Madeira Airport, officially Cristiano Ronaldo International Airport, is an international airport in the civil parish of Santa Cruz in the Portuguese archipelago and autonomous region of Madeira.
The airport is considered one of the most peculiarly perilous airports in the world due to its location and its spectacular runway construction. It received the Outstanding Structure Award in 2004 by the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering. The History Channel Program Most Extreme Airports ranked it as the ninth most dangerous airport in the world and the third most dangerous in Europe.
Pilots must undergo additional training to land at the airport due to its geographically unusualness, as it is perched on a foreland jutting out to sea. At the end of runway 05, there lie hills and cliffs which make a direct ILS approach and landing unavailable. Instead, aircraft must do a visual approach which involves flying around the airport, then circling around in a 180 degree turn before lining up on a very short final approach.
Canadian Xpress would like to invite all pilots to join us on Saturday, May 27th from 21h00edt (Sunday 01h00z) to 24h00edt (Sunday 04h00z) for our May 2023 fly-in where we depart from Pico (LPPI) and fly to Madeira (LPMA). Be sure to choose your aircraft carefully as Pico has only a 5,200 ft runway.
One lucky Canadian Xpress pilot* will win:
• Any Just Flight Product from: https://www.justflight.com
*Please see Fly-In PDF for contedt details and eligibility requirements.
This is an open invitation to all pilots no matter what your flying experience to attend this Canadian Xpress event that will be flown on the VATSIM network.
More information regarding this event including operational details, charts, optional add-on scenery and Canadian Xpress Model Sets can be viewed by visiting https://canadianxpress.ca
See you all on Saturday the 27th!