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Kyle Boatright wrote:
What's the narrowest runway you've ever used? At what runway width are you comfortable? Among other things, I had an interesting experience yesterday with a runway that was far narrower than any I'd used before... I think 35' was the narrowest. My comfort level depends on the wind, etc. In calm conditions, I'd be comfortable with 10'. In a stiff cross wind, I like at least 50'. We had gone to Dallas for Mother's day, and returned to Atlanta yesterday in my RV-6, which is set-up for basic VFR. The weather was marginal for most of the way, and we made two unscheduled stops and a couple of 180 degree course reversals to avoid weather that was below my minimums. This turned a 3.5 hour trip into an 8 hour odyssey. Our first 180 turn and unscheduled stop occurred when the ceiling was lower than forecast, below my personal minimums, and dropping along our route of flight. I hit the "nearest" function on the GPS, and retreated to the nearest airfield to give the FSS a call on the cell phone (we were too low for radio communication). As we overflew the airfield, I noticed that all it was was a paved strip and a paved ramp. No buildings nearby. Also, the strip looked fairly narrow, but I went ahead with the landing anyway. On very short final, it became obvious that this strip redefined narrow. Accoring to the AFD, it is 50' wide, but what the AFD didn't say is that 3' tall sagebrush grows right to the edge of the strip, and occasionally cuts into the 50' useful width. Given that 3' sagebrush will hit the RV-6's wingtips, I probably had 10'-12' clear on each side. Catching the sagebrush with a wingtip would have almost certainly caused a groundloop. Another good reason to fly a Cessna. :-) We have the same problem with snow windrows here in the winter. Matt |
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