Originally Posted by CPRich
The landing's no worse than LGA or SFO and SM is a great little island. The beach in the lower left corner of the Air France shot was nice, and travelling up to the French side there's a great little town, shops, etc.,
There's a little restaurant just down from this location and we'd go there for lunch and watch the planes landing. The funny part was always the new arrivals who didn't know jets would be flying directly over them and didn't get out of the way.
Takeoffs from that end - engine power with brakes on (need a fast climb due to the mountain on the island) was interesting for folks who forgot to get out of the way also.
For those of you who are into aviation (as opposed to discussing travelling on airplanes), there is a big difference between SXM and LGA and SFO.
LGA is much like SXM, because both airports have short runways (SXM: 7,054 ft, while LGA's two runways (4/22 & 13/31) are both 7,000 ft. long).
The difference is that LGA has the most elaborate navigational aid to assist pilots landing, the ILS (Instrument Landing System). The basic difference, is that ILS provides pilots with both horizontal and vertical data, to ensure precise approachs.
SXM has only VOR/DME approaches. This is means pilots have to eyeball their vertical approach. Especially on the heavies, this means most pilots tend to approach low because they are concerned about overshooting the short runway once they've landed.
Regarding SFO, it's also an overwater landing on most approaches, but SFO has ILS and much longer runways (the longest, 10L/28R is 11,870 ft long). Also, the runways at SFO are much wider than either SXM or LGA.
Another good landing is next door to SXM, it's the runway 10 approach at St Barts. The runway is up against a hill and the final involves a steep dip past the hill to the runway. Fun!
Here's a link to some video:
http://civilizedexplorer.phanfare.co.../23700/1069046