Narrow runways

[Jim K]

This is the most narrow runway I've seen (KDTG)

View attachment 140915

I've landed at Dwight - definitely doesn't feel narrow, but from the air it looks wider than it is over the numbers.

I have too, and I beg to differ. I felt like i was landing the space shuttle on a sidewalk. I was right on speed, but it felt like i was going 40 knots too fast. In the Lance with her big nose in the air, the only pavement I could see was a tiny spot out the side window between the wings and fuselage.

I did have the realization that "this is what it would feel like if you ever had to land on a two lane road". It also drove home the fact that if there were telephone poles along side it like a highway, I'd be hitting them.

Gaston's felt scary the first time, but watching other planes pass through the goalposts revealed how big it actually is, and now my brain no longer registers it as a threat.

 

[gregjay]

Used to have my first plane at Lake Wolford in Escondido, CA. 1345 x 30 with hangers down both sides. Fortunately the wind was almost always straight down the runway. Pretty easy with my 56 172 and 40 degrees of flaps. Always interesting to watch the Mooney next door come in to land.

 

[Brad W]

View attachment 140921

Narrow AND short… just sayin.

but with the right equipment, good training, and a good support team..... you've got this!

I live in the Jacksonville FL area and I miss seeing those S-3 fly around here. S-3's and A-6's were my two favorite aircraft to watch in airshow displays too...and generally just flying. I guess because they were so covert. Looked like they should be just some bumbling freightcar but would be so nimble!

 

[Initial Fix]

An airport I rented at years ago had 2x grass strips with a ~17 X 1700 paved part of a 40 foot wide one. I think someone ran a road paver width of asphault down the middle of the grass. The rental agreement was no grass landings. So you learned quickly how to get lined up and land on that narrow strip. Nowadays that’s a 75x4000 foot concrete runway plus a grass runway

 

[Shepherd]

Kobelt, N45. They claim 50' wide, but that's being generous as (the last time I was there in 2023) the edges were somewhat eroded.
But the restaurant is really good.

 

[Ed Haywood]

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.

Taking off could be harder than landing in a tree scenario. Vice versa for a narrow runway in the open.

Taking off in the open, once your wheels break contact with the ground, it's no big deal if you drift a bit. You have time to correct it and get back on the center line.

Taking off in tall trees, you better get the drift correction in quick. Snagging a wingtip 50 feet in the air could be a fatal event.

Landing between trees, if you aren't aligned with the opening, you go around. Landing on a narrow strip, you gotta stay perfectly aligned all the way to the ground and after.

 

[Domenick]

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.

Please let me know how Strom goes.

 

[midwestpa24]

An airport I rented at years ago had 2x grass strips with a ~17 X 1700 paved part of a 40 foot wide one. I think someone ran a road paver width of asphault down the middle of the grass. The rental agreement was no grass landings. So you learned quickly how to get lined up and land on that narrow strip. Nowadays that’s a 75x4000 foot concrete runway plus a grass runway

Your post makes me think of the joke between two pilots. "Boy that runway was short" "Yeah but it sure is wide!"

 

[Wagondriver]

I have landed many backcountry strips and a few dirt roads where the wings are over big boulders and brush, or 3' deep bar ditches, landing width 10 to 12 feet. One private remote strip, while on the center, I thought I was going to clip the hangar, turned out it was about 10' from wingtip to hangar, saw that on the taxi back.

Aim Small.

 

[Albany Tom]

NY1 looks a little bit like the first post. It's grass and in theory it's 75 x 4000. Part of it is trees both sides, part power lines. I never thought of it as spooky, but that's probably because it's one of the first airports I flew to so I didn't know enough to be worried about it.

 

[172andyou]

I haven't landed here, but I was reading this thread and remembered I had a runway spreadsheet with over 40k US runways in it. Filtering out things that look pretty informal or otherwise sketchy, I think I've found the one with the highest length to width ratio.

28TA is a 10280 ft asphalt runway with a width of 34ft. Giving it a ratio of 302.

The next closest is OK51. 2565 x 10, for a ratio of 256.

 

[iamtheari]

28TA is a 10280 ft asphalt runway with a width of 34ft. Giving it a ratio of 302.

"RWY 14/32 ALSO SERVES AS RANCH ROAD." I suppose that, if I had to build multiple miles of asphalt on my property, I'd designate the straightest portion a runway.

The next closest is OK51. 2565 x 10, for a ratio of 256.

"RY CRACKING; LOOSE GRVL & GRASS ENCROACHMENT. RY EXTREMELY ROUGH." 10 feet wide and extremely rough is a hard pass from me.