Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Getting into - and out of - a very small place


Courtesy of XBradTC, we find this video clip of a Britten-Norman Islander twin-engined light aircraft landing at a remote game lodge in Idaho.  According to the company that posted it, the strip is at an altitude of about 2,700 feet above sea level, and has a usable distance of about 1,200 feet. Watch the video (and the next one) in full-screen mode for best results.





Curious, I went to the YouTube channel of the company operating the plane, and found they had another one of the same plane taking off from the same strip.





The company has several other interesting flying videos on its YouTube channel.  They remind me of bush flying in Africa - strips in the middle of nowhere, often with a bend (or two, or three, or . . . ) in the middle, surrounded by all sorts of things you really didn't want to hit on your way in or out.

Peter

7 comments:

richard mcenroe said...

I see IFR rules (I Follow Rivers) were in effect...

Old NFO said...

Fun flying! :-)

Anonymous said...

Johnson Creek, 4960 msl. About 90 nm NE from Boise. Well worth it. BBQs on regular occasion.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to add: Johnson Creek is more than twice the length of 1,200' as stated.

Great videos, thank you for posting for our viewing pleasure.

For real pucker factor in and out of short fields, try viewing what MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) does on a daily basis, particularly in PNG.

0007 said...

Flew in and out off Resolution Island.
The runway's at about 2000 foot up on the island. So you approach the island and then "pop-up" the cliff face to land. When taking off you fly off the same cliff face... lots of fun. They made me leave a box of about 100pounds of melted lead(from salvaged pipes) when we left. Said it was too much extra weight.
We were installing automated replacement radars for the old DEW/BMEWS line radars. As near as I was able to tell from some papers I found there, the place was abandoned around 1976. We were there in late summer of '94IIRC.
And in case anyone ever asks you, polar bears can swim at least 125kms in very cold water...

0007 said...

Forgot to add that a Twin-Otter was what was used to ferry the crew and equipment on and off. So we flew in low enough to fly past a couple of very big grounded ice bergs.

J Van Stry said...

I'm curious as to the approach and why they flew it that way. I would have come in a little higher, and done a full flap landing.
Maybe they need to come in faster to deal with uncertain winds?
I never did much mountain flying, so I wouldn't know, but I am rather curious about it.