Jet departing Courchevel

I knew there would be a few who got their panties in a wad over this. Big deal. So a guy took a straight citation into Courchevel. Cool. I wouldn't, but I still think it's cool.

Lightly loaded, the thing has a ref speed slower than what I used to fly an approach in a Chieftain. It stalls more docile too.

Personally, I think it's cool as hell. Took a lot of skill, and probably some luck to get it on there. A little less to get it off, but still cool.
 
Last edited:
Who knows? He might have been on an ODP on an IFR?

I look at the runway, do you supposed they planted that thing on the really small flat spot at the end, or actually had to start a slight climb on the hill to land? Like I said and the OP said, would dearly love to have seen the landing.
 
z987k said:
Lame. We take off without accelerate-stop distance daily. So do TONS of people, including from your company. 7% grade, yup. No pavement either. Though it's not at 15 billion MSL like this airport.
Click to expand...

It's only 6500' or so, not that high.
 
z987k said:
Lame. We take off without accelerate-stop distance daily. So do TONS of people, including from your company. 7% grade, yup. No pavement either. Though it's not at 15 billion MSL like this airport.

People need to remember that not everyone operates under 121 or with transport category airplanes.


Where did they "duck some clouds"? I never saw it in the video, and given the weather present in the video, never saw where they'd need to.
Click to expand...

They didn't climb out at first I think because they were not fast enough but long after that it appears in the movie the aircraft stays under the weather and does not climb out of the high terrain.
 
SteveC said:
Cool! What were you flying?
Click to expand...

Mostly turbo and non turbo single engine pistons and a small twin, once. Much better (more interesting) fields available within reasonable distance.
A Citation is perfectly fine in and out of that airport. Looks much more dramatic than it is.

Very nice people to be met in these areas, so put it on your bucket list and get a altiport checkout.
 
Cessna414JJB said:
Mostly turbo and non turbo single engine pistons and a small twin, once. Much better (more interesting) fields available within reasonable distance.
A Citation is perfectly fine in and out of that airport. Looks much more dramatic than it is.

Very nice people to be met in these areas, so put it on your bucket list and get a altiport checkout.
Click to expand...

Where were you going to/from? That's pretty awesome. Based over there?
 
Last edited:
Mark815 said:
I have no experience with a Citation, or Courchevel, but...perfectly fine to get in and out? The field is listed as 1762' long.
Click to expand...

Sorry. Did it get stuck on something while departing or did it keep flying?
They probably had some room to spare, it looks a hell of a lot more spectacular than it is.
 
I know there are a lot of straight-wing Citation driver's on here who could comment better than I could, but it looks like the CE550 series (Citation II, Bravo, etc) Vs0 is around 82 knots (I think the regular takeoff V-speeds are higher though, with V2 around 116 kts according to one place I read). Taking into account the 18% downhill grade, and accepting that you probably won't have a snowballs chance in hell of making it to V2 with an engine failure, I'd say the takeoff is pretty do-able given that grade/distance. The landing however, would have been wild to see. :)
 
Here's a neat 5+ minutes you'll never get back with some relatively good footage of the airport and a rather smacky landing with a Baron.



Landing in a jet must be a bit more interesting but its not like people with absolutely no skills go into these fields. I wouldn't be so worried about T/O but coming up to this with 110-120 IAS must be a bit gooey on the nerves, especially if you're a pilot and in the right seat. I know 85-90 in a Mooney with a calm guy at the controls looks like: wrong place, wrong time.
Any bit of turbulence and wind and you wish you had listened to grandma, who wanted you to stay home and help do dishes, or feed the birds, or something. :)

The only reason to land early is that the gradient will require you to climb on landing, which with normally aspirated airplanes can be a bit .... well.... maybe not.

You might wish to have plenty of power set right after touchdown, otherwise the hill might get hard to master. It goes all WHEE!!! downhill, and you're best advised not to let the airplane fly when it thinks it wants to gracefully jump into the air just a tad bit early.

Courchevel is pretty civil, but there's fields that will make you want to climb really fast right after takeoff and your instructor will use whatever it takes to keep you aware of your speed and lack of residual power. My CFI (family member with decades as instructor) kept tapping the airspeed indicator with a pencil. Highly annoying, but the reflex is to go away from what you see. Ever flown with a student who's done landing 14.2 feet over the runway? Same reflex at work and it hits you even though you've flown for many many years and know better.

We landed on fields that required full power to land uphill and that power would be pretty much set until its time to stop the plane.

Quite a few people have taken this stuff too literal and smacked some nice equipment up pretty badly. They've got everything to recover a broken plane right there. :)

Not a cheap forced vacation spot.

Get good instruction from someone with lots of experience before going in solo. Some altiports do require endorsements and not all altiports "used" should be... haha.

Lots of granite and false horizons can make for some nasty "Whoops!" moments that may not buff out if taken to conclusion.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top