Thursday, 28 October 2010

Looking forward to landing at La Paz, Bolivia

I'm really looking forward to World Flight and particularly looking forward to my first flight which will be landing at La Paz, Bolivia.
La Paz is an interesting airport to land at because it's one of the highest airports in the world; just over 13,000 feet above sea level.
The altitude will make quite a difference to the landing because the air will be very thin. This means the aircraft will be flying much faster than normal. With a typical indicated airspeed on approach of 140knots, our true airspeed will be about 170 knots. This will make a significent difference to our landing roll as all that extra speed will make it harder to get it stopped on the runway. Another impact of the thin air will be the reduction on engine power; which is something we need to consider if we have to do a go-around. Obviously it will make a significent difference to the take-off but I'm not crewing on the flight our of La Paz; so somebody else will have to consider that.

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