I was standing in the back listening to Lori Macnichol's backcountry flying seminar last weekend up in Puyallup, really appreciating how much time she's dedicated to developing her curriculum for her instruction. The section I listened to in particular was about approaching one of the river bar airstrips, and how to read the wind, the slope gradient, and how to estimate departure prior to ever landing, as this particular airport was kinda down in a hole like so many of the good ones are. Good stuff.

Some pilots who've been flying in the mountains all their lives just kinda treat unorthodox approaches as business-as-usual, but for the uninitiated, it's a whole new concept. Sometimes a standard pattern is possible, often not.

Curious to hear some your favorite locations requiring unorthodox approaches to land.

Edit: By "approach" I mean a unique approach required by a specific airstrip or site, that distinguish it from others. Wilson Bar in Idaho might be a good example. Not looking for a technique so much as a characteristic of a locale that makes it unique.

Zzz wrote:Curious to hear some your favorite unorthodox approaches required to land.

Over the river and THROUGH the woods

In the king air , left downwind at 12.5 k starting left base around 8 thousand , gear down . Short final. Done.....

OregonMaule wrote:

Zzz wrote:Curious to hear some your favorite unorthodox approaches required to land.

Over the river and THROUGH the woods

I'd say that ranks highly.

On floats:

* Many (many) slow and low approaches before touchdown ... Looking for half sunk logs, deadheads etc!! The water is cold in Oregon!

* calm is bad...contrary to the land plane

* use VHF 16 for water comms (handheld or 337 dash mount)

* fish do jump and can get it from a float!

Pod of killer whales surfaced under my floats outside Angoon one evening on approach. Not what I had ever trained for. Since the approach was very flat ( as per sop on floats) I popped back up 10 feet to miss the dorsal fins. No harm done, but I will not ever forget the image and surprise. Maybe a submarine would have been worse. Really don't know how stout the Orca's fin is? Hey Gump, you know?

Orcas breach sometimes too, don't they...might have been unpleasant for everyone involved.

Orcas are smart and rarely make mistakes in the wild. Surprised you got that close to contacting their fins.

I fear colliding with whales in my powerboat in Hawaii (26ft Hewescraft ) They are big! The pectoral fins can reach 12' and they roll over sticking the fins up. Breaching whales at times hit small vessels too.

flightlogic wrote:Pod of killer whales surfaced under my floats outside Angoon one evening on approach. Not what I had ever trained for. Since the approach was very flat ( as per sop on floats) I popped back up 10 feet to miss the dorsal fins. No harm done, but I will not ever forget the image and surprise. Maybe a submarine would have been worse. Really don't know how stout the Orca's fin is? Hey Gump, you know?

Yikes... Never been that close on floats. In a canoe on the Dean Channel they were close, and I really didn't want to get any closer. Not for fear of getting eaten, but having some curious critter bump me over and into that cold water and dump my gear.

I was on the Blue Canoe one trip talking to the Captain about whales. He said the Orcas were smart and never got hit, but the bigger whales were always getting run over by ships. Said they acted like deer, and really had no concept of the danger.

Gump

My guess is a float plane just before touchdown does not make much noise that penetrates down below surface level. The Orca's popped up with no warning. By the time I actually got off step beyond the place they surfaced, I turned to look... They had vanished. Alaska always provided stunning memories for me. I feel honored.

I guess I don't think to much about a standard approach in the backcountry, don't take this wrong because I am not putting anyone down for using them. It does not matter where I am flying, here in Washington selecting off airport sites or visiting a friend at his home strip, in Alaska or in Utah it is always the same technique for me. The only time I try and use a standard pattern is at paved city type airport or when others force me to fly them because they are already using them.

I get familiar with where I am going to land from above and then make a plan. I use power-on approaches and I use power for altitude, what I mean by this is I control where I want to be all the way to touch down by maintaining a speed I like with power. If I want to go down but maintain 65 I pull back on the power, if I am getting to slow or to low (or both) I add power. I drive the airplane around like I would a car in some ways but it's just 3d.

This is what works well for me, I think it is a good way of doing it but I am self taught so it may not be by the book.

Greg

Me too.....

Gump

Ditto...

What is this, another wheel landing thread ?

I guess i didn't communicate very well in the OP. Greg, you're the poster boy for the unorthodox approach and off airport evaluative methodology, so always nice to hear you articulate your technique. But I suppose what I had in mind was specifics of a particular location, and challenges that make it different from others, a tale.

Some of my personal favorites are the lower rogue river strips at Agness, Half moon bar, and Paradise bar because of the requirement to drop into the river canyon and make the approach fairly blind. Just curious if anyone had stories in a similar vein.

Gasquet (Ward Field) up on the Smith River by Crescent City, CA is like that. If landing to the west you don't see the airport till fairly short final as I recall.

Gump

I agree with Greg and I pretty much fly the same way. I don't really think much about it when I come in to land somewhere, I just do it. I think if you limit yourself to always flying a "standard pattern" you're missing out on something. A lot of the places we fly a standard pattern isn't going to work. You need to be able to feel what the plane is doing and know what you have to do to get the plane to do what you want..... hard to explain I guess.

Do night approaches in canyons count ?

Zzz wrote:I guess i didn't communicate very well in the OP. Greg, you're the poster boy for the unorthodox approach and off airport evaluative methodology, so always nice to hear you articulate your technique. But I suppose what I had in mind was specifics of a particular location, and challenges that make it different from others, a tale.

Some of my personal favorites are the lower rogue river strips at Agness, Half moon bar, and Paradise bar because of the requirement to drop into the river canyon and make the approach fairly blind. Just curious if anyone had stories in a similar vein.

I think one of the most unique approaches I've flown is Dewey Moore. It's a short strip about 700ft and a blind approach, everything has to be just right. You can't even see the runway until you are turning short final. Its important to fly over the strip from up high to get familiar with the terrain. When flying up river on final you need to hug the left side of the canyon, this will give you the most time to see the strip and make a right turn to line up with the runway, flare, and land. Airspeed is also critical, as with most short backcountry strips.

blackrock wrote:Do night approaches in canyons count ?

I have one into Caveman

Catalina Island airport is the inverse of a canyon airfield . Down slopping terrain can be the demise of an inexperience pilot. Does anyone remember the Learjet that overran the runway? We hiked to the wreck a few days later. Basically black spots spread down the hills.