746th fly-in: Robinson Crusoe Island, Chile (SCIR)

[Kumiankka]

link to fly-in index thread

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On Sunday, April 28th it's time to head for an incredibly obscure and remote location, Robinson Crusoe Airport (SCIR) in the Juan Fernández Islands of Chile. Formerly named Más a Tierra, the small mountainous island is thought to have inspired Daniel Defoe's famous novel 300 years ago. The then-uninhabited island was later settled, during the 19th century, but its population is still less than a thousand, and this airport remains one of its few connections to the outside world. The dramatic, mountainous terrain has certainly affected the airport's construction, with a severely sloped runway ending in steep cliffs on both sides. I was actually wondering if this was some sort of sim glitch until this story on Airliners.net verified that the runway is actually like that in real life! No custom scenery available this time, but the airport can be found in the default scenery for XP10 and 11.

Have a nice trip - ¡buen viaje!

 

New pilots are always welcome, read the threads linked here to get started

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[surfintucson]

Bummer on the lack of custom scenery. Though the default shows a nice curvature to the runway:

At a bit under 3K feet though, maybe not for my 777. Unless there's a headwind landing uphill? Hmmm.

[GuyB]

I think this is going to be a an example when to use the DH6 and turn contours off:)

 

 

[rajo]

[cyl8]

First wave of craft had arrived or about to arrive, and I found MrMac, Aartic, and Flymatt were just leaving Chile coast, so started up in the Epic Victory at SCVR Viña Del Mar, and set up to catch up with some.

About 3/4 way there, things went quiet... I have forgotten to switch the fuel tank! and I told myself not to forget about it at beginning of flight...  Luckly, for me, Epic Victory has all the modern gears, restarting the engine while gliding the air didn't take long even when I still rely on the list and dropped just few thousand ft. The arrival order was MrMac, Ghun, Aartic and I. The curved runway sure was a challenge, and by the time I cleared cloud I was already above the runway and had to go around. I think I tried too hard to aim for the bar code and let the speed went too low, crashed and rolled to the side on the first try. I tried to touch down further where curvature wasn't as steep and touched down a little harsh still but survived otherwise.

The clouds were still blocking the mountain top views, but I took off in the helo for a quick island tour, and expected to practice a bit of IFR, as I headed toward the tallest mountain near by.

made it back alive as I came out of clouds again toward SCIR

Returned to the airport building and observed jvds95's landing. I hit the camera shuttle a little too late so I didn't have a nice pic of the touch down. I came to park next to him before we headed out.

Hasta la próxima semana!

 

 

 

 

[ICharger01]

Really enjoyed my 1st online flight, although the 767 wasn't a good choice as I ended up in the water. Looking forward to the next[emoji106]

Sent from my SM-T835 using Tapatalk

[Buckyjunior]

Kumi certainly picks some challenging sites. As most others, I selected "runways follow contours" and "real" weather. My version 10 X-Plane certainly had contoured runways and weather that was very similar to what others reported.

Following the Airliners.net story, I selected Municipal De Vitacura (SCLC) as my departure airport. I didn't have a plane similar to the Dornier Do 228-101 so I needed to come up with something different. Most of my twin engine planes were slow and would have taken me forever. I thought a smaller regional jet would do so picked the CRJ-200. An hour and 15 minute flying time was good. I made out my flight plan, started up X-Plane, and hopped in the cockpit. Whoa! SCLC was already a challenge.

The runway followed the slope down to the highway. I very nearly slid sideways off the runway. Then, it was a bit shorter than I anticipated and clipped some of the grass as I was taking off. Not a good omen. Not a good omen at all.

The flight was uneventful at 14,000 feet except for the radio chatter about the 200 foot ceiling. I thought I heard Kumi mention he was aborting landing and going around. My flight plan from Little Navmap was a bit troublesome since the FIXes it suggested using were not in my X-Plane's database making the FMS autopilot useless. I flew mostly from the map window. Closer to Crusoe, points showed up the screen making manual/visual navigation possible.

