Thanks for the great scenery. A few notes which might come in handy for your flight into Saba/St. Barth.
You folks might be interested in a message from an ex-Winair Twin Otter pilot to be found here
I reproduce the entire post in case the url might not work and of course for the lazy ones
The "we" refers to Winair, which is based in St Maarten SXM.
And as we all know there seem no public approach charts for Saba but in that case GPS might some in handy, so here's a site with all those relevant GPS waypoints---------------- forwarded text ----------------
Depending upon demand, we operated into Saba three or four times a
day. There is a medical school located on the island, and if there was a
holiday, we would add extra flights for the students to meet their flights.
Saba's strip 12-30 was 1000 feet from threshold to threshold with about 150 feet overrun on both ends. The plateau the strip is on is 143 above sea level with VERY steep cliffs on both ends. We were limited on winds (Cross Winds were hard because of the turbulence from surronding terrain - if you want to check out Saba, try www.mssaba.com) The strip also has a fair incline up runway 30. We usually did the take-off on 12 unless the tailwind was more than around 10 knots. Depending on thw winds limited our load as well. On a hot day, with no head wind, we would limit our take0off wight to around 11,900 lbs (about 16 passengers). There was many a day we rotated as we went off the end of the strip.
Saba is a restricted airport. To fly in there, you had to have
specific training and we were the only ones offering scheduled service. Air St. Barths had authority to go in with an BN2 Islander, but I only saw them there acouple of times. The airport manager watched every landing, and if he didn't like the apporach, or thought you were a little sloppy, you knew the chief pilot would hear about it before we got back to SXM.
St. Barths was a fun strip to go into as well. We would head for Pain
d'sucre (a small rock that is the reporting point) and head for the
saddle of the hill. You couldn't actually see the strip till you were a little
closer. I think the threshold was diplaced about 1000' or so. We came
over the hill and landed rolling to the end of the strip to check out the
beach (Plage d'St.Jean) before heading to the terminal. Being as the approach was near the terrain, we were again concerned with wind. Any strong crosswind and we would get incredible turbulence for the hill. In that case, we would land from the oppisite direction. Coming in over Anse d'St. Jean, once you passed the Golden Rock restaurant, you were commited to land. We HAD to land, the aircraft wouldn't be able to overshoot and miss the hills. There were a couple of accidents caused by photographers standing on the end of the runway to get a really good picture (None of our planes - a Caravan and a Aztec though when I was there). Our briefing was pretty simple, once we pass the restaurant, we are commited to landing, and anybody standing on the runway is going to get a nosewheel in the forehead!
St. Barths had alot of traffic, including Caravans, BN2 Islanders,
Dornier Do228s, Twin Otters, Cherokee 6s, and alot of private aircraft. To fly in, you had to have a checkride and get a card from the French Aviation Authority to land there.
The Dorniers came in from San Juan, Martinique, and St. Maarten. The
Caravans were from Martinique, St. Maarten, and the other french
islands. I saw the remains of a St. Croix based Beech 99 that tried to land on the day before New Years. Don't know what happened, but he ended up in the bush besides the runway. Ripped both wings off, both engines torn lose, and destroyed the airplane. Luckily, no injuries.
I thought the Twin Otter was the best for operations in St. Barths
(although I might be a little biased) because of their STOL
capabilites. The Dorniers were using all the runway, everytime. We could use as much as we wanted, and I never had any problems. The Dorniers are faster, but when the trip form St. Maarten takes 8 minutes compared to 10, I would rather have the landing speed and capability of the Twotter. I can also compare operating extremes. I flew the Twin Otter in the canadian Arctic before I went to St. Maarten. The Twin Otter is a good airplane, handling short gravel strips in the north in the cold.
Gord S.
And oh boy you really should watch those vids with nice approaches into St. Barth and Saba*
*To see the video on ATCbox.com you need to register (free). However it's worth it
All the best!
Rob
