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 a localizer-type directional aid with a 14.5-degree offset from the runway, requiring pilots to transition from VOR to localizer navigation.
An available glide slope provides vertical guidance, but pilots must be aware of significantly higher minimums if it is out of service or unusable.
Circling to land northwest of Runway 6/24 is prohibited due to high terrain, which can exceed 4,000 feet msl, requiring pilots to maintain awareness of minimum safe altitudes.
The missed approach primarily uses VOR guidance, with an NDB along the path that is not required for navigation but can be used for practice with an ADF receiver.

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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