Golf course landing

deafsound

deafsound

Line Up and Wait
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i arrrghhmmmmpppth
one my first glider XC flight with matt we were primed and ready to land at the Iowa State University golf course while we floated over the north side of town at 1500 agl.
 
deafsound said:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1186288171133630.xml&coll=1



All you golfers know the rule if a plane lands on your ball, right? Immovable obstruction, nearest point of relief, no closer to the hole.

Also, I have thought about golf courses as potential emergency landing spots quite a bit doing the traffic watch. If it ever happens to me, I will be asking if I can borrow a 7 iron and play through.
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Actually, here in PA, there's a golf course in Bally called Butter Valley. 7N8 has a runway, part paved, part grass running right up the middle of the course. I suppose the runway is a bit of a challenge for fixed-wingers because it's got a pretty good (and uneven) slope to it.

For us fling-wingers, the real question is how low do you have to hover to make golf balls on a green move around with your rotorwash? Inquiring minds want to know :D
 
Here in IL, we have a golf course that is, as I understand it, an official airport. The procedure is to do a low pass, the golfers are supposed to move off the course, and you make your landing.
 
RotaryWingBob said:
Actually, here in PA, there's a golf course in Bally called Butter Valley. 7N8 has a runway, part paved, part grass running right up the middle of the course. I suppose the runway is a bit of a challenge for fixed-wingers because it's got a pretty good (and uneven) slope to it.

For us fling-wingers, the real question is how low do you have to hover to make golf balls on a green move around with your rotorwash? Inquiring minds want to know :D
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Probably low enough to make 40 kt winds....how low would you have to be for that?
Go find out and let us know the reaction of the poor bastid who's about to sink his eagle putt.
 
deafsound said:
Probably low enough to make 40 kt winds....how low would you have to be for that?
Go find out and let us know the reaction of the poor bastid who's about to sink his eagle putt.
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I wish I could find the reference for this, but I can't at the moment. My recollection is that rotorwash is the most concentrated (distributed over the smallest area) and strongest at a height of around the rotor diameter. So I guess for an R44 that means that your best shot at moving those balls around would be at at 33 foot hover. I expect that the rotorwash would be 50-60 kt! I imagine that the hover height would be measured from the rotor disc rather than the bottom of the ship, so the skids would be 10' lower than that, so 20-25' ought to do it just fine:D

My wife and I were having lunch one time when some yoyo parked a Cherokee right next to my helicopter. As I was spooling up to flight rpm, two guys came out and were standing by the Cherokee. I lifted off to about a 10' hover to get clear of everybody, and these bozos stood there with looks of utter amazement as they held on to their hats and watched the ailerons flapping in my rotorwash. I dare say they'll never park right next to a helicopter again...
 
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