I flew the Mu2 up to Alaska two summers ago from Ft. Lauderdale Executive...Spent the night at Boeing Field in Seattle, then went up to Juneau (take a look at that LDA rwy8 approach)...there's about 5 or 6 step downs and the airport is completely surrounded by mountains...next we flew up to Homer and did a DME arc to the Localizer for RWY 21, that one was easy in comparison to Juneau. we then flew to Sildovia and then up to Anchorage just fishing on the way at different places. on the return we flew from Anchorage to Sitka (nice little town built by the Russians)...flew the LDA rwy 11 there right down to the minimums of 400-1 (if I remember correctly)...the one thing that stands out in my mind about that approach was the moderate to severe icing we encountered along with the 6 step downs, but I guess that is normal for Alaska. From Sitka we flew to Boise, ID and the rest is history.
The radar service is very limited up there at the lower altitudes...always hearing from Anchorage Center "Cleared for the approach cancel with Flight Service on the ground" unless you are going to Anchorage.
Most of my the time we got cleared GPS direct and we were up in the flight levels.
Another thing I noticed was that it seemed like the weather could change on a dime and was hard for Flight Service to predict accurately (F.S. was predicting Sitka to be VFR, but when we got there it was solid IFR)
Other than that I thought Alaska was a very beautiful place and I can't wait to go back up there. I have only been up there once, but I thought it was a very valuable learning experience as it is very different from flying around the North East.
If you want to see a wacky NDB approach, look at Nassasaraq, Greenland...it looks like it has the potential to get nasty
The radar service is very limited up there at the lower altitudes...always hearing from Anchorage Center "Cleared for the approach cancel with Flight Service on the ground" unless you are going to Anchorage.
Most of my the time we got cleared GPS direct and we were up in the flight levels.
Another thing I noticed was that it seemed like the weather could change on a dime and was hard for Flight Service to predict accurately (F.S. was predicting Sitka to be VFR, but when we got there it was solid IFR)
Other than that I thought Alaska was a very beautiful place and I can't wait to go back up there. I have only been up there once, but I thought it was a very valuable learning experience as it is very different from flying around the North East.
If you want to see a wacky NDB approach, look at Nassasaraq, Greenland...it looks like it has the potential to get nasty