FINAL eXAms - British Airways Virtual

Airways magazinefeatureeast. Due to the terrain, only runway 12DBK VOR. Turn onto base leg just insidehas instrument approaches. The onlya ridge to the south east of the airportapproach to runway 30 is a tricky circlingand pass overhead Grude (GR) NDB onprocedure that is forbidden at night. Theshort finals to a runway with a noticeablearrival from the north west is one of mostupslope. The PAPIs are set at 3.2 degreesspectacular on the Gatwick short-haulgiving a very strange perspective on finalnetwork. The Croatian coast line is a sightapproach. Most importantly, do not flythat has to be seen to be believed. Thethrough the centre line. The mountainsSTAR begins at waypoint NERRA and therise rapidly to nearly 5,000ft just a fewapproach is, with a very small dog-legmiles north.at Kolocep NDB, a very long straight-inapproach. With regular tailwinds thatThe preferred arrival runway is 12,can turn into very strong and turbulentwhich often means landing with a tailwind.This poses its own set of problems“The PAPIs are set at3.2 degrees givinga very strangeperspective on finalapproach”northerly winds that create windshearover the high terrain to the north, the approachcan be challenging. To circle on torunway 30, the circling altitude is a littleabove the standard 1,500ft Visual circuitpattern. After Cavtat (CV) NDB, pick up atrack of 159 until approximately halfwaydown the runway and then parallel therunway until crossing the 159 radial frombut fortunately the runway at Dubrovnikis long, so stopping is rarely ever a bigissue. The preferred runway for departureis runway 30, which negates any emergencyturn requirements that exist whendeparting from runway 12. The runwayhas a very pronounced hump which givesrise to a strange perspective from bothends. Due to the hump, it is impossibleto see the threshold of runway 12 whendeparting from runway 30. The paralleltaxi way does not run the full length ofthe runway so departures from runway30 require a back track. The apron is largeand the airport, while not particularlybusy, has a steady rate of movementsand often some very nice private jetsare parked up at the eastern edge of theapron.Departures from runway 30 are straightforward. The usual departure is via ENO-DA, out to sea. Departures from runway12 require an early right turn to avoidrising terrain ahead. The departure theneventually continues out over the sea.The old town can be seen off to the righthand side after departure or to the left onarrival. It is without doubt one of the mostspectacular straight-in approaches in theworld.It may seem like a fairly straightforward airfield, but when the weather isanything other than benign. If the windblows from the north beware of verystrong turbulence and windshear. Landingscan be tricky tailwind landings ontorunway 12 or an even more tricky circlingapproach to runway 30. I’d recommendDubrovnik for a holiday and for your nextadventure on flightsim. Take care to briefthoroughly, not just what to expect, butwhat to do and how you will do it. Happyflying!