LOWI Primer

About this Document

This document is intended as training and reference material for controlling Innsbruck Airport (LOWI). It covers the stations LOWI_DEL (rarely staffed, but theoretically), LOWI_TWR and LOWI_APP. This page is work in progress. Currently the DEL and TWR section is progress. Stay tuned for APP. If you are controller: Feel free to discuss and edit. Special thanks to Hermann Plunser, our active LOWI controller. It's his material which is used for this page.

General

Location and peculiarities

Innsbruck is one of the most thrilling airports to fly from and to, for various reasons:

• It is deeply in the Inn valley, surrounded by mountains as high as 8000ft (to the north) and >10000ft (to the south and West). This means that approach is particularly long, and flying is limited to a narrow corridor.
• The runway is somehow not in line with the valley, so approach and takeoff is not straight-in-or-out. Instead, the last part of approach and the first part of departure is visual only.
• LOWI has peculiar wind conditions - "Föhn". This is a very strong and gusty wind descending from the mountains, blowing west to east through the valley. Under these conditions, aircraft usually perform a "special Föhn" departure and arrival to avoid vomiting passengers and heart attacks.
• The runway has no complete adjacent taxiways for entering and exiting - Departing (and sometimes arriving) aircraft need to backtrack on either side, which takes time and makes Tower controlling a real thrill.
• X-Plane 9 has LOWI as (nice) standard scenery, which provokes many X-Plane newbies to try out their skills here - thrilling experience for controllers, to be polite.

Airspaces around LOWI

As Innsbruck is deeply buried in "the canyon",

• TWR airspace (Innsbruck CTR) reaches up to A9000ft (mark: actual altitude, not FL). If no higher ATC is available, then Innsbruck Tower controls up to A11000ft).
• APP airspace (Area Tirol) reaches up to FL165. The airspace above is delegated to EDMM.

Airport

(see the aerodrome chart, which is [here].)

Apron

• The far eastern part is for freight, although in real life there is rarely any freight-only aircraft.
• The eastern and middle part of the apron is for larger birds.
• General Aviation is at the very Western part in front of Hangars II and III.
• In the western part is a "cutout" in the grass. On earlier charts, this was marked as helipad. Some choppers still use it - clarifiaction ("heliport in front of hangar II") is recommended.
• Rescure and police helicopters operate from the "Flugrettungszentrum" (ICAO: LOJO), which is south of hangar III and the engine run stand. Local pilots pronounce it "Lojo" and don't spell it. LOJO is not part of any standard package. Giannis MSFS add on scenery has it, and X-Plane has it too.
• Apron, hangar and LOJO is not under ATC control. Therefore, (for copters and only for copters) so you tell QNH, wind and "takeoff/landing at own discretion", as long as they don't interfere with runway or taxis.
• The Apron has no predefined "stands" in real life. In real life, aircraft are handed off to the follow-me car. As there is no car at VATSIM, "taxi to stand of your choice" is best, maybe added by "in the western part of the apron" - for some mysterious reason many aircraft tend to log on in front of the tower in the eastern part.

Holding points

• A on the taxiway A towards rwy 08
• B1 (facing east before turning into B) and B2 (facing west, before turning into B). They are not shown on the VACC charts, but included inGiannis LOWI scenery for MSFS. Don't expect pilots to find it. "Holding point B" works perfectly.
• L holding point is relevant for the GAC parking.

Runway and around

• Runways 08 and 26 have both turnpads. Some pilots report "runway vacated" when standing on it, so be aware.
• North of the runway is taxiway Y which is grass and for light airraft and gliders only. Some pilots think it smart to use it if they miss taxiway A to vacate, or the adjacent "Schleppweg" (glider tow track) with 767's and are a bit surprised.

Further away

• About 1,5nm final rwy 26 is the rooftop helipad of the hospital (LOIU). This is not part of the MSFS or X-Plane standard scenery. If the helipad is occupied, inform arriving aircraft about a "floating" heli: "traffic information: stationary helicopter at the hospital helipad at 1.5nm final, you might see it floating".

VFR Traffic

(see the VFR chart, which is (c) Eurocontrol, so we can't publish it here. You might want to get a (free) login to the EAD document system, which is [here]). Important: There are new routes as of March 8th, 2012. Expect pilots turn up with charts of either generation, so we advise:

• Try the new charts right away and see if the pilot knows what you mean. If he doesn't, the following changes apply:
• M1 is the old E1
• old E2 is omitted
• M2 is old L2
• M3 is old L3
• old A is omitted
• The eastern arrival route (new: M1-M2-M3) is old: E1-L2-L3.
• Approaching from F, the old arrival route L (L1-L2-L3) is now F-M2-M3, but beware: F-M2 is close to the LOC DME east, as VFR pilots need to climb to 7500ft.
• West: G and I are new, so you might avoid it.

IFR Traffic

Approach

Innsbruck has two thrilling approaches, which have one thing in common: They are for cloud-braking only, and you have to land visually on either rwy08 or rwy26 (either approach leads to either runway):

LOC DME East approach: This approach is very peculiar: First, it is not aligned with the runway centerline - heading deviates 5 degrees north. Second: It has a glideslope, so many aircraft think it is an ILS and fly it until they notice that they would land on the grass - funny manoevers happen. The way to handle it as TWR controller:

1. Tell them "report AB NDB or runway in sight, whichever first".
2. If the pilot reports AB, then you have to ask "confirm runway in sight?". If not, the pilot should go around immediately (if you don't see the runway from AB then there might be weather conditions to close the airport).
3. If the pilot reports AB, then the next clearance follows, according to the runway (see below).

The Go-around procedure is a steep left turn and climbout, which makes survival a thrill if they still cruise with 250kt.

LOC DME West approach: Pilots who don't read charts think that this approach directly leads to rwy 08, and some dive for it when they have runway in sight. In fact, this is near-suicidal. The descent goes over the airport and ends above AB, where a steep right turn leads them into the position of either continuing towards rwy26 or rwy08. This approach has no glideslope, so it is for cloud-breaking purpose only.

RNAV 0.3 (RNP) arrival: This approach is very rare and on pilot request only (as aircraft have to be equipped with GPS with 0.3nm accuracy). The approach is very similar to Special LOC DME East approach, but go-around differs. This approach leads into rwy 26 only.

Landing

From AB NDB, there is two ways to the runway:

• direct final rwy26 is the easy thing. Visual approach.
• visual circling rwy08 is the tricky thing.

As TWR controller, the following clearances are recommended:

• For 26: either "cleared to land rwy26" (if free) or "expect late clearance runway 26" (if occupied)
• For 08: "cleared visual circling rwy 08, report final" (this avoids to forget his landing clearance).