Narrow Runways

On Wed, 11 May 2005 23:29:40 GMT, wrote:

http://www.airnav.com/airport/7D5

Trees at one end, power lines and railroad tracks at the other.

Been in and out of this one in a little bit of everything. Scariest
one for me was a Malibu Mirage. Easiest was an A-1 Husky (departed off
of what passes for a ramp pointing toward the runway)

Forgot to mention that quite a few trips to 7D5 were as a student
pilot...

TC

20' wide, Kezer airport near Ft. Worth TX in a Piper Warrior

picture on AirNav's site: http://www.airnav.com/airport/61TE


On approach, it was as though I was landing on an R/C park's airstrip
:-)

I had a fair crosswind too, but kept the wheels on the pavement.

6B6 in a Beech 18. Quite actually the taxiway is worse due to wing tip
clearance to the parked aircraft.

Bush

On Tue, 10 May 2005 22:38:50 -0400, "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...

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.

With this in mind, and concentrating hard enough to cause permanant forehead
wrinkles, I managed to keep the airplane centered on landing and rollout,
then taxiied (sp?) to the ramp, where I shut down, pulled out the cell phone
and got exactly zero signal... (Sometimes you can't win.)

So, we fired up again, taxiied out, and I kept the bird out of the weeds on
takeoff and off we went. In the 30 minutes our detour consumed, the weather
along the route improved meaningfully, and we made another 225 miles before
the next unplanned stop.

After a 3 hour wait and a couple of visits with the on-field FSS at
Greenville, MS, we found a safe path around the line of storms on the
Alabama/Mississippi border and came on home. One of the real advantages to
a relatively high performance airplane is that if the weather allows, you
can get above most of the cumulus and eyeball your way around the convective
stuff. I'm not sure we would have gotten around yesterday's weather in a
C-172 or Cherokee...

Kyle Boatright wrote:
What's the narrowest runway you've ever used?

I've flown into a number of grass strips. No runway at all.

George Patterson
There's plenty of room for all of God's creatures. Right next to the
mashed potatoes.

Freehold, NY (1I5) is the narrowest I've ever landed on - 22 feet. I
thought that Stroudsberg Pocono (N53) was narrow at 30 feet, but turning
final at Freehold, it just gets narrower the closer you get. The Cherokee I
was in at the time is 10' between the mains, but on that runway, it seems
like it's a lot wider. You really want to track the centerline. The grass
is cut, however.

In the Northeast in the winter, you have to watch the snowbanks on either
side of the runway. There have been times that I thought that a high wing
might be nice.

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)


"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...
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...

Kyle Boatright wrote:
What's the narrowest runway you've ever used?

We flew gliders off the turf in Readington, NJ, some years ago. One
day I followed the Lark around the pattern in an SGS 1-26. The Lark
landed nice and short (I started aiming to land over him), but then
rolled out long and stopped in the middle of the runway. The only
clear space available was the diagonal swath cut by the tractor as he'd
headed for the barn after his last pass down the runway... maybe 12
feet wide, maybe less. The 1-26 sits about 6 inches off the ground and
has glider-sized wings. As I eased her into that skinny little slot,
both wings settled nicely into 12-ish inches of grass.

That was also the shortest landing I've ever made, by a very large
margin. :-|

-Dave Russell
N2S-3

Though I'm sure it isn't as narrow as some of you have done; my narrowest
(so far) was
30 feet wide.... wing tips of 172 hang over the edges of the runway.
Harris Ranch 3O8 in Coalinga.

--
--
=-----
Good Flights!

Cecil
PP-ASEL-IA
Student - CP-ASEL

Check out my personal flying adventures from my first flight to the
checkride AND the continuing adventures beyond!
Complete with pictures and text at: www.bayareapilot.com

"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery -

"We who fly, do so for the love of flying. We are alive in the air with
this miracle that lies in our hands and beneath our feet"
- Cecil Day Lewis -
"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...
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...

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.

With this in mind, and concentrating hard enough to cause permanant
forehead wrinkles, I managed to keep the airplane centered on landing and
rollout, then taxiied (sp?) to the ramp, where I shut down, pulled out the
cell phone and got exactly zero signal... (Sometimes you can't win.)

So, we fired up again, taxiied out, and I kept the bird out of the weeds
on takeoff and off we went. In the 30 minutes our detour consumed, the
weather along the route improved meaningfully, and we made another 225
miles before the next unplanned stop.

After a 3 hour wait and a couple of visits with the on-field FSS at
Greenville, MS, we found a safe path around the line of storms on the
Alabama/Mississippi border and came on home. One of the real advantages
to a relatively high performance airplane is that if the weather allows,
you can get above most of the cumulus and eyeball your way around the
convective stuff. I'm not sure we would have gotten around yesterday's
weather in a C-172 or Cherokee...

" What's the narrowest runway you've ever used? At what runway width are
you
comfortable?

I'm based at Spanaway WA S-44 20 feet wide.
When I go X-country EVERYTHING seem wide. Grin

Paul
NC2273H

In article ,
"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...

This one: http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flypics/ghshortfinal.jpg

Same width as Cessna main gear.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html