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there's an airport that i've wanted to
visit for as long as i can
remember no it's not this one here at st
martin but it's not far away st
bart's is one of the world's most
extreme airports to land there
you have to fly down a really steep hill
before landing on a
really short runway and if you're
unlucky you end up in the really deep
sea at the other end of the runway it's
not for the faint-hearted there's no
second chances pilots need special
training just to be able to land there
and today
i'm going to be seeing if i've got what
it takes to join those pilots
and land a plane at some parts first
though i wanted to see how the
professionals did it so
i booked a flight over on an airline
called saint bart commuter
the main takeaway i got from my time in
the caribbean was that the weather here
is a lot like scotland
one minute sunny the next torrential
rain
as the rain eased slightly my righteous
and bart's arrived
so bar commuter operator fleet of five
cessna 208 caravans operating from saint
bart's to guadalupe and saint martin
where
they serve both giuliana airports and
here at grand cass on the french side of
the island the cessna caravan
does have a great view of the flight
deck and i was lucky enough to bag a
front row seat
the flight over to some parts takes
about 10 minutes at less than 1 000 feet
after a couple of minutes the island of
simbar started appearing from the gloom
and
i got ready to enjoy one of the most
unique approaches in the world
the approach to runway 1-0 at some parts
involves skimming the top of the hill
before
nose diving down a hill and touching
down on the incredibly short runway
which
is shorter than the runway i fly the
pa-28 from at home
today we were landing down the hill and
i held on tight to enjoy the ride
after we landed i was surprised to see
just how close the runway gets to the
beach at the other end of the runway
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let's see
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so here they're not scent bars and what
an amazing approach in london that was i
mean my heart was racing as i came down
the approach
those pilots second nature to them they
do it every day day in and day out but
for me it's the first time here it was
just
simply incredible to come and see that
hell approaching and then dive down and
it's much steeper than it actually looks
um not entirely sure what it's going to
be like to fly a plane in here we'll
find out later on
so if you can see the runway behind me
here we've got the steep hill up that
far end so the pilots have to come over
the hill
nose dive to the runway which is pretty
short the
other end of the runway is just down
here and you can see there's like a
beach
right across the top of the runway there
and pilots have come unstuck there
before and overran
if you don't land before this second
taxiway you end up in the drink at the
other end
coming from the other end if you land
over the beach again you have to make a
decision before 500 feet whether you're
going to land here or not because
otherwise
there's nowhere to climb the hills all
around you are too high to be able to
climb the plane around at those low
speeds as you do a go around so
they have to make a decision really
early either way you come into this
airport
it's tough
so this is the sea at the other end of
the runway where the planes end up if
they don't stop in time
you can see we've got the runway right
just here then a little bit of sand and
then
the waves lapping from the sea behind um
you don't really want to be messing this
up do you
after a few minutes i heard a faint
drone of a twin otter on approach and
i got to see first hand what i'd be
attempting later on today
get out very nicely done god even made
the first exit as well
i've just noticed as well that the
runway slopes down
from up there down towards the sea so
the landing runs are going to be a
little bit longer
with the slope away from the touchdown
zone at the other end um
so yeah this is going to be interesting
isn't it
whoa well early
now the turn of the little single engine
pc12
here he comes
anytime now
oh holy mother
this place is just absolutely insane
and i can't believe i'm about to try
landing a plane here for myself
gosh this hill's um steeper than it
looks wow
so this is the runway then from the
other end so we're at the top of the
hill now by the roundabout the famous
roundabout and the
aircraft that come in on approach coming
over here straight over the hill
and then nose dive down this hill onto
the runway here at some bart and hope
they don't run off
the other end
so looking at the approach here then
into saint barts and it is pretty
interesting we've got the famous
roundabout here
and then just here is the hill that
slopes right the way down to the runway
behind me
so you come in essentially on a normal
approach by the looks of it
until you get to this point here and you
have to essentially click the top of
this hill without actually hitting it
and then nose dive down that hill to the
runway i think
the main thing looking at this is going
to be the speed control and that could
be a bit of an issue for me because
i typically have issues with my speed
control on approved a little bit nervous
now to be honest
wow how flipping cool was that
and i need to get back to the terminal
