref. We ended up high, hot, and landing a good bit down the runway…which had just been resurfaced with a sealant that made it slippery. Fortunately, the strip is not ultra short, and has a very significant upslope which helped us stop. The anti-skid system vibrated for the entire landing run…the reversers were at full cry…and we just barely stopped before going off the end. I looked at the PIC and I was obviously not looking very confident in what we had just done…and he said to me “Were you scared?”…to which I said “Yes”…and then he (an ex-Army helicopter pilot that had been shot down three times in Vietnam) roared to me “THEN WHY THE HELL DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING!!!” Haha…
The correct path into the airport…descending over the road…
On with no problems…
First leg in the books!
So here is a great video of a Falcon 10 landing at Elk River that gives some good perspective on the approach and landing. These guys know what they are doing:
