Chart Wise: Roanoke LDA Y Runway 6

The mountains of western Virginia necessitate an offset approach.

Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 01:34 PM ET

Verified

A pilot who might be visiting Roanoke, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia, might choose to use this less-often-found type of approach when landing Runway 6 via the LDA Y RWY 6. [Image: Jeppesen]

Key Takeaways:

The LDA Y RWY 6 approach is an offset localizer approach requiring pilots to transition from VOR navigation to an unaligned localizer path and execute a final visual turn.
Although a glide slope is available, its absence or non-use drastically changes minimum descent altitudes, emphasizing the need for pilots to understand applicable minimums.
High surrounding terrain restricts circling approaches northwest of Runway 6/24 and mandates high minimum safe altitudes for obstacle clearance.
The standard missed approach procedure is primarily VOR-based, and an ADF is generally not required for navigation, despite some chart depictions.

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Technically called a localizer-type directional aid (LDA), most of us remember and refer to these types of procedures as “localizer darn angle” approaches. Many of them aim for a single runway but are not directly aligned with it. In this case, a pilot who might be visiting the city nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwest Virginia might choose to use this less-often-found type of approach when landing Runway 6 via the LDA Y RWY 6.

A) VOR, THEN TURN ONTO THE FINAL PATH