Name this airport....

NJA_Capt

Well-Known Member
...and what is missing from the line of planes?
 

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That would be the wonderful airport in Sun Valley...boy this place is no fun to fly into. Coming in there this past weekend...we're flying the Q400 Visual to 31 (Company proceedure) and it has us fly on the east side of the valley inbound. On a 7 mile final, Hailey Tower clears a Skywest E-120 for takeoff on 13. (now most of you are going, that's directly towards the inbound plane) Tower says "Horizon 345, can you go alittle further to the east", to which I reply "Hailey Tower, you do know that there is a mountain right here, don't you?"

This place is crazy on some afternoons with the inbound Corp Jets. They have to hold them off the parallel taxiway when we take off due to wingtips clearances.

Wish I had been at Horizon during the days of flying the MLS 13. Start the approach at 15,000 feet and fly down a 6 degree glideslope...heard great stories about those days....
 
...boy this place is no fun to fly into. Coming in there this past weekend...we're flying the Q400 Visual to 31 and it has us fly on the east side of the valley inbound. On a 7 mile final, Hailey Tower clears a Skywest E-120 for takeoff on 13. Tower says "Horizon 345, can you go alittle further to the east", to which I reply "Hailey Tower, you do know that there is a mountain right here, don't you?"

Are you kidding? SUN is a blast. It's two way traffic...just like in ASE. Standard OPS.

When they mean east of the valley, they mean over or east of hwy 23 (the main road up the valley). You have approx 3000' between the road and the mountain.....your wings aren't that wide.

You aren't one of the guys I heard last week in the traffic pattern at an uncontrolled field saying:

"xxx traffic, Horizon ---, We're a large category C turboprop on downwind xxx."

What's with the "large category C" junk? It really sounded a bit dorky.

This place is crazy on some afternoons with the inbound Corp Jets. They have to hold them off the parallel taxiway when we take off due to wingtips clearances.
That doesn't make sense. Globals and G550s have longer wingspans than a Q400, and they takeoff and taxi past each other all day in SUN. :confused:
 
I do enjoy flying into Sun Valley, I'm sure I'd enjoy it alot more flying a G-550 into there, but there are certain things about the 121 operation out of there that make it difficult or more time consuming.

Ex: Winter Ops mostly get diverted to Boise (or Twin Falls in the past) due to any number of factors. I flew there 5 times this winter, diverted to Boise each time due to Braking Action "NIL".
Summer Ops: High altitude, high temps, rising terrain, and potentially heavy aircraft...alot of flights that go out full have to make a fuel stop in Boise because they couldn't take off with MIN total out of Sun Valley.

As for the visual approach, our proceedure calls for us to "fly along the east side of the valley and plan to cross the SW corner of Bellevue" that puts us somewhat close to the 6739' mountain that's just off the train tracks...Hailey Tower asked us to go further east and EGPWS doesn't really like it when you do that.

The airport you were probably at was Pullman (KPUW). It is hokey, I'll give ya that...but our Ops Specs state:
"Due to the close proximity of the parallel taxiway to the runway at KPUW procedures in addition to normal Radio Remote communications outlined in section 4. Communication are necessary during arrivals and departures of large and/or Cat C aircraft. The FAA has required ALL large and Cat C aircraft operating at KPUW use these procedures. This note is also in the A/FD for KPUW"

Thus we have to annouce on CTAF that we are a "large" or "approach category C" ...

So don't bust our chops about it, we do it because someone at the FAA makes us and will levy a fine if we don't...

(side note: Q400 Wingspan - 93 ft 3 in, G550 Wingspan - 93 ft 6 in, Global Express - 94 ft...so yea, all of 3 inches and 7 inches difference)
 
Winter Ops mostly get diverted to Boise (or Twin Falls in the past) due to any number of factors....alot of flights that go out full have to make a fuel stop in Boise because they couldn't take off with MIN total out of Sun Valley.
I hear ya about TWF...been there, done that. Our people always want to come out of SUN/ASE/EGE/TEX at GW and make NY :crazy:
And i said "One airliner"
Hah!:D:rawk:
OK...You got me.
 
Hahaha, sounds about right...we had one lady tell us that we could have landed in Sun Valley (after diverting to Boise) because her husband thought he heard a plane land at the airport...

She apparently didn't care that with a Braking Action "NIL" report we would have ran off the runway and ended up in downtown Hailey...maybe she would have been happy since it would have taken a few minutes off her drive???? :panic:
 
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