Which is New Zealand's most challenging airport for pilots? (www.rnz.co.nz)

submitted 1 day ago by ooo_shiny@lemmy.nz to c/newzealand@lemmy.nz

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I always find this topic fun. I’ve flown into Queenstown, Dunedin, Nelson, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland, Gisborne, Hamilton, and Whangarei. I can totally understand the difficulty of Queenstown as it’s a busy airport surrounded by mountains.

My most clench-worthy flights have come from landing in Whangarei in bad weather, though: it’s exposed on a hill and has a short runway, and having lived around the airport I know exactly how much runway is left while the plane is still going quite fast. (It’s not much.)

Surprisingly, apart from being fogged in during a layover, I haven’t had any bad landings at Wellington.

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[-] ooo_shiny@lemmy.nz 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

That’s interesting about Taupo. The demand must get pretty high around holiday season! I wonder what the threshold is for setting up air traffic control.

Edit: this was meant to be a reply to Dave, but I must have pushed the wrong button. Lemmy has been acting a little strange for me tonight though…

[-] AWOL_muppet@lemmy.nz 4 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

What about the crosswinds that are ~50m up (in Welly) - I thought they were a regular stress?

[-] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 16 hours ago

I recall Taupō has been mentioned, not in this article but elsewhere, not because of the technical skill but because it is the busiest uncontrolled airport (it has no air traffic control).

It seems odd to list Wellington on international lists when it doesn't even get much of a mention on a national list.