I’ve flown in and out of probably 200 airports and recently noted the steep takeoff from San Francisco.
Steep, at least, compared to the gentle ascent at Dulles in Washington or at Charlotte, for instance.
Which other airports can or tend to entail steep ascents? A flight attendant recently told me that the takeoffs from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California are exceptionally steep. She also said that given noise abatement laws, airliners will take off very steeply and then, at a couple thousand feet, suddenly cut back the engine power. She said this can be rather alarming to newbies.
They do this at LAX, but not being a Heavy pilot I don’t know what it ‘steep’ for them. Aircraft have best-rate-of-climb speeds (V[sub]y[/sub], greatest gain in altitude per unit of time) and best-angle-of-climb speeds (V[sub]x[/sub], greatest gain in altitude per unit of distance). I’m guessing that they use whatever is more efficient given local noise regulations. At LAX the jets usually take off over the ocean, but there’s El Segundo and Westchester and Marina del Rey right next to it. I don’t know the noise-abatement regulations there.
A friend that works in Saltillo tells me that Monterrey, Mexico has a really steep ascent and descent due to its mountain location. I’ve not had that pleasure myself, yet.
From the IAP books I have in front of me San Franciso has a minimum climb of 520’ and 500’ from runways 19L and 19R. The other runways are either normal or don’t say. I’d have to guess it’s because of the buildings around the airport. The airport elevation is only 13 feet, while there are buildings in the area that run up to 2000 feet within a couple of nautical miles.
John Wayne, in Santa Ana, doesn’t seem to have any steep takeoffs listed. There is a mountain range to the east but doesn’t seem to get in the way buildings would. I like how the John Wanye has a departure called DUUKE, though the younger people around here don’t seem to get it. Hell I’m not that old and got it.
?? Most of the time LAX takes off to the west. There is nothing but beach to the west of LAX. John Wayne, and Hollywood Burbank both use noise abatement take offs.
If you are in the parking lot of Fry’s Electronics (Just south of the Burbank airport) you can see the 737 at a very high angle of attack, then the engines get quiet, and the angle of attack levels way off
Not talking about just the building it self sorry. Tower is just the genaric term we use when talking about heights of objects. There is something, what I do not know, on the IAP charts for SFO that stands at 2026 feet above mean sea level. It could be a tower on a hill, something on top of the tower I don’t know. There are also plenty of other objects in the area that are well over 1000’ MSL.
Eh. ‘Over the ocean’, ‘west’. Either one works for me.
It’s true that there’s nothing but ocean after the departure end of LAX’s runways. Still, when I’ve flown out of LAX the jets have throttled back after take-off. I thought that maybe there’s still a ‘noise problem’ in the surrounding neighbourhoods. But as you point out, there are no neighbourhoods directly under the west-bound departure path.
I don’t know about steepness of liftoff but there can be some convoluted take offs from Washington DCs Reagan National airport. Due to it’s location near so many sensitive and secure sites there’s a pretty strict corridor through which planes must pass I’ve been told.
I’ve been told that landing at the Vancouver airport when you’re coming from the east requires a steep decent that can be quite painful. Once you clear the rockies you gotta come down fast to land, apparently.
My best guess is Mt. San Bruno, a few miles north of SFO. It rises 1314" above sea level, and is home to several tall TV antennae, serving the whole Bay Area.
There are some other big hills in the area, but San Bruno’s the only one with anything on it, except for Mt Sutro in SF, topping out around 1300".
I believe it’s mostly to buffer sound. But especially landing at National you often get something of a roller coaster ride as the plane follows the turns of the Potomac River. Also if you can see thru a window in the back of the plane, you often find yourself wondering if you should really be this low when there’s no land under you.
As to steep takeoffs and, especially landings, I’ve been told (third hand) that it has a lot to do with whether the pilot learned to fly in the Air Force or the Navy. Navy pilots, who fly off carriers, learn to get the thing up and down without using a lot of runway.
I’ve never noticed the descent into Vancouver to be particularly steep. After all, the plane has the entire width of the province to clear the Rockies
More seriously, while there are mountain ranges closer to the city than the Rockies, planes coming into Vancouver from the east generally fly more or less along the Fraser River, which runs through a nice long, broad valley from Hope out to the coast, so it’s not like Vancouver is completely ringed by mountains.
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As to steep takeoffs and, especially landings, I’ve been told (third hand) that it has a lot to do with whether the pilot learned to fly in the Air Force or the Navy. Navy pilots, who fly off carriers, learn to get the thing up and down without using a lot of runway.
I once flew into Pensacola aboard a Delta MD-88 and the pilot hit the runway sort of hard during the landing. On my out the pilot was standing at the cockpit door and I said something like “Kind of a hard landing, huh?”. He chuckled and said “yeah, that’s from my Navy days.”
Outside of America…the steepest ascent I’ve experience was out of Turin…as far as I could tell, we basically spiralled up until we were at the height needed to cross the Alps. Any pilots here know if that was the case? (I was hungover, and so didn’t take it in too well…)
I once flew into Pensacola aboard a Delta MD-88 and the pilot hit the runway sort of hard during the landing. On my out the pilot was standing at the cockpit door and I said something like “Kind of a hard landing, huh?”. He chuckled and said “yeah, that’s from my Navy days.”
No matter where someone learned to fly (Navy or Air Force) they can and will be trained how to properly land their airplane. A guy who flew F-14s in the Navy is not going to prang on that MD-88 because he hasn’t “unlearned” his Navy ways. Sometimes the wind and weather get the best of you.
This does not prevent us from giving each other shit when someone plants one on. Heck, when I oafed up a landing and stood in shame at the front of the airplane I got about 10 “Hey, nice Navy landing” from the passengers. I didn’t correct them - they’ll never remeber me, but they’ll wish they had an Air Force guy flying them next time! (And I was Air Force trained - but I’ll let the Navy take the bad rap for every hard landing I have!)
Also some airports demand that we touch down, ahem, firmly and in the first 1000’ feet or so of runway. Examples of this are LaGuardia, San Diego, and Burbank.
The bottom line is that the “Navy landing” thing is just a way to rib the guy who almost jammed the landing gear through the wing. It might have had some truth to it back in the 50s or 60s but these days the training and the simulators are just too good for this to happen with any regularity.
The steep takeoffs are usually caused by two things: noise abatement requirements or performance requirements.
For noise abatement you try to get the airplane as high as possible as quickly as possible. This might involve flying a slower than normal speed and not cleaning up (ie retracting flaps) until a higher altitude. This means that you keep your steeper climb angle for a longer time, making it feel like a much more dramatic climb.
Performance requirements (ie a short runway) might demand the use of max power (the name you love to say!) for takeoff. Most takeoffs are done at reduced power - this not only reduces noise but also incresases the lifespan of the engines and greatly reduces the chance of an engine failure. Using max power the airplane will accelerate quicker and climb faster than when using normal/standard power.
Now if you get an airport with a short runway that also has noise abatement requirements (I’m looking at you John Wayne) then you can get some very steep-feeling climbs.
