lowflyin'G3 wrote:
Rob,
You need to trust the force within! All them funky little boxes don't trump the old eye (that is unless you can't see, then they kick the shit out of the old eye!).

Right on George, lesson learned. I feel the force already. it is telling me to go to Copalis on a sunny day and call donknee, groundlooper, Mr. Ed, M5guy,
Savanna-Tom, etc.

Rob

hangartrash wrote:The Washington State Department of Transportation, WSDOT, puts out a 'Pilot's Guide to Washington Airports' and it shows Copalis S16 to be on the north side of the river. I flew in in April on a low tide and the beach was at least a half mile wide with good firm sand. Lots of spectators too. All fun. Tom

Thats funny, who to believe. The guy from the state who puts up 55 MPH signs on freeways. Or the FAA and US gov. who make the sectionals and run gps.

The force tells me go with the state guy.

Cheers...Rob

It all looked like beach to me. There wasn't really any noticeable characteristic of the beach north, or south. of the river mouth, so we just went for the widest, smoothest chunk of sand. What do they have at the official airport anyway? Porta-potty?

Mainly exactly what you see in my picture. The two signs with guestbook box and the windsock. The only things out of the picture are the two vertical fifteen or so foot tall blaze orange runway end markers. The one on the south end has a little white sign with a black arrow pointing north (I guess so you don't try to land in the Copalis river) and the one on the north end has a little white sign with a black arrow that points south (I guess so that you don't try to land on the other fifty miles of beach to the north). Go figure!
Side note - I totally agree with Zane and Rob. Where the wizzo boxes take you is by far cleaner,straighter beach. On the actual runway there were a couple of rocks about middle of the runway N-S. Like bigger than Greg would land on with 35's, so watch it. I also noticed walking around that about 200' north of the Copalis river down to it, the sand gets a little softer although it has the same "wet" look as the concrete hard stuff along the rest of the runway. Even the dry stuff isn't all that soft, I'm not saying don't watch it with weenie tires, but it's not likebeing in a sand dune or something. I tried a couple of times on the WET sand to bury a tire by stabbing a brake and turning. Couldn't do it, hard as it gets.

This is a link to WSDOT website for Copalis Beach:

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/aviation/AllSta ... sState.htm

Here's a tidal reference link:

http://gofishingforum.net/tide.pl?locat ... n=124.2700

Hey Rob,
I thought I had you pegged as a risk taker. Off airport landings YOU ARE THE MAN! I'm going to have to watch where I follow you now. I bet Zane was there sounding like Ben Stiller in Starsky & Hutch saying" Do it, Do it, wink, , wink, DO IT!"

I've been to Copalis multiple times.
1) The correct (legal) location is north of the river. Law enforcement has hassled friends who mistakenly landed south of it.
2) Apparently somebody (FAA,WS-DOT?) has/had issued bogus lat/long for Copalis airport, the 1998 database in my old Garmin GPS showed it south of the river.
3) I've never seen any blaze orange runway markers. Must ne new additions? WS-DOT used to put up a new windsock every year, it was always stolen within a few weeks. I suspect an airplane-hating resident gets them.
I thought about heading out to Copalis today to beat the heat, but the trouble was that low tides were at 7am & 7pm. I woulda been arriving mid-day, just in time for a +7' or so high tide. I've been there between tides, but never at (a fairly) high tide like that so wasn't sure just how much damp sand I'd have available for landing. Some other stuff came up anyway so I didn't get a chance to find out if it was do-able or not.

Eric

The first time I landed there, back in February, it was also south of the river.
I had researched it on the Washington DOT airports page and realized the actual airstrip was supposed to be north of the river but it was a nice warm day and, as I later learned from the tribal police, there was a subsistence clamming season opener for the local natives.
There were people everywhere on what was supposed to be the landing zone and they didn't look like they were leaving anytime soon - even after I overflew the strip looking for debris and driftwood that might hinder a safe landing.

There is an area a couple thousand feet long just south of the river that is isolated by small streams at each end flowing into the ocean that prevented the clam diggers access. Flat, wide, debris free, firm sand.
Soon after landing the tribal police arrived saying he had a report of a plane going down (which speaks volumes of my landings).

When asked, he verified this was Copalis beach though planes usually land farther north. He had no problem with where we landed and was friendly about the whole thing saying he had to check out any and all reports of planes going down.
We thanked him and he went on his way.

I flew down to Copalis yesterday with Kay and two dogs onboard, planning a big romp in the ocean. Arrived about 2:30, an hour after high tide, and the fog had already moved in and totally obscurred the beach. The fog was encroaching on Westport, too. We salvaged the trip by going over to HQM and hiking over to the water for the dogs to cool down.

I've landed on both sides of the river. Eldon Flahut took me there for instruction the first time. He pointed out that from your wheel tracks you can see if your controls are coordinated or if you are skidding.

donknee wrote:He pointed out that from your wheel tracks you can see if your controls are coordinated or if you are skidding.

Great idea! I bet that would work on the dry lakes / playas as well.

tom

Speaking of clamming:
If anyone sees in the paper or the DFW reg's that Copalis is open for razor clams, & has the bright idea of flying out there to partake-- be advised that the Copalis Beach airstrip is actually in the Moclips clamming unit. A friend of mine found that out the hard way when he was cited for clam-digging in a closed unit- the lesson cost him over a hundred bucks. Doh!
The first time I flew out there when razor clams was open I was shocked to see about 20 airplanes parked on the beach. I'd never been there when there were more than just a couple. And yes, clam-diggers as a group don't seem to realize that the beach is an airstrip- even when you're bearing down on them on short final. Yeehaw!

Eric

My favorite flying photo that I have personally taken is the one of my tire tracks touching down in the sand at Copalis.
It's in my gallery - I still need to educate myself on how to post them here.

OK, I have to ask this:

Aren't you guys concerned about salt on your plane? The beach would be great fun but I'm not sure I want to put it there.

I always hose it off when we get back home.

I washed the M7 when I got back. I'll let you know if I see any rust. I used to spend a lot of time riding my dirt bike in the sand. It is bad!

Rob

Good directions for posting photos Zane......