Leg 7: Kangerlussuaq, Greenland to Kulusuk, Greenland.
Delivery_07_IFR Kangerlussuaq (BGSF) to Kulusuk (BGKK).pln (2.5 KB)
This leg stretched on for a while and gave a really good glimpse of the raw landscape that is mostly hidden under constant cloudbanks by higher-transit journeys. We took a wide deviation Northeast to avoid a massive storm that blanketed most of the plotted route. 350 nm for about 3 hours or so.
Departing the beautiful fjord that encompasses Kangerlussuaq:
Very quickly the mixed greens of the tundra give way to the enormous and unending ice sheet that is Greenland - the elevation rises quickly until MEA is around 10,000 AGL:
And of course, the weather - a massive brooding front (can’t tell how deep as no weather radar is aboard) spans most of the route visually - we’re forced to take a deviation Northeast and go around the worst of the cells hoping the relative wind doesn’t shift and forces them into our alternate plan:
Just as we break out into clear skies, we’ve reached TOD and begin our letdown to the approach fix - it’s foggy and low viz conditions - carefully we have to assess the descent as the mountain range is present at 10,000’ nearly all the way to the coastline where it spills into a glacier field:
Kulusuk is a small rough strip on an island, surrounded by rocky ridges - the wind dictates an RNAV-A approach, and we dog-leg past some of these obstacles before making a hard turn to 290 and line up with the runway:
Barely time to stabilize and get down to the threshold - at least it was clear conditions directly around the field, I couldn’t imagine trying to do this in bad weather or at night:
