I don’t see any reversal? Rather following the valley, that’s not a reversal procedure…
Notice that they are flying heading 290 degrees (NW) at the beginning of the video. It starts off in the reversal procedure just North West of the field. They then do a right hand 30 degree turn with a relatively aggressive descent. This maneuvers them to face south (east) again towards the temple.
It is likely they approached from the south and did not follow the RNAVZ approach in this situation, but I used the RNAV Z chart just to highlight the area as to where they are. This appears to be a standard pattern for an approach onto runway 15.
This reversal, however, can be skipped if following the Z approach if you are visual by the FAF, in which case, doing a similar decent (without any aggressive turning) should get to where you need to be when approaching the temple. (At least, this is my understanding as to the “point” of having an approach from the north.)
This is not your standard be stable at 1000’ 3 degree profile approach.
Wow!
Thanks for the video!
Yes, they seem to do a full turn in the beginning of the video, but then they follow the arrival as in the RNAV15Z approach, the same I used (see my MSFS video linked above).
The main difference with my attempt is that they open a bit more to the left than what I did, but they still fly very close to the hill ahead of RWY15.
And, even more amazing, until I saw the Captain and co-pilot hands moving for the overhead switches, I was not sure whether I was watching RL footage or MSFS!
I get what you mean now, that is not really the definition of a reversal though 
.
Ohh wow… that’s a lot of video editing involved… and that music… lol… that must have taken a lot more time editing it than flying the approach itself… It’s a good video… You managed to land quite well, so it’s all good.
@neo4316 editing the video was no big deal. The most difficult part was to get a minimally acceptable landing in MSFS (I had to repeat 7 - 8 times). Lucky with the Flight Control Replay you can position yourself where you screwed up last time, and take the controls from there, without going through the painfully slow saved flight loading process.
I also used Flight Control Replay to record the video (using the NVidia recorder, not the one built-in with Flight Control Replay), by selecting different camera views, once I managed to have an acceptable flight stored. You would have to be a really ace pilot to both fly the aircraft and to adjust angles and record at the same time! LOL
Yeah, I usually just stream straight to my YouTube so I don’t need to do any editing, since YouTube automatically records and post the video. I use the fixed camera control that I bound to my sidestick hardware to switch them really quickly in real time. But only when I leave my Airbus on autopilot. On manual flying, I don’t change camera angle because I want to record everything that’s going on in the cockpit. So if there’s any bugs, or if I want to review things. All the activities in the cockpit is recorded. But that’s just me. Hahaha.
As mentioned, they likely approached from the south to land on runway 15, unlike the RNAV15Z. Before the RNAVs, they had a VOR approach which prescribed an approach from the south, to do a turn in the valley mentioned above, and to land on runway 15. It is also worth noting that in the video, there were quite a few clouds in the area, so an approach from the south may also be prudent in that case.
However, if you use the RNAV Z 15, the picture you see when approaching SE should be identical to what they have after completing the turn.
I honestly don’t know what you call it since I never do this in my instrument flying. The closest equivalent is a procedure turn, tear drop, or box canyon turn off the top of my head, but none of these are quite accurate with the exception of a canyon turn. I’ll just call it visual maneuvering to be safe. But then, its been a while since I went to flight school, or flown for that matter, so apologies if my terminology is a little inaccurate.
1 Like
Just flew this with the A320NX. The LNAV points on the Jeppsen plate seem correct, you probably should come in lower into the final valley than 13800. No way you make the runway without massively overspeeding at that height.
Full flaps, full speed brake and the -1800 f/m on the altitude selector. Gets you in without doing a circle to land. Landing was a bit fast and required full braking but was smooth.
Definitely want to practice this one more.
The approach is not meant to bring you into a position to land, rather to get you below the clouds where you could continue visually. At the missed approach point (3000 ft almost on top of the runway) you will of course never make it to a safe landing, especially because circling is not authorized. If you read the full thread:
For those of you who replied and participated in this topic, I have updated my flight video using my new computer, now it is 4K (settings high to ultra). I loaded the “Flight control reply” file into my new rig, with SU5, and re-recorded the video. Some of the stutters are because the flight path was recorded with SU4 and a lower end machine, at much lower fps.
You can see it here:
1 Like
That was a really nice landing, well done. It feels a bit fast though, I’m not sure if the video is sped up or if it’s always been like that.
@Neo4316 thanks and you are right, the video is a bit too fast. There are two factors here:
- The plane speed was higher than normal, because of the steep descent.
- The flight data was recorded with my old computer, which achieved with SU4 around 13fps with the A320NX. The 4K video has been recorded in the new computer, which is capped at 30 fps with SU5 HF2. If played at the original speed, it certainly looks too fast (probably, 30/13 times too quick). Some of the sequences (including the landing) I played at 1/2 speed in order to record it, but this correction was probably not enough to provide a real 1.0 rate.
There is also a youtube video on a real landing flight path to PARO in an airbus… skip to the last part of the video…
1 Like
Yes, thanks I have seen some real life videos and they are amazing!
But the most striking as how close the MSFS scenery is to the real one!
In some of the videos, it is difficult to tell the difference between MSFS and RL…
1 Like
In the video, it seems that the captain is VFR… he does not follow the waypoints and flies visually… so I think, the approach is also a Visual approach only… The last section of the two ridge, left and right seems a bit higher in FS2020 compared to in the video… from my eye point of view though… heh… im not even a Pilot… but its amazing these people do this job and land at very challenging airports and keeps the passengers safe… i will be mad if the tower says go around after that effort…
It is pretty clear, that RNAV-Z is not a normal RNAV RNP approach designed to bring one to the runway but just to break clouds, I think that has been substantiated enough (and it is written for example here: https://www.doat.gov.bt/aipp/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/AIP-AMD-01-2018.pdf)
But that is not the essential point - the essential point is, that the FAF is at around 13.000ft, which makes it impossible to dive down for a straight in landing into rwy 15, EVEN IF one is out of the clouds there! (that would be almost 7 degrees - it’s not only not 3 degrees or 3.5, it is over 7). That is nothing an Airbus or 737 pilot would fly. The RNAV-X and RNAV-Y approaches are different - they end at around 10.000 sufficiently away from RWY 33, so those COULD be used for a direct in into 33 (though they also allow RWY 15). So in essence, the only conclusion I can take from the RNAV-Z RNP cloud break approach procedure is, that is indeed to be used to get into VMC, and then fly the usual course reversing procedure into RWY 15, if RWY 15 is the active one (i.e. north-west turn over the airport, remain > 11.000 and then turn south-east and sink into the value - just as the VOR PRO based procedure describes. A 7 degree descent is not a good solution imho, a jet plane that does not speed with that gradient has not yet been invented.
From the FAP PR816 to Rwy 15 is about a 3.5 º decent angle using the RNP Approach : RT Arc followed by LT Arc and finally another RT Arc to get the required distance for the glide with a suitable speed.
Thanks for the additional insights. I also calculated that a straight descent requires 7º. Actually, this is what I did in my video, but it was not possible to control the aircraft speed, so this would obviously not be ok IRL.