final approach Louisville

[wannabeups]

I was on a sleeper team a while back going to Louisville, spotted a jet flying over I-265. Got to looking at the surrounding terrain, and thought damn that has got to be like "threading a needle". If there is any pilots on here, I was wondering how hard is that approach.

UPS must have some of the better pilots. Notice I said better pilots. The best pilots in the world are the ones who land on aircraft carriers out in the middle of the ocean.

I have seen some of the next day air stuff come in at our local gateway, and it looks as though some of the pilots could land the plane on a dime. I noticed one morning in particular, he/she came in slowed down real quick and made the first turn off the runway.

[Lobofan5]

Maybe the pilots will understand your....

errrr....

Question?

[wannabeups]

LOL, sorry I guess my question is landing at Louisville as hard as it looks. Sorry I just got carried away,

[wornoutupser]

I work in a center that has to get NXDA from McCoy.

We have a runway 14 minutes away that is dead center between us and another building that is fed from McCoy, that is full IR approach and has NO LANDING FEES!

UPS refuses to use it. The amount of money saved would be extreme. Both centers have to wait on the NXDA to arrive- and all that read this heard about the horrible fog and the enormous pileup on I 4 last week.

There is even an airstrip next to my center that has 4400 foot runways. I have talked to several pilots that agree that a 757 COULD set down there as well. In the meantime, my entire building starts later-and later, almost an hour since I started working here. This delay is due to waiting on the NXDA from McCoy.

Will UPS EVER wake up??

[JustTired]

There's more to it than whether a plane can physically land there . There is considerations for things like emergency equipment in case of problems, facilities for offloading air container(s), employees to man the facility. Are they going to hire people to work for the 1/2-1hr it takes to unload a container and load it into cars to service 2 centers? And then bring them back at night to reverse the process? Besides the fact that takeoffs are very expensive considering the amount of fuel consumption required.

I understand the frustration........but this scenario could be played out all over the U.S.

[thom1842]

When I worked the ramp a while back I talked to a pilot after he had landed (I was driving the Crew Van for the pilots.) and he said most of the planes basically land themselves with instrumentation and guidance systems from the airport.
I'm not a pilot or great airplane mind by any means so I'm not sure exactly if this means the plane is on auto-pilot or what, but he seemed to say it was pretty easy to get a plane on the ground.

[UPS Lifer]

UPS has some of the most sophisticated equipment in the industry. The planes literally land themselves. UPS is a test for the FAA on some of this equipment You are correct when you say that the pilots are threading the needle. There are so many landings or takeoffs at SDF in such a short span there is no other way to have the span between t/o or landing to be as short without the use of this equipment.

[wornoutupser]

I see your point and I agree. This airport mentioned is perfect for UPS use.

It is home for the county Fire Department and has facilities on base. It has full IR landing abilities. It would cut massive time by bypassing I 4 feeder/shuttle runs and allow earlier start times at both centers. It also has no landing fees and plenty of space to load/unload planes. In short, the county would probably BEG for the buisiness there! It is an old Army air base, 10,000 foot runways. All that we would ned would be an MDC and the plane unloading equipment. Flight time from McCoy is only 20 minutes! Drive time to other enters about 20 minutes each and no more waiting for NXDA due to I 4 traffic jams!