Hi hermankreimes
This is a old post for a good friend of mine Andrés Ramírez, He explains the differents approximations to the airport Enrique Olaya Herrera of Medellín Colombia.
I hope this post help you
I use Miscrosoft Flight Simulator 2004 with patch from 9 to 9.1 and Colombia Virtual 2005 scenery available from
www.virtualcol.com or simmarket.
The approach depicted there is performed as follows, no need to dive:
You should be 10000 feet over José María Córdova Airport following its runway heading (360 degrees) until 17.5 DME outbound of RNG VOR (115.1). At that point it all becomes visual you should look left and see the Autopista Medellín - Bogota a little close to Guarne, you should see a entrance to the Aburra valley, get into it (over Bello) and then visually fly either to Runway 19 directly or to Runway 01 doing a left pattern over Envigado depending on ATC, weather and traffic conditions and yourself.
After entering the valley as described we were cleared to Runway 01, so we do a left pattern over Envigado.
Finals for Runway 01 after the left pattern over Envigado.
The same approach, but this time cleared straight to Runway 19.
Finals for Runway 19 straight approach.
There are other entrances to the valley, from Caldas (in the South), Boquerón de San Antonio (west), among others.
Boquerón de San Antonio
The distance from threshold of Runway 01 of EOH to the threshold of Runway 36 MDE in a straight line is 11nm aprox (not much). But Medellin happens to be in a valley full of tall mountains and the roads to the Airport (there's three) have to climb them (with some curves involved) and then descend from them again. The road distance is between 30 something and 40 something kilometers depending on the road chosen and the road time averagely takes from 40 minutes to 1+ hour depending on traffic, road and overall conditions.
The things I marked are not exactly accurate in any way, but that's how the thing is sort of.
The roads are of course in a approximate position and the shapes don't really belong, there's lots of curves and stuff. But I think you get the idea.
Red line
Autopista Medellín - Bogotá road.
It's a road in very good conditions, not really curvy and very fast. It takes like 45 minutes to get to the Airport in that road but I've managed to get there even in 35 minutes.
The cons of it are that as you it has to be taken way north of the valley almost in Bello, and the trip from downtown to that part can easily take 20 minutes or more if the traffic is heavy, it takes even more time from the South (Poblado, Sabaneta, Envigado, Itagüi... etc). And the exit sector of the city has some safety issues and it's not really cute to say.
Yellow line
Santa Helena road.
It was the first road built to connect Medellín and the valley of San Nicolás, it's a very old road. It's the most curvy of them all and it's narrow as well, not many people use it actually, but the distance itself is shorter than the others, the time is the same because of the slow speed one has to have not to crash. Time is 40 minutes to 1 hour on the road. It's taken from the Ayacucho road (49th Street) in downtown Medellín, which itself means traffic and more travel time.
Blue line
Las Palmas road and variants.
The road is right now in works for a great revamp and to have 2 tracks per side of driving so it's a mess and it's closed most of the time (there's way at some hours of the day though).
The first road coming from the Airport to downtown goes by El Retiro town and meets the second variant just before the beginning of the descent and gets to the city by San Diego mall and the 33th Avenue, there's a roundpoint to easily go to downtown, El Poblado avenue or Las Vegas avenue. 33th roads goes far to the west of the city until 80th avenue. So it's convenient because the road can be accessed from lots of places of the city via highways which means less time of travel most of the times.
There's a third variant accessable from El Retiro town while one is on the old Las Palmas road, it goes all the way from the mountains and it makes a really reaaaaally inclined descent into Aburra's valley south part, finishes in Envigado. The descent is sooo steep lots of braking units are damaged and the road usually smells like burned brakes hehehe.
The road itself was mantained in overall good conditions and travel time used to take 50 minutes to 1 hour in normal circumstances, it's midly curvy, less than Santa Helena, but more than Autopista Medellín - Bogotá.
When the works finish it's expected to be way faster than it used to be and thus travel time should decrease.
There was a plan to build a tunnel beneath the mountains that make most of the travel time to the 11NM away MDE and would have decreased time travel to some 15-20 minutes, but it was dropped until further advise.
Well, the Caldas entrance has indeed a kinda fast feet per minute rate until some point, but it's not that bad. What happens is that the Flight Simulator ATC is usually screwed and gives all the wrong routes. The way you tried to go to EOH is never used because, precisely, it's imposible to land and very possible to overstress the plane. The used entrances as I told you are Boquerón de San Antonio, Bello (the one I depicted you), Caldas, sometimes Santa Helena and sometimes way north of the valley. Most of the entrances if not all require some sort of pattern to descend and align to the Runway, a la Quito but not that dramatic.
The Airplanes I used in the Pictures are:
-PIC Feelthere Embraer ERJ-145 model. Custom made Satena textures made by Camilo Luengas.
-Boeing 737 NG PMDG model. Custom made Fuerza Aérea Colombiana 0001 textures made by Camilo Luengas the same friend and myself.
The Flight simulator ATC will never issue a landing on Runway 19 I don't know why, but I never use that ATC. What I meant when I said cleared was when Online Flying in Vatsim with controllers that are people, you should try it. Vatsim.net
;D