I thought I was doing fairly well, approaching the runway at about 140 knots, making a turn up at the last minute to match the rising slope of the runway. I hit the runway hard but the plane didn't fall apart. I stood on the brakes and immediately reversed the thrusters full.

Not enough. I plunged over the cliff and headed toward the sea. Switching the thrusters and full power were not enough to get me back in the air. X-Plane respawned me on the runway but I quickly moved out of the way as xpcyl8 was not far behind me desiring a landing on runway 32. I sat and watched for his landing but could not see over the edge of the contoured runway. May have to try this again in better weather and with a smaller plane.

AARTIC aka Bucky

[GuyB]

Another Monday, another PIREP.

Good to see more new names and welcome to our forum.

Sunday I started at SCIE, I decided to use real time and real weather.  On arrival I discovered that was a poor choice, so I changed to daylight and clear skies.

Once there I realized that there was a lot of heavy metal around so I went to the other side of the airfield and spotted EDD,  Welcome.

There was a lot of traffic leaving from further up the coast and it was apparent my arrival in a slower DH6 from another direction would get in the way.  So I went around the island and followed some of the others in on the active runway.

Happy Vapour Trails,

GuyB

Edited April 29, 2019 by GuyB

[bootsie]

14 hours ago, ICharger01 said:

Really enjoyed my 1st online flight, although the 767 wasn't a good choice as I ended up in the water. Looking forward to the next

I think we all would have been impressed if you'd successfully landed - and stopped a 767 on that runway!

Just a tip for future reference but it's always worth checking out the destination airport beforehand (and the departure airport for that matter) to get an idea of the runway length and surface type.  This will help you decide on a suitable aircraft for the flight - one that is capable of landing (or taking off) within that runway length.  Kumi does pick some pretty out-of-the-way airports at times so we're quite often changing the type of aircraft from week to week - airliners one week, GA the next.

For most people, to go-to site for this sort of information is SkyVector, i.e. https://skyvector.com/airport/SCIR/Isla-Robinson-Crusoe-Airport.  However in this instance there's next to no detail about SCIR (never a good sign if you're planning to land a 767 there!), but a quick Google search shows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_Airport, which lists the main runway length as 3,297 feet.  Use that as a guide for a suitable aircraft.  You may get an A320 to land in that distance with full reverse and max brakes but you'd have to hit the touchdown point absolutely perfectly I think.

Anyway, just thought that might help you with future flight planning - sorry if you know all this stuff already!

Glad you enjoyed the flight though, hope to see you next time.

[bootsie]

12 hours ago, Buckyjunior said:

Most of my twin engine planes were slow and would have taken me forever. I thought a smaller regional jet would do so picked the CRJ-200.

I thought I saw that aircraft type in the online map just as I was signing off.  That's a brave choice for that runway - well done on having the balls to try it though!

[ICharger01]

Thank you for the tips. I have noted them all down and will do my homework before the next flight. I did jump in feet first which was a big mistake. Roll on next week.
Thanks to everyone who made me feel so welcome.

[ghun1]

Good choice for a fly in again Kumi, congrats 😁 And a big welcome to new pilots joining in the fun. I enjoyed reading the airliners.net article so much I can't stop reading them!  having read the article I was tempted to fly (and even buy) a Do-228 (I have the freeware version which is very good) but the 2 hr flight time for the flight was too long for me so I looked for something faster - but still that might manage the odd looking runway. I didn't have to look further than one of my favourite prop planes, the PMDG DC-6 (ICAO online DC6). It even had an old LAN Chile livery so that was decided. Take off was from SCEL, Santiago International.

Crusing along at around 270 KIAS (290 GND SPD) the islands came into view after a mere hour's flight time.

I overflew the airfield and then turned downwind for a run up to runway 32.