now because he's going to take me over
to saint martin
i'm going to pick up the cessna and
bring it over here to have a go at doing
that myself
hi there how are you got a nice t-shirt
how do you like it bowing a380 yeah
so
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blown away by my incredible fashion
sense the pilot fired up the cessna 208
to take us back to saint martin
[Music]
my ride back over to sim martin was to
juliana airport which features the
fantastic approach and landing over maho
beach
so
[Music]
hello yeah thank you
all right so back at juliana airport in
sxm simp martin
now i'm heading across to grand cast to
take the cessna back to st
bart's there's a plane going now let's
watch him go
visiting saint bart's had fulfilled a
lifelong ambition but
now it was time to see if i had what it
took to land a plane there or
at least that was the plan anyway if
you're enjoying this video don't forget
to check out my video from another
incredible extreme airport
lukla in nepal the link's on the screen
now
as the afternoon went on the clouds
rolled in in between pockets of sunshine
the shelves from that morning were back
with a vengeance
i remained optimistic and we decided to
give it a go we'd only need 20 minutes
to fly to centbarton back which
if we were lucky would allow us to dodge
the storms and get back safely to saint
martin before the next
hello how are you
they must have known i was coming
they've given me possibly the rudest
registration ever
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oh cool let's take bums to
some bars for the first five information
running up
and taking off for runaway one two and
one check is zero seven zero degrees
zero nine are not confirming proceeding
directors and bots
that is correct we position part we've
seen missed approaches in part and after
we're back here for the first broadway
information
say again the traffic which is airborne
just advise you that right now instant
bath is actually raining
okay copied we try for the best in case
we back here
now to a british pilot hearing about it
raining at the destination wasn't an
immediate red flag
after all i fly in rain quite a lot here
at home but as we were taking off we
both missed the conversation between the
tower and the saint paul commuter pilot
who it seemed had tried and approached
us in part and was diverting to juliana
due to the deteriorating weather
because you have heavy yeah
may want to come
i think it's more sure not too bad yeah
i'll see
okay
once again the tower controller reported
a weather update from zambarts
hey folks
uh sinbad is informed that there's a
heavy showering action
bath in 100 meters visibility
we still weren't visual with some parts
but we weren't giving up that easily we
were both determined to be able to do
this
i know you know the weather is not
really
suddenly the shape of simvat emerged
from the gloom on the horizon
and things started to look up at least
for a moment
just a little bit uh
good afternoon
we proceed
and they call back for sure we are water
the 300 feet
due to weather for the foxborough
information
the report of wind gusting to 37 knots
was not a good
sign so bars has a hard limit of 20
knots of wind even for experienced
pilots flying to an otters
let alone a cessna 152 on a training
flight
still be carried on for now just in case
it might have used by the time we got
there
104 hello sarah
we're uh we're still over feluga we've
got a ways to go
giuliana told us to check in with you
and see what the weather is doing what
he said it was
less than one mile a few minutes ago
as we got closer yet another shower
moved in and
this time i heard the words i've been
dreading
okay now the weather is not very nice
there we back to
we're back to grand canyon for the
foxborne information
there's no other way to put it i was
absolutely gutted
we got so close but ultimately the
weather meant that we had no choice but
to go back to grand cass
still at least the tower controller in
broadcast seemed amused
the battle might still i wanna go
ahead yeah the vcp is not very nice uh
we packed two grand cause uh
zero seven zero degrees zero nine are
not q h one zero one two temperature is
three zero reporting tomorrow
just enjoy the ride my friend
but enjoying the ride wasn't easy
despite the beautiful turquoise sea and
white sandy beaches were flying over i
just felt like i'd completely failed
welcome back to green cars our
temperature is 3-0
well there we go we gave it a good go in
bums and
it was a no-go the weather is just too
bad at the minute weather here is just
so changeable right now it's um one
minute it's
beautiful and sunny like he wasn't we
left and then next we have tropical
storms coming in so
we tried we failed
so back here on saint martin
tried my best but i've still had a nice
day we've had some fun traveling to some
parts on the
cessna caravan this morning i still got
to go to some parts which was incredible
like
that was just a phenomenal experience
and doing that approach and landing
there
in the cessna caravan was just
incredible and seeing the planes coming
and going there as well was just
a fantastic day so i've had a really
good day even if
i couldn't finish it by landing there
myself so
on that disappointment take care thanks
so much for watching and
i'll see you next time
good lord pigs on the road
could have had a nice pork dinner then