Flying into Queenstown NZ!!

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dalealan

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dalealan
Known as the land of the long white cloud, if you fly into New Zealand you could well encounter this scenario. Hold on to your seat. This is spectacular. I often have wondered why the airline industry doesn't have a live video feed from the aircraft's nose streamed into the cabin in order to amuse and bedazzle their weary travelers. This is the descent into Queenstown, New Zealand. Notice the mountain range he is flying toward. It must take great faith in your instruments to pilot an approach like this, but the rush must be amazing.

https://www.chonday.com/15785/pilotnewzdalnd1/

Dale
 
I saw that video a few years ago. It's probably the best flying video I've ever seen.
 
Very cool. I'm sure the approach covered it, but it was freaky descending into the clouds while pointed directly at that looming mountain filling the windscreen just before entering the clouds.
 
dalealan said:
I often have wondered why the airline industry doesn't have a live video feed from the aircraft's nose streamed into the cabin in order to amuse and bedazzle their weary travelers.
Click to expand...

American Airlines "projected" DC-10 flight deck video of TO and landings for a while in the 80s. Pretty grainy B&W as I recall. Back then streaming only meant a fluid moving an a narrow channel...
 
It looked to me like the plane was about to run off the end of the runway when the video ended.
 
Palmpilot said:
It looked to me like the plane was about to run off the end of the runway when the video ended.
Click to expand...
I think it just looks that way because the video is sped up and they were really down to taxi speeds at the end.
 
We were there a few years ago. That video is actually the easy approach, over the lake. From the other side there is a sharp turn over the VOR, which is on a mountaintop. Coming in commercial/vfr/nice day I think we were abut 500AGL at the VOR. You can download the approach plate from the NZ version of the FAA. It's amazing.
 
Our seats were on the copilot side on our flight from Auckland to Queenstown. The view of the western side and Southern Alps of the South Island was amazing. That long slow final down into Queenstown was so cool. Our flight was on NZ Air and I think it was a small Airbus.
 
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