Narrow Runways

("Markus Voget" wrote)
[ nrp wrote]
There was a writeup a few weeks ago on the retired South African
Airways 747 that was flown to its museum airfield & landed on a 50'
wide asphalt strip, down and stopped in 2300 ft. There was about 3 ft
edge distance for the 747 gear. It was an incredible piece of
airmanship.

Indeed!
http://www.skypark.org/747Landing.htm


(Favorite part of the story)
"We joined right-hand downwind for 11 and got the gear and flap 30, landing
flap out early."

Joined? Joined who way out there, the C-5 Galaxy landing in front of them?
g

Anyone know what size the "pattern" would be for a 747?

2 miles abeam the numbers? 1.5 miles? 3 miles? 4 miles?


Montblack

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...

When I lived in CA, I based at Frazier Lake for several years. Normally,
you use the 150'x2500' grass runway, but in the winter the grass is too
soggy, so we used the paved taxiway. That was approximately 20'-25' wide
and 2500' long. It got really sporting in a crosswind, so you really had
to keep on centerline.

Smith Ranch, in Marin County, was another narrow strip.

--
Remove _'s from email address to talk to me.

Kyle Boatright wrote:
What's the narrowest runway you've ever used? At what runway width
are you
comfortable?

I think the narrowest one I've used was Manley Hot Springs (PAML) in
the Alaskan interior. It was listed at 30 ft. wide in the book (which
happens to match the wingspan of my Cherokee). While I was flaring, I
noticed that there was pretty much just one place for me to put the
wheels on the relatively smooth dirt and gravel. The vegetation had
grown in from both sides, making the runway much narrower than 30 ft.
After landing, I saw that I only had a few feet of runway showing on
the outside of either wheel pant. Curiosity got the best of me, so I
measured the width of the strip. It was 20 ft. Fortunately, the
vegetation that grew at the edge of the strip was low, so I didn't have
to worry about dinging the wings. I'd hate to have to land there with
a serious crosswind.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

On 2005-05-11, Kyle Boatright wrote:
What's the narrowest runway you've ever used? At what runway width are you
comfortable?

The narrowest was at Woodland State (W27) which is 1965x25, in a 172
when I had about 14 hours.

I must be comfortable with 2500x48 since that's where my plane is based.
It still freaks me out to land at night (the lights are significantly
wider, maybe 80-100' apart). It makes the runway look short and stubby.
I don't think I've ever used more than the center 20' of the runway
except once when a brake grabbed a little and I swerved. Closest I've
come to groundlooping a tricycle gear plane!

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/

Ben Jackson wrote:

On 2005-05-11, Kyle Boatright wrote:

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


The narrowest was at Woodland State (W27) which is 1965x25, in a 172
when I had about 14 hours.

I must be comfortable with 2500x48 since that's where my plane is based.
It still freaks me out to land at night (the lights are significantly
wider, maybe 80-100' apart). It makes the runway look short and stubby.
I don't think I've ever used more than the center 20' of the runway
except once when a brake grabbed a little and I swerved. Closest I've
come to groundlooping a tricycle gear plane!


I don't remember which field was narrowest, but I believe it was near
Pittsburgh, PA. I'll have to check my log book. I DO remember the
shortest I landed at. It is K9B1. It is less than 1700' with
obstructions at both ends. Landing the Skylane was no problem,
requiring only about 1000' with light braking. However, the sight
picture when I turned final was unnerving. The book said I had plenty
of space so I trusted the numbers.

I learned to fly at a 1900' strip, but that had trees at only one end.
Taking off from Marlboro was very interesting. It was a hot summer day
(about 90 as I recall), but I was loaded fairly light, just me, one pax
and about 4 hours of fuel. I don't recall the exact details now, but I
think the book said I needed about 1500' to clear a 50' obstacle. I
pulled onto the runway with my tail feathers almost touching the chain
link fence at one end, ran up to nearly full RPM and then released the
brakes. We cleared the trees by 30-40'.


