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Even my RV needs a day at the beach

DakotaHawk

Well Known Member
Today seemed like a great day to head down to the beach. Unfortunately, the beach is 120 miles away. Fortunately, the beach is also an active airport - Copalis Beach - the only airport on the west coast where you can land (legally) on the beach.

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After a low pass to check conditions, we landed down near the waterline, where the sand is rock hard and smooth as glass! Nevermind the boulder on short final, or the seaweed blocking the numbers, or the crab shells strewn all over the beach...
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The good thing about landing on a beach --- you make your own centerline!


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Although I was a little nervous about putting my tiny 500x5 tires on sand, the tires almost didn't leave a mark. After hanging around for a bit to enjoy the sun, sea, and sand, we loaded up and flew away before the tide began to come in.
 
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that is great! do you go home a give it a good wash to flush sand?

need to put that on the bucket list
 
Wow

There are a few videos I have seen of people doing that on a nice beach on the pacific shore of BC. AWESOME. Would love to do that sometime.
Nice report. Got me thinking...to bad its thousands of miles from home. Hmmm.
 
that is great! do you go home a give it a good wash to flush sand?

Yes, we stopped at the washrack on the way back to the hangar and gave my baby a good rinse down. Particular attention to rinsing any sand/salt out of the wheel pants and wheel/brake assemblies.
 
Well marked?

Scott, how well marked is it? I looked on a satellite view but it doesn't looked marked. Is the rock on the north end?
 
The rock is near the south end. Maybe 500 feet from the river. There is no defined runway to land on. You just land on the semi wet sand. You will sink into the dry sand and you dont want to land in the water. The stuff in between is hard as packed dirt. The different sands all have different shades and are fairly easy to identify from the air.

Vlad, we'll see you soon :p
 
Copalis State Airport

Thanks for the reminder. I have been meaning to make it up to land at the beach Copalis State Airport as a nice place to take the wife. She will love it.
 
These two statements from airnav seem to conflict with each other slightly:


"Elevation: 1 ft. / 0 m (estimated) "

"RY AVBL WHEN TIDE IS LOW."
 
These two statements from airnav seem to conflict with each other slightly:


"Elevation: 1 ft. / 0 m (estimated) "

"RY AVBL WHEN TIDE IS LOW."

Yep, the technique is that you only use the runway when the tide is out and the sand is wet. Obviously, at high tide there won't be any wet sand to land on! When the tide starts coming in, you better be making plans to depart, or pull the plane up above high tide mark and wait it out.

Scott, how well marked is it? I looked on a satellite view but it doesn't looked marked. Is the rock on the north end?

As Casey said, the rock is at the south end of the "runway". The runway isn't marked, other than an orange marker way up above the high tide line to show approximately where the designated runway begins.

The preferred method for landing is to perform a low fly-by to check out conditions and let the beach-combers know that you're landing. The rock sticks out about two feet above the sand, and will be very visible during the fly-by.

Landing - look for the dark grey sand. Black sand is still getting wet from the tides and waves. Tan sand is too dry and you'll sink into it. The dark grey sand area is easily 100 feet wide, and the waves have washed the sand clean so there's literally no obstacles or debris!

After landing - taxi up out of the landing area. No need to go too far - just enough to leave plenty of landing area for the next guy.

Wheel pants? - I have about 1 1/2" clearance from ground to bottom of wheel pants. During the landing roll and subsequent parking, the deepest divot I could find was about 1/8" in the sand. Even my bounces didn't dent the sand at all!
 
Yep, the technique is that you only use the runway when the tide is out and the sand is wet. Obviously, at high tide there won't be any wet sand to land on! When the tide starts coming in, you better be making plans to depart, or pull the plane up above high tide mark and wait it out.



As Casey said, the rock is at the south end of the "runway". The runway isn't marked, other than an orange marker way up above the high tide line to show approximately where the designated runway begins.

The preferred method for landing is to perform a low fly-by to check out conditions and let the beach-combers know that you're landing. The rock sticks out about two feet above the sand, and will be very visible during the fly-by.

Landing - look for the dark grey sand. Black sand is still getting wet from the tides and waves. Tan sand is too dry and you'll sink into it. The dark grey sand area is easily 100 feet wide, and the waves have washed the sand clean so there's literally no obstacles or debris!

After landing - taxi up out of the landing area. No need to go too far - just enough to leave plenty of landing area for the next guy.

Wheel pants? - I have about 1 1/2" clearance from ground to bottom of wheel pants. During the landing roll and subsequent parking, the deepest divot I could find was about 1/8" in the sand. Even my bounces didn't dent the sand at all!


Scott thanks. Where to get a tidal chart for this particular place? I am not a sailor :D
 
Great post Scott. I've flown over it but never landed. Was there a wind sock anywhere? Hope to fit this in someday...
 
That is really cool!

I'd love to land on a beach someday - I'll have to add this to the bucket list.

Thanks for posting this!
 
Too cool. How was the wind? I know it can be a bit breezy at the coast sometimes.

Wind was blowing about 10kts from the NW. The beach landing area is big enough that we landed straight into the wind to the NW (rolling toward the water), and then curved our landing roll-out toward the North. You can see the curved roll-out in the picture with the wheel tracks.




Great post Scott. I've flown over it but never landed. Was there a wind sock anywhere? Hope to fit this in someday...


Joe, there are two windsocks, one at either end of the "runway". They were both in very good condition and showed wind conditions. There are also two orange marker boards up above the high tide mark to show the ends of the runway.

I gotta admit, this was one of the coolest places I've ever been, and I can't wait to take my wife out here later this summer!
 
Great post Scott. I've flown over it but never landed. Was there a wind sock anywhere? Hope to fit this in someday...

Joe, I was just re-reading this thread and realized that there is a picture of one of the windsocks just visible above the vertical stab in the first picture.
 
I have to point out that it's not the only beach on the west coast that you can land on... Vargas Island, BC also has a nice long beach frequented in the summer/low tide months by pilots.
 
Does anyone know if there are any other "ocean beaches? in the continental U.S. that permit GA aircraft to land? If so, please share the locations so that others can add them to their bucket list too. Thanks!
 
Does anyone know if there are any other "ocean beaches? in the continental U.S. that permit GA aircraft to land? If so, please share the locations so that others can add them to their bucket list too. Thanks!

Bill, nothing on this side of CONUS I searched.
 
Sand in wheelpants

I have some experience on sand in Mexico.............its something cool to do.......only caution I don't see here is please know your wheel pants will catch a good amount of sand coming off the wheels, especially when the sand is wet. Just adds some weight aft of CG and you have to clean it out of there when you get home...........in my experience I have been suprised by how much sand was in there!
 
I remember reading somewhere that Copalis Beach in WA was the only ocean beach in the continental U.S. where this was allowed, but don't know if that's correct. Hope there are more locations because it seems like a very cool and appealing setting to fly into and hang out when weather cooperates.
 
.......only caution I don't see here is please know your wheel pants will catch a good amount of sand coming off the wheels, especially when the sand is wet. Just adds some weight aft of CG

RV-7 wheels & wheel pants are fwd of CG

And regarding the quantity of sand in the wheel pants... When I rinsed out the wheel pants back at the home wash-rack, I could see no large quantity of sand in the rinse water. Not saying there was NO sand - just not enough to be highly visible.
 
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