Warning for first time flyers in Austria!!!

[jb2_86_uk]

So there i was after covering 4000 miles of atlantic & western europe, I was on my decent into Innsbruck (LOWI), Austria, when I thought I'd be clever and make my own challenging mid-alps weather. Many cloud layers, lots of precipitation and poor visibility. This is going to be fun I said to myself as i put the 747-400 into its decent. And it was until *insert intense climax music here*... about 20 miles out a lovely mountain comes hurtling out of the mist, at 250knots with visibility at 2miles, it was inevitable what was to happen next! Yup I crashed. So the whole reason for this post is to give my advice. When approaching Innsbruck from the west, get the gps up and running with a scale of about 20-30miles and there is a quite visible valley on there, if you follow this vally round, it can line one up quite nicely with the runway! without the risk of mountain related incidents!
Alternativly, and probably more popular for the pilots rather than the scenery-happy passengers, would be to do a london-city-style approach (short and steep). So anyway there is my maverick style advice for first time flyers to Innsbruck, Austria.

John

By the way, get the 70m Terrain Mesh from simviaition installed and that place looks amazing (not with 2mile   vis...then it just looks grey!, but on a clear day its incredible!)

[Nexus]

747 into LOWI?

Isn't that a tad too big?  ;D
I fly to/from LOWI at least once a week, I'm usually coming from the East, from Rattenberg NDB and the most interesting approach is the circle-to-land on 08.

Try that one  :)

[beaky]

Did ATC vector you into that mountain, or were you flying an uncontrolled  VFR approach in IMC in a 747-  in alpine country?  Better advice would be: "File IFR to fly IFR".
But yes, getting the lay of the land before such an approach would be better than nothing, I guess...

[jb2_86_uk]

Lol!, well I was at St Maarten in the caribbean, and was in a 747-400, and had previously seen photos from Innsbruck and thought 'hmmm that looks nice' so I went there!

Yeah I was VFR! more interesting and challenging, especially with 2mile visibility in the alps!

It wasnt a serious flight, just a 'lets enjoy the scenery in a big jet' flight.

John

[ozzy72]

VFR in a heavy, in bad weather, in mountains gives a pilot rating of VERY SILLY