Відео

There is special training to land at Aspen. Simulator training is almost certainly involved but I haven't taken it so I don't know. There's special go-around procedures involved which differ from normal conditions. You must initiate go-around earlier than usual due to diminished performance since you fly the approach at an altitude of about 9,000 feet to 8,000 feet and touching the runway at 7,820 ft. The plane will experience reduced climb-out performance. The go-around procedure involves threading the needle between two mountains after a relatively sharp turn to your right. Upon making this turn the winds naturally cruise down the mountainside, further reducing your plane's ability to climb because the air is sinking, sometimes rapidly. Certain aircraft are not allowed to fly at Aspen because although they have good performance, they do not have good enough performance to safely navigate the go-around procedures.

Beechcraft Premier

At 0:30 he is aligned with runway 15. At 0:34, heads left to begin circling to rwy 33.

Guessing Thomas is clueless and doesn't have a lot of single-pilot time in swept wing jets.

Makes one wonder how planes takeoff from Aspen in the first place then doesn't it ;)

@@likeawhispr Aspen is a 1-way-in 1-way-out airport because winds consistently favor landing from the North on 15 and taking off to the North from 33. There is a long extended valley to the North of the airport which is not a populated area - good for crashing into if you need that, and pilots have before. To initiate go-around while landing on 15 is different than taking off from 33 because you have a terrain obstacle to your left, to your front, and to your right. Combined with your already heightened altitude causing diminished performance from your engines, a go-around at Aspen while landing on 15 is asking every bit of performance your aircraft can give. There's over 5 miles' distance between the airport and the closest terrain obstacle taking off to the North - compare that to the ~2.5 miles you have between the airport and the next terrain obstacle to the South. That's why a go-around is dangerous. "Next to no possibility" is not an overstatement. You take the valley to the left - you risk crashing into a highly populated area. You take the valley on the right - you risk finding rapidly sinking air from the constant tailwinds which are now right-to-left descending from the ridge on your right. You do not have a good option, you must rely on the already diminished power your engines can put out. Now, I'm a math guy. I like math. Math saves lives. So, a Cj4 climbs at approximately 1200 fpm. We'll assume 1500 fpm in an emergency situation at Aspen. We have 4 miles to climb ~2,000 feet. I like round numbers and we probably won't initiate go-around right at the airport so we'll call it 5 miles. If we're climbing 1,500 fpm over a distance of 5 miles, you know how many feet we climb? Just about 1,800 feet. That puts us 200 feet short of getting over the mountain in front of us. In other words, if we as pilots just smack the TOGA button and hope the computer gets us safely where we need to go? It's not going to. It's going to climb out at 1500 fpm and crash us into a mountain. See the danger now? Of course, if we need it, we can definitely push that climb rate over 3,000 fpm and clear that mountain by over 1,000 feet. As long as there are no birds, there's no downdraft coming over the mountain, there's nothing wrong with the engines, so basically assuming everything is perfect, we can definitely make a successful climb out of that situation. And we all know everything is always perfect all the time, right?

Hi Casey! Indeed, flying the Premier 1 (PRM1). It's a straight "1" not a "1a"

I live in Los Angeles now but looking forward to flying into Aspen soon. Good luck with your check ride!!

Thanks

You can read the airspeed on the PFD/ Attitude Indicator. Looks like around 120-130 KIAS on the final approach. Wheels hit the ground at around 111 KIAS.