Arlanda - Adenauer - Arlanda Leg 2

Click here for the first leg.

I had arrived in Koeln at 0830 local time and my return flight, AB6498 wasn't due until 1115. I'm sure I messed up the flight numbers here because they certainly don't match but at the same time, I did note them down carefully from the Air Berlin website.

I loaded my return flight a little lighter than the inbound leg, my take-off weight was 135K lbs to be exact. Tailwinds were forecasted so I was expecting to be in ESSA in under 2 hours

Boarding complete


With lighter loads and a dry runway, I went with derated take-off to ease off on the engines in terms of wear and tear (as if that existed in FS!) The wind direction hadn't changed in EDDK so the active runway still being 14L, I took off and followed the Podip 3F departure.

Company Fokker coming in


Departure traffic was light and I was number 1 but had to wait for an inbound company Fokker. (seen above)
Watching AI coming into land is huge fun. The weather enroute was good enough with tailwinds until over Sweden where I encountered CBs, requiring deviation. It had been a while since I used the offset function in the PMDG FMC, which I noticed again how good it worked. This add-on just doesn't get old.

CBs ahead, deviation required


My approach was straight in, on the TRS 3M STAR for an ILS landing on runway 01R. I made a silly mistake here with the AF2 file. I wanted separate runways for landing and take-off so I set the closest runway to the terminal area for departures and the other one for arrivals. On my own arrival I found out that runway 01R approach plate wasn't among my charts! Luckily my inbound route was pretty much a direct route to the localizer anyway. The weather was better than that morning with lighter winds and better visibility. You know I would have preferred CAT3 conditions though.

Very short final, just before going missed, note the middle guy going missed too


I encountered some traffic on final approach and had to go-around because the idiot in front couldn't vacate the runway quickly enough. I flew a right-hand circuit at 2000 feet and came back on the localizer 8 miles out. Btw, I found out my missed approach skills needed a lot of practice!

Very short final, again


My landing was perfect, spot on the centerline with a nice greaser. The taxi back to the terminal was way too long, I have to reconsider my runway usage for ESSA...

At the gate


Btw, in case you might be curious, the Arlanda scenery above is the recently free released Swedflight version (previously payware). A great thank you goes to the folks at Swedflight for this freeware gem.

My next flight, will be another leg series, most likely in the US this time.

Pushing to 100, eh Al?

Thanks for viewing