Narrow runways

Ed Haywood

Ed Haywood

Final Approach
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Ed
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Was reviewing old videos today and ran across this fun one from 8 years ago. A reminder of an unexpected challenge I ran across when going into an unfamiliar airfield, in this case NR32, Holly Springs NC. I was flying a rental 182 that I had maybe 10 hours in. I was only flying every few months at the time.

narrow runway.PNG

Landing was uneventful.

View attachment 1000006358.mp4

Takeoff got frisky, quick. There was a crosswind from right to left, but no sock visible to warn me. I was using short/soft technique. When the wheels got light, I started drifting left.

View attachment 1000006357.mp4

Doing the math: runway is 88' wide. Trees are as close as 6' in places, so let's call usable width 100'. Wingspan is 36'. That leaves 32 feet from wingtip to trees when on centerline. Less than one wingspan.
 
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It's funny how intimidating a view like that can be. I have a friend who has refused to come into my strip despite the most narrow part being almost 90 ft. I asked him, "have you ever missed the center line by 30 ft?"

The answer is no, of course. But somehow it just looks more sketchy.
 
rwellner98 said:
It's funny how intimidating a view like that can be. I have a friend who has refused to come into my strip despite the most narrow part being almost 90 ft. I asked him, "have you ever missed the center line by 30 ft?"

The answer is no, of course. But somehow it just looks more sketchy.
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If you are new to it, it IS more sketchy.

Like roller skating on a sidewalk. No big deal at ground level. But what if the sidewalk was 1000 feet in the air?
 
Weather dropped on us in East Texas on a XC. I pulled up the nearest field which happened to be a paved, but unattended crop duster field. 40' wide pavement. Plenty, right? Well, the weeds (tall grass?) were 4' high all the way up to the edge of the runway and the grass leaning in because of the abundant light over the runway. I'll call it net 38'. With the RV-6 on centerline, I had 7' of clearance on both sides. Get a wingtip into the grass and it would have been Mr. Toad's wild ride. I didn't eff it up on landing or takeoff...

But to your point, all fields narrower than the big 'ol paved airports I'm used to look tiny.
 
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When I was training for the PPL at College park MD, the paved runway was less than the wingspan of a Cessna 172. Combined with obstructions at both ends, and short, all the local flight schools and aircraft rentals forbid landing there. The current taxiways are much wider than the historic runway.

That taught active awareness all the time, and immediate response to any side drift. I have never been intimidated by narrow runways.

I am proud to say that I never ran off the side of that old runway, within feet a number of times, but saved.:)

Neither Suburban nor Freeway were very wide back then, landed there a lot, never off the side there either.


edited to add:
Google earth shows planes tied down on a stretch of the old runway, and none of the planes are as long as the runway is wide.
The pavement behind those planes is the old taxiway.

Historically, charter cargo op flights using C 47's flew out using that runway. The pilots were WW 2 veterans, and really skilled.
Much later, there was a privately owned C 47 based at CGS.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
Like roller skating on a sidewalk. No big deal at ground level. But what if the sidewalk was 1000 feet in the air?
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Yeah, I am pretty confident I can get on the ground with the mains straddling the centerline. That means I'm theoretically good enough with a 12 foot wide painted paved runway. But from 1AGL-100AGL with trees on either side? That's a whole different story.
 
Narrowest rwy I landed on was R23 at 3GV, East Kansas City. A Warrior wingspan is 35’. R23 is 20’ wide. I was still a private student and I can’t remember if I challenged myself on that landing or if it was my CFI’s doing.

Good times.

IMG_8882.jpeg
 
Aim small, miss small.

The narrowest pavement I have experienced is D06, 20x2400 concrete. The sketchiest runway I have experienced was 4N4, which claims 60 feet wide turf but, even if that’s true, the runway edges were water and cattails with an hourglass shape cutout for the runway. In the Cub, with zero forward visibility, it was pretty sporty rolling through the narrow part and hoping I could keep it on the runway and out of the slough.

We don’t have trees (the wind blew them away long ago) so there are no tunnel type runways here as pictured in the OP. Those scare me a bit because of how the wind can roil and shift, and because airplanes and trees generally can’t occupy the same space simultaneously.
 
Aero Valley used to be 25' wide asphalt. Had a friend that operated a 421 on it for several years. When he had a big load charter, he'd hop over to Meachum to load the clients.
 
Home drome is 40'. Plane currently in annual at 36' wide runway.
 
The interesting one for me was First Air Field (W16), about 12 nm east of PAE in the Seattle area. Runway is : 2087' long by 34' wide. Feels even tighter than it is because aircraft are parked along it without being separated by a ramp or taxi area.
 
Then you go to an old converted Air Force base like Castle where they used to have B-52's and end up flaring 35 feet off the ground.
 
Narrowest strips I've landed on were 35-40 ft wide. A bit sporty with a stiff crosswind.
 
My home drome's paved runway is 36' wide. I trained there almost 25 years ago and have hangared my plane there since. Seems adequate for my Warrior. I have had to go-around a number of times with stiff crosswinds. 50' feels immense to me.

Camano Island (13W) is 1750 x 24 but I've only been there once to say I'd bagged it. Oak Harbor (KOKH) is 25' wide and I've been in there many times. Whidbey Air Park (W10) is 2470x25 with VERY tall evergreens at both ends. Passengers are always worried as the trees get bigger and bigger. :)

Unlike some of the turf runways described in this thread, all the narrow-ish runways I've landed at have been paved with a centerline as a target for my nosewheel. I'm not a turf guy. Only been on turf a few times.

