A night landing on the moving deck of an aircraft carrier has always been regarded as the most difficult landing approach for aviators. We think the Toncontín Airport in Honduras might actually beat that.
Toncontín International Airport, located 6 km (3.72 miles) from downtown Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has long been considered to be one of the most difficult, dangerous landings for any large commercial airliner thanks in part to its unusual mountainous location. Add to that an extremely short runway (runway 02), one of the world's shortest, that's merely 6,112 feet in length (LAX features roughly 3,000 additional feet for large aircraft) and you've got a recipe for armrest-death-gripping, butt-clenching, nervous excitement.
To be more accurate, the actual landing distance of runway 02 is only 5442 feet with an approach that requires pilots to utilize everything their training didn't prepare them for. The mountainous terrain surrounding the small airport forces an approach that's anything but head on, resulting in a fast decent and a sharp turn prior to lining up with the runway. Frequent gusts of wind complicate matters even further, requiring quick yaw adjustments to the vertical stabilizer's rudder, pitch adjustments to the horizontal stabilizer's elevators and roll adjustments to the wing's ailerons in order to angle the aircraft for a sane final approach.
The largest aircraft allowed to land at Toncontín are Boeing 757s, but there have been times when larger aircraft have landed, such as a DC-8 passenger airliner and this U.S. Air Force Boeing (McDonnell Douglas) C-17 Globemaster III. We're sure military pilots are much better suited for tricky landings than their commercial counterparts, but anyone attempting to delicately drop a (roughly) 115 ton bird out of the sky has bigger gonads than us.
Not every pilot that's challenged Toncontín International Airport's tricky setup has lived to tell the tale. The latest, on May 30, 2008, involved an Airbus A320, approaching from San Salvador, that came in a bit too hot and overran the runway resulting in 5 casualties.
FEATURES:
Custom Ground Textures
Custom Photo Scenery (All Tegucigalpa city included)
Taxi2Gate made a fantastic job with Toncontin. Im from Honduras, Tegucigalpa and I spend a lot of time on the aiport and let me tell you that this scenery is perfect with all the details, textures of the airport and even a photoreal image of Tegucigalpa, very FPS friendly also. This is so amazing that I can even see my house when flying VFR over TGU. Even the approach to runway 02 is accurrate with the terrain making it a real challenge when landing at this airport. No complains regarding this scenery. Completely worth the price.
Excellent, Excellent, Excellent need I say more. The battle continues between Taxi and Latin VFR. We in the
Flight Sim World are so lucky that in 2014, we have such high quality designers.
What I can say of this baby? Its more then I expected. I liked the LatinVFR scenery too but this one is new , updated and more HD. Its all what I can say about it A MUST BUY ADD-ON FOR EVERYONE IF YOU CAN CHALLENGE YOURSELF coz this scenery is more accurate!!!
Taxi2Gate has done a fantastic job on this scenery! I always wanted really good scenery for MHTG, as I like the challenge of flying VOR approaches with different types of jet aircraft. The photo scenery as well as FS Genesis brings the MHTG area alive with challenge. Using this scenery with MyTrafficX Pro set at 50% fills all parking spots, too. The scenery is so detailed and have found no texture shimmering at all. With Autogen slider to very dense, frame rates locked at 40, this scenery doesn't bog down the frame rates on my i7 2600K system. I highly recommend this scenery!
Very nice scenery! This addon is really challenging due to the possibility of performing the RNAV approach for RWY 02. The included charts are very helpful. I use this scenery with the autogen-slider set to "very dense" in FSX and then there are enough objects to make the place "come alive". The runway textures look very good and the surrounding looks nice during the approach. Just a hint: Try to focus on the highway-crossing for short final just before aligning. This visual aid really helps with getting the right bank angle just seconds before touch down.
And not to forget: The support by taxi2gate is great! I really got fast answers. There was a problem with crashes on the runway when crash detection is set "on" in FSX. Fortunately there was no need to turn it off - a simple file update (using the file sent by taxi2gate after asking for help) solved the problem...