My first shot at it caught me misjudging the slope and I nearly descended into the cliff face! But the engine power did not let me down and even with a lot of flap left on, the big throbbing radials lifted me up above the cliff edge for a go-around.

My seconf attempt was succesfull and I parked up next to Bootsie and RAJO (aka diraj) to watch Kumi find his way under the reported weather for a landing.

I say reported as, despite having real weather on x-plane reporting the bad cloud base:

I simply never saw it. Maybe another bug in the latest beta as I had updated to 11.33r2 just before the flight. I took off from SCIR and went for a tour of Island Alejandro Selkirk, which makes me very confused as to which Island Selkirk was really marooned upon.

On the return flight I saw some of the inclement weather everyone was talking about,

but it soon dissipated and I landed again, to watch Aartic come in for his landing.

He was obviously high and fast. Although the airiners.net article was very amusing, watching aartic's plane float by above the runway, touch down 3/4 of the way along it and then go over the edge of the island was quite funny. Sorry, Bucky, we've all been there, done that, but I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I saw his call sign through the ground as he plummeted down the cliff face before going for a swim. If only I had pressed ctrl-space 😱

Of course he reappeared quickly enough - which is why fly-ins are so much fun.

see you all next time,

Gary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kumiankka]

This was definitely one of those times we can be glad we're just playing around in a simulator, since doing the realistic thing and flying back to the mainland would've been no fun at all!

 

I had originally planned on flying a Dornier Do-228 from Santiago, and actually managed to get as far as taking off just around the break of dawn.

 

Unfortunately soon after takeoff I ran into some problems with the landing gear, which wouldn't retract. Neither the lever on the Saitek panel nor the simulator's default hotkey managed to amount to anything more than a few sound effects and blinking lights.

 

While fidddling around in the cockpit trying to get the gear to cooperate, I managed to kill the #1 engine and couldn't get it to start up again. So I promptly declared emergency and headed back for the airport.

 

At least I got some good twin-engine practice out of this, remembering the "raise the dead" rule of thumb - right turns only.

 

Short final to 17R, with a little more airspeed and a little less flaps than usual

 

Others were already departing SCEL as I headed back for the ramp

 

I quickly switched planes and took off again, this time in a Twin Otter where gear retraction wouldn't be an issue anyway.

 

Taking off in the southern direction, I got a better view of the city on departure. So much for being ahead of the pack though, as the combination of departure delays and a slower-than-planned cruise speed added another hour to the schedule.

 

All this was quite minor compared to what was waiting for me at Robinson Crusoe Island though - an overcast ceiling at 200 feet, just below the airport's elevation! 

 

After failing to get a visual on the runway on the first attempt, I flew a few circuits round the holding pattern at the IRC NDB, waiting for the sky to clear. Some of the taller mountaintops were actually peeking through the low cloud cover, as you can see. I wasn't lucky enough to get any better visibility on the next weather update either, but decided to try one more time since I was getting awfully close to the reserve fuel I needed in case I needed to return to the mainland.

 

Approaching from the south, I gambled on the idea that the runway's significant slope might actually put its southern end just below the cloud deck. And so it did, just barely!

 

Down on the runway, after a landing that made some of those tunnel flying segments in the Ace Combat games look quite sane in comparison.

[leadfarma]

Thanks everyone for making me feel so welcome for my first flight with the group. I'm looking forward to next weeks flight!

 

After a short wait for the emergency aircraft (Kumiankka with a single engine failure) to return to Santiago I departed in a TBM from runway 35R. Fully loaded with fuel I climbed out at a little over 2000ft/min to FL300. The flight was uneventful at first however once I began my decent towards Robinson Crusoe it became apparent there was dense cloud cover in the area. Passing through 6000ft and on a downwind for runway 14 I entered the clouds. I continued my approach and turned final at just over 1500ft, still in the clouds with effectively no visibility. Only a few miles out it became obvious that the weather forecast of 600ft ceilings was accurate and this was going to be a challenge. Considering the field elevation of 433ft I decided to go missed. Even with the radio altimeter on the TBM I didn't feel comfortable continuing with a visual approach. My second attempt went even worse with a misconfiguration of the autopilot resulting in the TBM inadvertently descending well below the selected 1000ft. Distracted and focused more on 'eyeballing' my position to the runway using the MFD than flying the airplane, the slow decent towards the ocean below went unnoticed. Soon the silence in the cockpit was broken by the GPWS announcing "TOO LOW, TERRAIN... PULL UP". To my shock I was at only 300ft AGL and descending. Knowing the steep mountains of Robinson Crusoe were only a short distance through the fog, I quickly applied go around power.

