Instrument approach to Queenstown, New Zealand

[Major Nikon]

HD available and highly recommended.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Very cool.

I sure miss flying.

[Major Nikon]

2. There's nothing like a good instrument approach

Your asshole puckers when you descend into the clouds and then minutes later the runway appears right in front of you. 30 minutes later you're at the hotel bar drinking brown liquid from a short glass with the only other person in the world who shared the experience with you. It's the best thing you can do with your pants on.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Yup. It's a fun way to get scared.

First one I ever did solo was a circle-to-land NDB-B approach to minimums. I was too dumb and inexperienced to know any better.

[Major Nikon]

5. I got a bad case of the vertigo the first time I flew IFR solo

The ink on my instrument ticket was still wet and I blasted off from DTO on a trip to Florida. I left very early in the morning when it was still dark to beat some weather that was moving in. Departure had me in a turn and I was looking out the left window admiring all the pretty lights in the DFW metroplex when I flew right into the clouds. It was like someone turned off all the lights at once. It got completely pitch black which I wasn't expecting at all, one because I had only flown inside the clouds during the day, and two because I never saw the clouds coming. I whipped my head around to get on the instruments and my whole world felt like it had just turned upside down. My instrument instructor was a retired AA first officer and had tried to drill me about the hazard of vertigo, but it went in one ear and out the other. Somewhere rattling around in that head I remember hearing her voice and fortunately had just enough sense to trust the instruments. I'm a die hard atheist, but I was talking to Jesus that morning.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Scary! Good thing you pulled itogether in time - vertigo kills a lot of GA pilots.

An FAA guy I know used to give lectures about spatial disorientation - their statistics showed that pilots without instrument ratings who get themselves into IMC by mistake usually last only 90 seconds before they are completely discombobulated and usually unable to recover.

When I was actively working as a CFI-I, I used to have my students try to maintain straight and level flight with their eyes closed. They almost always got the airplane nearly upside down in less than a minute, when I'd tell them to open their eyes. They were always very surprised.

[Major Nikon]

10. It's probably what killed John-John

I did a bit of research on it and looked up the weather reports. The chances were excellent that he flew right into the clouds at night and didn't know it because he was over water and wouldn't have had many, if any lights below him to let him know. He was known to have had problems with his autopilot and may have had it turned off. I'm sure the distractions of passengers didn't help.

The FAA has a simulator that does a pretty good job of simulating what real vertigo is like. I did a couple of sessions in it during high altitude training in OKC.

[BlueStreak]

4. Is that a simulator?

It looked a bit artificial.

Also, the motion was about two times normal speed on the final approach, based on the movement of ground vehicles. I believe this was a video produced by NZ tourism -- not an actual flying experience. Nonetheless, I have always felt New Zealand was the most beautiful place on earth, and the Queenstown area is right at the heart of it.

Not far from there is Skipper's Canyon, which is probably the most famous place for bungee jumping.


Notice that they don't use any harnesses. They simply wrap your ankles in a bath towel, wrap a nylon strap around your ankles and then say "have a nice life".

At least that's how we did it when I was there. I bet they use chest harnesses now.

[Major Nikon]

6. It's real

However, I'm pretty sure the video was sped up a bit. An approach like that would have taken a lot longer even in a fast jet.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. I thought it looked pretty fast, too.

Jets don't even land that fast - that looked like about 150 kts. Made sense it was sped up.

[Major Nikon]

9. From the comments it's apparently an autopilot coupled RNP approach

So the movements appear non-human because the box is flying the plane.

To me it doesn't look that unusual because my plane has an autopilot coupled to GPSS.