Ed_Wischmeyer
Well Known Member
Most of us practice up to fly into Oshkosh, but if you?re tired from a week at the show, the flight home can be full of surprises, too.
As a CFI, I can quote chapter and verse about narrow runways, visual illusions, etc., but that knowledge didn?t come in to play the day after Oshkosh when eight days of on the go gave me the kind of fatigue that one night?s sleep won?t touch.
The runway at Marion, IA, is listed in the Airport / Facilities Directory as 150 feet wide, but it doesn?t say that only the middle 26 feet are paved. I?d flown in there years ago, so the runway width didn?t surprise me, but some of what I did when fatigued was a surprise.
On the first landing, as you might guess, the flare was late, i.e., mostly didn?t happen. Predictable. Then I gave a CFI buddy a ride to show him the avionics in my -9A. But on both the first and second landings, somehow I had gotten it into my head that narrow runway meant short, and I flew shallow approaches that weren?t called for and made it harder to touch down where I wanted. Disgusted, I went around the pattern once more and that third landing was passable. (On all takeoffs and landings, I had the centerline absolutely nailed, but I was concentrating so much on the lateral aspect that the longitudinal aspect did not get the attention it needed.)
My normal practice is to take off no flaps, but this made the narrow runway disappear on rotation. The solution was to take off with flaps 20, and that kept the runway in sight. In other planes, I had an after takeoff checklist to cover flap retraction, but the RV-9A checklist doesn?t have that. Yet. Ask me how much later in the flight I discovered the flaps down.
Be careful coming home, too, especially when you?re tired or at unfamiliar airports.
As a CFI, I can quote chapter and verse about narrow runways, visual illusions, etc., but that knowledge didn?t come in to play the day after Oshkosh when eight days of on the go gave me the kind of fatigue that one night?s sleep won?t touch.
The runway at Marion, IA, is listed in the Airport / Facilities Directory as 150 feet wide, but it doesn?t say that only the middle 26 feet are paved. I?d flown in there years ago, so the runway width didn?t surprise me, but some of what I did when fatigued was a surprise.
On the first landing, as you might guess, the flare was late, i.e., mostly didn?t happen. Predictable. Then I gave a CFI buddy a ride to show him the avionics in my -9A. But on both the first and second landings, somehow I had gotten it into my head that narrow runway meant short, and I flew shallow approaches that weren?t called for and made it harder to touch down where I wanted. Disgusted, I went around the pattern once more and that third landing was passable. (On all takeoffs and landings, I had the centerline absolutely nailed, but I was concentrating so much on the lateral aspect that the longitudinal aspect did not get the attention it needed.)
My normal practice is to take off no flaps, but this made the narrow runway disappear on rotation. The solution was to take off with flaps 20, and that kept the runway in sight. In other planes, I had an after takeoff checklist to cover flap retraction, but the RV-9A checklist doesn?t have that. Yet. Ask me how much later in the flight I discovered the flaps down.
Be careful coming home, too, especially when you?re tired or at unfamiliar airports.