Toncontin: The Airplane resistant airport

"You've done this before, right?"

Heyo! Elder Roberts' Dad (El Jefe... El Padre...El Guapo) checking in here for an informative interlude. Since Elder Roberts will be making his flight from the Guatemala CCM to the mission field in Honduras this next week, we thought it would be fun to share with everyone what this trip will be like. Elder Roberts is all prepared for the short flight between Guatemala City and Tegucigalpa... the real fun part is the landing.

Toncontin Airport has about 7000 feet of runway to land on for the pilots, which in and of itself it a pretty difficult thing to do considering crosswinds and navigation (LAX has over 9400 feet of runway). BUT to add fun to our adventure in Honduras, the runway is in the middle of a mountainous valley located approximately 6km outside of Tegucigalpa. The mountain ridges of this valley prohibit a straight forward approach to the runway and require a sharp turn and dive immediately prior to touching down. Considering that the pilots must also find the runway and position the airplane for landing I am sure there are plenty of white knuckle days and more than a few folks holding their breath. 

Here is a great video of one pilot making his approach into Toncontin:

Here is another view from the cockpit from another pair of pilots (you can skip the first 3 minutes unless you want a view of what Honduras countryside looks like): 

At the end of the video you can hear one of the pilots say to the other,

"Thats not fun. I don't like this one!"

Finally, just for fun, there are some pretty great pilots out there who can land some really big airplanes on some really little patches of dirt... (Go Air Force!)

We are excited for Elder Roberts to get to the mission field and begin this portion of his mission. We know that he is ready and willing to serve the Lord in Honduras. We are also eager to hear about this exciting part of the trip as his pilots endeavor to land his plane on this airplane resistant runway! What an adventure!