wow. thats one heck of an arc to a missed!

 

What's the deal with this one? Airspace requirements and they fiugured out that a big arc like this would be best. Or maybe the FAA decommissioned the NDB on the field and were like oh crap, that was the only approach there.

 

My second day of IOE, back in September, found us flying into KSUN via the NDB approach. The CA did a great job of hand-flying it too, I must say! Approach gave us the option of loading in the GPS, but the captain said it would be quicker and easier for him just to shoot the NDB, so that's what we did.

There are a number of airports still remaining in the US and a ton of them internationally that have only an NDB on the field. At least in the US they are all GPS overlays as well.

The craziest approach I have seen is one going into an airport in Iceland or Greenland. You tracked inbound on an NDB, then turned 180 and tracked inbound on another NDB, then turned around and started tracking the first one, so it was like a big racetrack pattern where you descended as you were circling, and on one of the inbound legs was the runway. I'd love to see if I could find that plate again.