My white whale is Strom (39P) at 1810 x 40. I can't really understand why. I've attempted it 3 times. Each time something spooked me, and I always listen to my spooks. Runway 25 is aimed at a hill. And for some reason all 3 times I've had to make my approach from the other end, 7. That damned hill and some powerlines just look way close. Darrington (1S2) is 2491x40 with a mountain at it's 28 end and I've landed there on runway 10 numerous times. Hell, my home field has 22' powerlines at the 33 end. I can't explain it, but for some reason Strom spooks me.
 
2820x30 for me. Harris Ranch, in the California Central Valley. Plenty of space to land, but feels like landing on a sidewalk and the power lines off the departure end when landing north have made me sweat a couple of times on days with high density altitude (nearly all of them).
 
AvNavCom said:
2820x30 for me. Harris Ranch, in the California Central Valley. Plenty of space to land, but feels like landing on a sidewalk and the power lines off the departure end when landing north have made me sweat a couple of times on days with high density altitude (nearly all of them).
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I was based at a 150 foot wide runway, so when I went to Harris Ranch it felt like landing on a shoestring. And there was a crosswind. My biggest fear was messing it up in front of the steady stream of onlookers zipping by on I-5.

Fortunately, nailed it right on the centerline. Pressure almost always improves my performance.

I now live at an airpark with a 3100x50 runway, so landing on 100+ wide or a mile long runway feels like a midget walking around in Manhattan looking at the skyscrapers.

There’s a cropduster operation a couple miles from us with a 15 foot wide runway. One of these days I’m going to hit them up for the okay to go in there.
 
Weirdest one for me was when we took the Fiesler Fi-156 to an air show at Carswell AFB....landing on a 12,000' x 200' runway and we touched down and stopped on the numbers. Had to take off again and fly down the runway to get to taxiway C, which is at about the 7500' mark when landing on 18, which was where the follow me truck was waiting for us.
 
Ed Haywood said:
Are my videos working?
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Yup. When I read the thread title I thought we were talking about a narrow strip of asphalt with nothing around, which other respondents seem to have in mind. But then I saw your video with you landing on grass between tall trees and that's when I made the "1AGL-100AGL" comment.
 
Washington state has some good ones for sure.

First Aire Field (W16), as mentioned, isn't wide and getting off to the side isn't an option. Swamp... Landing to the West is also 2000 but a 500 foot displaced threshold. You don't see many Cirrus there for some reason... :) I took my wife and nephew in there last week.

I call Whidbey Air Park (W10) a sidewalk in the woods. 25 wide and no paint. With trees.

Lynden (38W) is 2425x40, but the houses are close. It feels like you are landing in a housing development.

I need to go give Strom a go.
 
I got my PP at 0W3. Only paved runway at the time was 2000 x 40 feet. Never bothered me. It looks very short and narrow now. :D

Narrowest I ever landed on was a field on the northern part of Kent Island. The pavement was maybe 10 feet wide. I was flying a C-172 and I don't think there was more than 6 inches of pavement outboard of each main. There was plenty of grass on the sides though.
 
I've landed on a runway that's been narrower than the wingspan in the Comanche.
 
asicer said:
Yup. When I read the thread title I thought we were talking about a narrow strip of asphalt with nothing around, which other respondents seem to have in mind. But then I saw your video with you landing on grass between tall trees and that's when I made the "1AGL-100AGL" comment.
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Thanks. I added a photo to press the point. Maybe the thread title should have been "tunnel runways".
 
I never got to land there before moving west, but the Butter Valley Golf Port in PA (7N8) has a paved runway that is 1525' x 24', though there is also a turf option that is a bit bigger.
 
I used to take fishermen, tourists and cannery employees to Excursion Inlet, AK a several times per week in 207s. Maybe 2' of runway either side on the mains. Took a 208/Caravan in a few times, but it was pretty sketchy.

 
Back in the late 70's and early 80's I flew out of an airport that had 1200x16 feet of paved runway. It did have 500 feet of grass at each end and some grass on the sides. Back then I was flying C140, Swift, Twin Navion, PA-11's, C150 and a few other small airplanes. In the early 80's I instructed in two PA-11's and the C150. It the students could consistently keep the airplane on the paved part they were probably ready for solo. O'Brien Airpark near Waxahachie, TX.
 
I made my first Ercoupe landing at 92C, Pulaski, Wisconsin, on a 38-foot-wide runway covered in snow, with a crosswind and trees lining both sides. I was concerned about landing in a crab (no rudder pedals) but it worked fine.
 
AvNavCom said:
You posted what you wanted to talk about. We decided to talk about what *we* wanted to talk about. :D
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I was more trying to say that the tunnel of trees scares me despite having survived a couple of narrow runways. But yes, also this.
 
Silvaire said:
Then you go to an old converted Air Force base like Castle where they used to have B-52's and end up flaring 35 feet off the ground.
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We lived in Merced in the mid 60’s. When Castle scrambled the B52’s there were no phone conversations because of the noise. Impressive sight to see them fly over house nearly side by side.
 
My wife got me a demo flight for our first anniversary (that was an expensive mistake...).
The CFI pointed out W50, which was 25' wide at the time.
"We're going to land *there* !?"
 
AvNavCom said:
Was it uphill both ways?

Sorry, couldn't resist.
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It was level, I believe. The wild card was the owner in the left seat having a panic attack, which led to me making my first Ercoupe landing. Thank goodness he stayed off the controls.
 
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