Matt

Matt Whiting wrote:
I don't remember which field was narrowest, but I believe it was near
Pittsburgh, PA. I'll have to check my log book. I DO remember the
shortest I landed at. It is K9B1. It is less than 1700' with
obstructions at both ends. Landing the Skylane was no problem,
requiring only about 1000' with light braking. However, the sight
picture when I turned final was unnerving. The book said I had plenty
of space so I trusted the numbers.

The pilot I bought my plane from learned at Marlboro (9B1), and he
demonstrated the STOL characteristics of my plane by landing and taking
off at 9B1. What a blast! Coming in down over those trees on short
final is a thrill.

Charles.
-N8385U

Charles O'Rourke wrote:

Matt Whiting wrote:

I don't remember which field was narrowest, but I believe it was near
Pittsburgh, PA. I'll have to check my log book. I DO remember the
shortest I landed at. It is K9B1. It is less than 1700' with
obstructions at both ends. Landing the Skylane was no problem,
requiring only about 1000' with light braking. However, the sight
picture when I turned final was unnerving. The book said I had plenty
of space so I trusted the numbers.


The pilot I bought my plane from learned at Marlboro (9B1), and he
demonstrated the STOL characteristics of my plane by landing and taking
off at 9B1. What a blast! Coming in down over those trees on short
final is a thrill.

Yes, when I turned final, my first thought was that this runway couldn't
possibly be long enough to land on. However, at some point you have to
trust the numbers and trust your training. It all worked out fine, but
it did get the adrenaline flowing just a little bit more than normal. :-)


Matt

On Thu, 12 May 2005 01:48:11 GMT, Matt Whiting
wrote:

The pilot I bought my plane from learned at Marlboro (9B1), and he
demonstrated the STOL characteristics of my plane by landing and taking
off at 9B1. What a blast! Coming in down over those trees on short
final is a thrill.

Yes, when I turned final, my first thought was that this runway couldn't
possibly be long enough to land on.

1659 feet is pretty short for a public-use airport. I've heard that
many Cessna drivers won't land at Hampton NH because it's so short
(about 2500 feet).

I think the narrowest paved runway I've ever landed on was 40 feet
(Sterling MA). I was a student pilot, and it seemed noticably narrower
than the 50 feet I was accustomed to land on.

More grass fields of course are much wider--Hampton's I think is 250
feet. They also tend to be on the short side. In Damian Delgaizo's
bush-flying course in Andover NJ he had me landing and taking off on a
strip that was about 250x500 feet. That was in a Husky, however. I
found that the techniques didn't translate very well to a J-3. If you
try to fly the final with power on and nose high in a Cub, the dang
thang will just keep on flying forever.

The bestest field in the world however is a private field near
Hampton: Sanderson's in Hampton NH. There's an ultra-light fly-in
there every July. East-west, maybe 2000 feet, gentle uphill slope to
the east, then a steep hill on the east end, then 50-ft trees, power
lines, a house, the whole nine yards. When you land to the west, you
necessarily miss the hill altogether, and most of the time I miss half
the runway after that. No landing on the numbers there!


-- all the best, Dan Ford

email (put Cubdriver in subject line)

Warbird's Forum: www.warbirdforum.com
Piper Cub Forum: www.pipercubforum.com
the blog: www.danford.net
In Search of Lost Time: www.readingproust.com

"Kyle Boatright" wrote in message
...
What's the narrowest runway you've ever used? At what runway width are
you comfortable?

Narrowest was the temporary runway at Middleton (C29) at 35'. No problem
with that except I was flying a TR182 for the first time and my fourth
landing on the runway was when I did my Instrument checkride.
http://www.bumblesfolly.com/html/morey_0.html

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...

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)

Don't remember what the main gear "track" width is on the Malibu, but
there wasn't a lot of room to spare...

What's really, really scary is the guy that useta own it based a P-51
and later a BD-10 there.

TC