It's in the middle of winter, everybody wants a lift from down in the cloudy valleys up to the Alpine summits, and what for? For enjoying the chilly fresh mountain air, the bright sun, the views from above glaciers, across rocky summits, and for skidding down the snowy slopes on skis, boards, sleds, some on their bellies .... and some in their crazy boxes with propellers and wings! We want to use one of these wintery Wednesdays for taking up speed on the slopiest airstrips of the French Alpes and getting airborne on runways ending like cliffs. Of course this means we want to also master touching down the plane on the foot of the airstrip slope as softly and targeted as a cat lands on the carpet when jumping down the sofa!
The particularly cool thing is that tomorrow we have a special guest with real-world Alpine aviation experience, and we are very happy that he is willing to accompany us on our learning curves as FISO (flight information service officer) and instructor based at Alpe d'Huez (LFHU). So, let's make the LFHU runway the center of our Wednesday flying fun!
Here are the first basic facts, and later edits of this message will probably bring in some more detail:
LFHU tower:
As you can see from this ATC event posting (with important Mumble info) ...
http://flightgear-atc.alwaysdata.net/sh ... entId=5738... we are going to have three extensive hours of Mumble tower ATC at LFHU. We can find this Mumble channel under ATC --> Europe --> France --> LFHU.
Scenery:
https://www.moohw.com/Events/GA-WEDNESD ... FHU.tar.gzThis scenery pack of 345MB contains the surface patches with the nicely sloped runways of Alpe d'Huez and Courchevel. Only in connection with the slopes the short runway dimensions make any sense with 10-seater turboprop machines. The parking and turning spaces off the side of the uphill runway end are another crucial feature which will allow us to meet and coordinate in the sim in a similar way as real people coordinate on real airports.
Weather:
According to windy.com the cloud coverage tomorrow evening is expected to be little in the valley in front of Alpe d'Huez. So, my suggestion is to use live METAR data. If we're unlucky and it doesn't work out, we can use a very realistic METAR string with little cloud coverage I got when spawning at LFHU just a few minutes ago, that would be: 242030Z AUTO 36011KT 9999 FEW033 02/M02 Q1032, and I'm going to test how landing is with this cross wind from north right after posting this.... update: Yesterday's situation with 11kt wind from north, i.e. coming down from the mountains as crosswind from left was pretty much unlandable. So, here is our suggested METAR string for today as posted by Woosh in the discussion thread:
XXXX 012345Z 21004KT 12SM SCT025 FEW200 08/M02 Q1015 NOSIG
We have some low clouds, we should be cloud-free up in the mountains, and wind from southwest is usual for Europe. I expect it to introduce some added lift when blowing uphill around the LFHU runway.
Spawning:
Let's spawn only at airports in the valleys and get to the mountain airstrips only by flying. This way we don't have any issues of (a) spawning underground below the patched runways, (b) creating chaos in narrow parking and taxi areas, and (c) we'll automatically create the kind of multiplayer-busy patterns and approach paths we are all looking for on Wednesdays. Then let's show what we've come to learn in the past about keeping our planes under control, the airspace safe, and the collision risk far away from patterns and approach paths ... and runways. There are five valley aerodromes nearby: Le Versoud (LFLG), Aix-Les-Bains (LFLB), Chambéry Challes (LFLE), Albertville (LFKA), Saint-Remy-De-Maurienne (LFKR).
Of the interesting mountain airstrips we have three in the vicinity: Alpe D'Huez (LFHU) with its ATC service, Méribel (LFKX), Courchevel (LFLJ). Have a look at the VFR charts and you will see that in Alpine regions no airport is like the other, no pattern looks alike. The rocks and winds impose harsh constraints, and the charts represent the quintessence of experience by generations of pilots.
Looking forward to meeting you all in the air and on the airport terrasses tomorrow! Bring your gloves in case there might be a spontaneous snowball battle.
Sincerely yours,
D-MIKA