The Innsbruck Challenge

[Norberto Rivera]

By this time Otto is curled up into the fetal position on the right hand side sucking his thumb. I keep shaking my head and saying out loud "I KNOW there's an airport out here somewhere!".

[Norberto Rivera]

By now the needles are telling us that we're close. We're going down the checklist and by now she's all set up for landing. By the way there were 896 and a half lizards plainly visible from the left side of the aircraft... and now I see drops on the windshield

[Norberto Rivera]

Otto has calmed down now. He has promised to buy the first round if we don't die...

[Norberto Rivera]

Just shy of 3000 ft and 7 miles out we spot the unmistakable glow of the white rabbit...

[Norberto Rivera]

Wind's a little off the nose from right to left... Otto starts to tell me about "This one time me and Dahlquist went down to Savannah, GA looking for dinner and some trouble on the Riverwalk..."

[Norberto Rivera]

It turns out that Chris is allergic to some type of weird ingredient in certain types of cheap perfume that make him sneeze like crazy and just as the story was getting good I really couldn't pay attention any more because I had to concentrate on this landing....

[Norberto Rivera]

I had fun flying the airplane even though it's pretty hands-on considering the navigation factors.

[Norberto Rivera]

I came down left of center and brought it back to the middle eventually, the landing was not the greatest, but it'll do without having to replace the struts...

[Norberto Rivera]

Now if you ever want to get all the real dirt on that Dahlquist guy, just get Otto to fly with you. He'll tell you all you'd ever want to know and then some. Let's just say there are visuals I'm having trouble with right now. I would probably need therapy if I had witnessed the events in person. As for the flight, I'm glad I took it on. It was good VOR nav practice and flying the airplane a lot by hand was fun too. I highly suggest you at least try this approach sometime when you're looking for something to do. It's real easy to screw it up, but it's really rewarding to come out of the clouds right where you're supposed to be. Gracias for watching, until next time!

[Harold Henderson]

Nice, Bert! Sounds like a GFI in the works to me.

[Michael Blakely]

Great narrative and pictures Bert. That's a serious challenge to put the 707 down in Innsbruck.

[Norberto Rivera]

Otto is his middle name. It's an inside joke Steve and I have.

The hardest part of this, besides winding my way down that dark valley and dealing with nav beacons, was definitely plowing my way through the Italian nav charts. You would think there is a more standardized way to design these procedures worldwide...

[Tom Pletzke]

Great pics Bert!

[Rey Ramon]

Man I remember our GFI into there Many many many years ago.