Thankfully, thanks to the performance of the TBM I cleared the terrain. This time I decided not to attempt another landing and instead the return to Chile seemed appropriate. After loading up direct Santiago I was soon back cruising at FL300. Thanks to a 70knot tailwind, I was really moving at nearly 400knots across the ground. The flight back to Santiago was uneventful and before I knew it I was refuelled and back on my way to Robinson Crusoe for another attempt. This time everything went smoothly, the ceiling was now just below 2000ft and the wind had calmed. A successful landing marked the end of my first flight with this Group. Thanks for having me and see you all this Sunday!

Edited May 1, 2019 by leadfarma

[bootsie]

1 hour ago, leadfarma said:

Even with the radio altimeter on the TBM I didn't feel comfortable continuing with a visual approach.

Is it the HotStart TBM 900? I used Synthetic Vision to be on the safe side.  Worked a treat.

However, I still struggled to get it down and stopped in time with the tailwind we had on final.

[leadfarma]

18 minutes ago, bootsie said:

Is it the HotStart TBM 900? I used Synthetic Vision to be on the safe side.  Worked a treat.

However, I still struggled to get it down and stopped in time with the tailwind we had on final.

Yes, loving the HotStart TBM. I leave the Synthetic Vision off normally and didn't think to turn it on. Would have been a perfect use case. I wasn't going to try from the 32 end, thought it might be a bit tight with the tailwind.

[Skylark2992]

Hi everybody, I really enjoyed reading your PIREPs today; it sounds like you all had a rough time getting down, but the screenshots suggest it was worth the effort! Welcome @leadfarma; I see you're new and had a particularly tough time on final approach.

Today, I finally decided to upgrade from X-Plane 10 to X-Plane 11. I have taken the plunge!

But one thing that bothers me is that - and no disrespect intended here - some of the screenshots here show ugly grey smoke trails from the wingtips and behind the aircraft. How do we remove them? They make it look as if your aircraft have just had a bad overhaul or something, billowing smoke and all.

Hopefully soon I can rejoin fly-ins, but I have so little time to fly lately and tend to work through most of my weekends.

[bootsie]

3 minutes ago, Skylark2992 said:

But one thing that bothers me is that - and no disrespect intended here - some of the screenshots here show ugly grey smoke trails from the wingtips and behind the aircraft. How do we remove them? They make it look as if your aircraft have just had a bad overhaul or something, billowing smoke and all.

It can be done on an aircraft-by-aircraft basis using PlaneMaker, apparently:

I'd be careful about backing up the old .ACF file though since PlaneMaker will try and upgrade the model to the latest version which might break something.

Can't say the effect has ever bothered me too much to be honest, most of the time in the cockpit I don't see them, and on my system at least it doesn't appear to affect performance.

I do agree that the effects do seem over-done though, I wouldn't be surprised if they're toned down in a future update.

 

[Skylark2992]

Thank you @bootsie, I will try that. I back up everything meticulously, but thanks also for that reminder/advice. Ironically, I back up every blade of virtual grass, every speck of virtual dust, every file, all the time. I'll let you know how I get on.

[flymatt36]

Great fly in I feel I was a bit early this time! Those clouds were pretty rough with a more challenging runway, I came in way too high but managed to pull off the landing next time maybe a go-around! See y’all in a couple weeks in on vacation now!