Not a nice day for flying in and out of KMSP

...and nearby municipal airports. Landing at La Crosse WI (KLSE) was a challenge in near zero-visibility. I should have chosen the only ILS rwy 18 approach, but opted for the better wind at Rwy 36 with a LOC approach. Unfortunately, the P3d version didn't have a Localizer for rwy-36 as far as I could tell. I ended up flying the DME approach, which put me over the runway, but I had to drop down just below the minimums to find the runway, and by that time I was well over the threshold. In real world I probably would have gone around and did the ILS 18 approach, but I figured my trusty Kodiak had enough runway and stopping power - although just barely considering the amount of runway remaining - most of which was spend leveling out my descent so as not the slam down on the runway, damaging the aircraft and accruing the penalties. Fortunately, I managed to get the plane down safely and stay on the runway, but just at the end of it before stopping.

John<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Feb 07, 2019 - 01:14 PM</em><!-- end editby -->

No Kidding! I just finished a white knuckler coming up from Terre Haute. I was struggling to (re)learn my fancy ERJ145, so I had my hands full. Nonetheless, I prepared for and started an ILS descent into Rwy 30L a few minutes before the TOD computed by my FMS. That seemed to align reasonably well with the wind direction and I was pleased when FSX ATC told me to expect vectors to Rwy 30L Things were going reasonably well until it became apparent that an "FLC" descent into Minneapolis was going to be too slow to get under the glide slope. This is often the case because that mode of descent using the FMS descends at constant speed and holding the speed down means descending more slowly, with the result that you get too close to the threshold before getting under the GS. I've had this problems a lot of times and I know that the answer is to descend sooner than ATC directs, but not even my FMS had the TOD early enough. Nonetheless, when I saw that I hadn't started soon enough, I told ATC that I was going around. After quite a while wandering around in the soup below 5000', I finally managed to get in a request for vectors to Rwy 30L and was told to approach 30L on the ILS and then circle to land on Rwy 22. WTF? Rwy 22 doesn't even have an ILS approach Circle to land in this weather? It doesn't appear that the wind had changed direction enough to justify this but...Anyhow, after trying several times to get ATC to accept my request, and going around again, I final gave up on ATC and flew the ILS approach to Rwy 30L without benefit of clergy. That worked well, except that the AT on my ERJ wouldn't engage for some unknown reason - it does work some of the time-, so I was left to try to manage my approach down the GS with the throttle. When I finally broke out at about 700', I was well below the glideslope and had to spool up to keep out of stall territory. That caused me to cross the threshold too high so that I had to dive to get down to the runway and then flare to get onto the (edge of) the runway. Even with full reverse thrust, I used up more than half of the 10,000' runway before I slowed enough to turn off. Not pretty. Miraculously, I kept my touchdown vertical speed under -500 fpm and avoided any high g maneuvers, so that the flight was penalty free. I just hope the passengers weren't looking out the windows during the landing.

Mike

Hah...I was wondering how you would fare Mike. I hadn't been to La Crosse Municipal as far as memory serves, so was totally unfamiliar with the airport other than what the approach chart and airport diagrams offered. The visibility was so bad after landing that I had to refer to the airport diagram just to find the terminal. <img src="tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-lach.gif" alt="lach">

On a mostly unrelated note. I've changed the code for the new flight group a bit so that it now should automatically add enough flights for the number of companies plus one extra flight. That way there will be at least one for each pilot (company) to pick from - plus one extra flight for whoever finishes their flight first and wants to grab it. Also - if anyone can't or doesn't wish to fly a particular day - well, then that's additional flights for anyone interested in picking up. So, if I did things right, the next group should have 4 flights since we have 3 companies currently in operation -- or the program will crash because I messed up the new code, so I'll have to watch it for the next few minutes.<br /><br /><!-- editby --><br /><br /><em>edited by: jer029, Feb 07, 2019 - 08:51 PM</em><!-- end editby -->