I guess one good thing about flying overhead Essendon is that you don't mistakenly line-up with Runway 36 at YMEN ;-) It happened to Air India shortly after they commenced service into Melbourne: h
ttp://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2014/01/17/air-india-787-warned-off-wrong-melbourne-airport-landing/
Sort of amusing, but not a surprise. The aircraft displays would have been quite upset.... There is very little excuse for this sort of event in a modern aircraft.
Last year I was flying into Essendon with a mates brother who was ferrying a repaired Beechcraft back from King Island, and as we touched down on RW36 a QF 763 flew overhead - it was certainly a sight to see. But I can certainly appreciate that it may be an unnecessarily challenging approach after 15 hours airborne.
The approach over Essendon 26 has issues on a number of levels. Firstly it opens up the possibility that a crew will select 'approach' when flying it, instead of LOC, in which case the aircraft would want to descend to the runway (and would ignore the height in the MCP) window, as it would see that as the go around height. I don't know if that error has ever happened, and I've not heard of it, but it's an obvious set up.
The biggest problem though, is that it is not on a 3º glide path. The fact that you have to turn isn't a particular issue, but it is about 500 feet high (compared to where you want to be) as you cross Essendon. And that's assuming you've got it perfectly right and cross over Essendon (still in the descent) at 2,500'. If you've come down earlier, and levelled off, that will actually tend up put you even higher as you start the descent again, as the aircraft takes time to establish the desired descent rate. One of the factors behind accidents, world wide, has been approaches that are designed with either steps, or higher than normal rates of descent. It stops the crew from establishing a stable approach, and makes undesirable outcomes much more likely. Even visual procedures (like circling approaches) have been redesigned to incorporate a continuous 3º descent. And quite honestly, anything that is "unnecessarily challenging", has no place in aviation. Someone will eventually get it wrong.
ATC, worldwide, often vector aircraft onto finals but do so in such a way that they are left with substantial vertical offsets prior to establishing on the ILS. Almost any time the vectors take you on a track that is more or less reciprocal, the opportunity exists for them to 'cut the corner', and in so doing remove a substantial number of track miles from your flight....and so leave you high. This was one of the ways in which Aseana were set up in SFO.
. Did you take the photo jb747?
