Wonderful stuff Highroad!

One nagging question in my mind: That very first photo of your home strip departure... if the wind is blowing , I would guess that you would get some hellacious swirls and eddies and gusts right on the runway (as the wind rolls over the trees and down into the "groove" of the runway). Being a narrow strip, off-runway excusrions would have a fairly high risk.

So my question is when the wind is blowing, do you get big gusts on the runway or dows the runway sit in a calm "wind shadow" while the crosswind stays above the treeline ?

EZFlap, pretty swirley....

The toughest landings of my trips/flights are always back home. The strip points south east and the wind generally blows out of the north west.....=tailwind on landing. We are 10 miles inland from the coast so we don't usually get really strong winds, but in the summer it is blowing 10-20mph after 11:00am. Every landing is an event!. The great thing about the strip is even though it is fairly short, it is STEEP so if you land long there is no issue stopping. I have heard that if you stop on the steep part in a cessna 150, you cannot get moving forward again.
Anyway, we have a decision point in which you abort and turn up a valley and climb out or you land, no matter what. There is bent metal in the trees at the end to reinforce this point. If the wind is blowing, I watch my ground speed. If I see more than 15mph on the tail, I don't land. When you come over the trees at the approach end, there is a big sinker. So you feel like you are really cook'n and then you the floor falls out from under you and you have to shove in power. Anyway, if it is blowing, I aim for the middle of the strip and just fly it on. It feels really bad (if your not used to large contol inputs on short final) but once you get down just over the runway it smooths out and is no big deal. Usually takes a fair amount of brake to keep it straight, but it is not an option to go off the runway so you don't.

Probably sounds worse than it is. We just tell people to respect it and that we will fly them in the first time to learn the bailout points etc.
If it is dead calm, it really is a joy to land here. Just treat it as a one way.

The owner (he passed away recently-health related) used to fly a twin barron out of here when the trees were a bit smaller. He was building a lancair that he planned to fly out of here as well. It is only 1700ft long. Shows the power of a slope.

highroad wrote:
The toughest landings of my trips/flights are always back home.

If you're going to bend it, it might as well be at home so you can scoop it into your own hangar.

My thoughts exactly

Well,
The last leg of our trip was from Orcas Island Home. We island hopped our way south and squeaked our way around the mountains of the olympic peninsula and the low morning weather. Once out to the coast it was clear saling home. We started to pick up a tail wind as we crossed the oregon boarder and it was building as we went south. I decided to head to Florence to get fuel. Well, we had just run the right tank out and had 45min or so in the left as we reached Florence. The wind was really blowing out of the north, to the tune of 40mph gusting?????. We were close enough to make it home on the fuel we had, but I was unsure if the fog had lifted yet and I did not want to be low on fuel in that situation. So, we tightened our belts and attempted a midfield crosswind at Florence. The mid field cross wind turned into a downwind even though we were pointed 90* to the runway! Well, the airport manager called me on unicom and told me to stay high as there was a nasty down draft off the approach end. I thought I was high, and even with my harness tight, I hit my head on the headliner and the side window. We came in with about half power to maintain forward ground speed. Once on the ground I asked to cross the grass at a diagnal to keep the nose into the wind. He told me to do "whatever I had to." My wife and him held the airplane down while I pumped a few gallons and we were off. Just off the ground, about 500ft above the beach I took this picture of my GPS. Keep in mind, the Pacer as I have it configured only makes 110mph through the air.



We were home in a few minutes and had an uneventful final landing.

Nice trip, highroad! Thanks for the fotos and vids. If I might make an observation about Vines: ALL of the bent airplanes I've seen there were piled up on the right (creek) side of the runway, due to the tilt in the rwy I guess. I made it a habit to always park my plane on the other side, away from the creek, in case somebody loses it on the landing rollout. "1100 feet"; If the useable were that long it would get a lot more visits! I think it's more like 950', IF you shove your tailfeathers deep into the berry brambles before T/O Thanks again.

Kenny,
Thanks for the info on Vines.

Kenny wrote: I think it's more like 950', IF you shove your tailfeathers deep into the berry brambles before T/O Thanks again.

How do you think I put the hole in the tail?

highroad...liked the adventure you and your family took..and the videos. Some very precious times together for you all. Your daughters naration is some of the sweetest I've ever heard Thank you for posting and be careful out there! HC

Great stuff Brent. I love your daughters commentary.

Cheers...Rob

Thanks everyone,
Putting this thread together has been a lot of fun as I have been reliving the trip again!

I feel very blessed to have my family involved with my hobby.

highroad wrote:Kenny,
Thanks for the info on Vines.

Kenny wrote: I think it's more like 950', IF you shove your tailfeathers deep into the berry brambles before T/O Thanks again.

How do you think I put the hole in the tail?

"The mystery is solv-ed" Inspector Cleauseu