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Flying to the coast |
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Tony Gugliuzza - Apr 29,2008
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Later in May I plant to attend the Mid-Atlantic Fly-in in Lumberton, NC.<br />Since I have the weekend alone with my wife, and since Lumberton is only 60 miles from the coast, I thought it would be fun to fly to the coast on the Friday before the event and spend the night somewhere if I can keep it cheap.<br /><br />I'm looking at Ocean Isle or Oak Isle or over by Cape Fear, or Bald head island, or whatever its called.<br /><br />While I was looking around I started wondering.<br />Has anyone ever just landed on a deserted beach? Do beaches supply a good runway? Do the autorities frown on this?<br />Has anyone ever had any experiance with this?<br /><br />
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Philip Mendelson - Apr 29,2008
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Professor Nickens is the resident Expert!
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Mark Alan MacKinnon - Apr 29,2008
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Lumberton, N.C., was one of our overnight rest stops as a friend and I were U-Hauling my newly purchased Stingray from Florida to Maine. To keep the trip as affordable as possible, we stayed at Econo-Lodges.<br /><br />All of them were fine except the one in Lumberton. It was a roach motel with broken air conditioners, broken furniture, loose electrical outlets and falling-down shower curtains. We would have complained to the guy behind the counter except he looked like he was at least 250 lbs and played offense. When I got home, I emailed a complaint on the Econo-Lodge home web site - they replied they would look into it, but never heard again from them.
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Tony Gugliuzza - Apr 29,2008
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Having had the opportunity to stay at hundreds of budget priced hotels all over the country - you win some - you lose some...<br />I'll actually be camping one night on field at Lumberton.<br /><br />I was just looking for something to do the Friday before.<br /><br />Would be neet to find some remote stretch of beach and just camp out there.<br /><br />
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Dan Nickens - Apr 30,2008
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Has anyone ever just landed on a deserted beach? Yes.<br />Do beaches supply a good runway? Sometimes, but sometimes definitely not.<br />Do the authorities frown on this? Sometimes, but sometimes definitely yes.<br />Has anyone ever had any experience with this? Yes (see answer to first question).<br />Resident Expert? Not me.<br /><br />Of course these answers aren’t particularly helpful, Tony, but you’ve asked some tricky questions involving weighty technical and legal issues. Sounds like a conversation for …….STS!<br /><br />Meanwhile, though, I do have a story (go figure) about landing on a beach in North Carolina. I’ll see if I can find and post it here.<br />
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Dan Nickens - Apr 30,2008
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This is from my flight log at the end of a SeaRey trip up the Mississippi and around the Great Lakes in August and September of 1998. I had just left the First Flight airport at Kitty Hawk.....<br /><br />'Flying down the barrier islands past Nags Head and into the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge restored some of the magic of the trip. After the crush of development, the open beaches recalled why the freedom of movement in the airplane is so elating.<br /><br />The waters in the sound are calm, grayish-green. There is a sand bottom, with darker patches of grass, which grade into the greens and browns of the shoreline. On the opposite side of the barrier island, the Atlantic has white-tan sand, with rolling green-blue waves, crashing white. The horizon is now indistinct in the haze. A darker band of the ocean fades into the pale blue of the sky.<br /><br />Around Cape Hatteras I pass another experimental airplane on floats. This is a rare experience, flying faster than another airplane. He obviously has no place to go and is reveling in aimless flight.<br /><br />A group of pelicans fly across my path towards the shore in effortless formation. The ultimate amphibian aircraft.<br /><br />Ocracoke Island, the Core Bank, and Cape Lookout National Seashore slide by. At Swash Inlet there is an undisturbed expanse of sand dunes, only sparsely vegetated.<br /><br />Eventually there is a long stretch of beach without anyone on or near it. I circle low over the beach. There are car tracks. If cars can visit here, so can I.<br /><br />I set up for an approach to the beach and land in the vehicle tracks. As the airplane smoothly slows down there comes a sudden lurch, the tail of the airplane pushes upward, and luggage from the cabin spills forward into the cockpit. Abruptly the tail falls back down and we are stopped. Both main wheels are buried deep in the soft sand.<br /><br />This changes my perspective of this pleasure stop. First I survey the airplane and find no damage. Then I check out the sand. It is very soft. The vehicles that have used this must have had four wheel drive. Jennifer (Ed. N220WT) has no wheel drive.<br /><br />I do not want to be found on the beach by a park ranger. Despite the beauty of the beach and dunes, I focus on how to get the airplane back into the air.<br /><br />I would like to take off from the beach. The waves breaking offshore look much too large for Jennifer. If she didn’t sink on the way out, it would certainly be pounded on takeoff. I imagine losing another prop.<br /><br />After digging the wheels free I clean off a path directly in front of them. My theory is that if I can get the airplane moving fast enough, the wings will take the weight off the wheels and the soft sand won’t be a problem.<br /><br />The futility of this approach is quickly demonstrated. The airplane moves about 2’ before nosing over into the sand.<br /><br />My only hope now is to drag the airplane towards the water. I try pulling it tail first down the shore. The only way to work this is to clear and compact the loose sand around the main wheels. This is a slow and tedious process, moving 6” to 12” per attempt.<br /><br />By now the gulls are no longer concerned about my activities. They fly by mocking the effort. The misery of the hot, sandy work is further exacerbated by the black flies. I certainly can question my judgment concerning landing in remote locations when I’m trying to get home.<br /><br />After several hours of work the airplane is on the beach where the water has compacted the sand. The sand seems to support the weight better and I decide to try to fly it off this part of the beach before risking the water.<br /><br />This section of the beach presented another challenge. The shoreline here was steeply graded into the water. The waves left little room between the water and the soft sand, and the tide was rapidly coming in.<br /><br />For takeoff I used the maximum flap setting. First I hold the brakes and apply full power. When the brakes are released, the plane leapt forward along the beach. In almost no time I was able to raise the left wing and wheel. I flew along the beach for a short distance with just the right wheel on the ground. Quickly it was off and free from the sticky confines of the shore.<br /><br />Time to be thankful and make another quick resolution not to land at off airport locations for the remainder of the trip.'<br /><br />Postscript: I'm not good at keeping resolutions.<br />
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Frank A. Carr - Apr 30,2008
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Wonderful story Dan. But the phrase: '..not good at keeping resolutions...' suggests another beach story. Perhaps a less arduous one?<br />
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Dan Nickens - Apr 30,2008
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A less arduous beach story? Of course...<br /><br />From 'Far Flung Flitterings' on the Copalis Beach, WA, July 29, 2005<br /><br />'There was only so much temptation one pilot can take. Seeing cars running up and down the beaches led me to the conclusion that small planes would also be welcome.<br /><br />My first approach took me on to the clean, soft sand. Lightly touching the tires convinced me that it was an invitation to getting stuck. I went around for a different approach.<br /><br />This time I took to the damp brown sand. It worked great.'<br /><br />Of course the beach is actually a chartered airport (S16, Copalis State Airport, Washington). Supporting Don's observations, the airport notes advise to land in the damp sand, not the dry.
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Figure 12. Beachfront Parking
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Don Maxwell - Apr 30,2008
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Cool, Dan! Airnav has an interesting take on it: <a href="http://www.airnav.com/airport/S16">http://www.airnav.com/airport/S16</a>
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Frank A. Carr - May 01,2008
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All: Don't you just love his ...."lightly touching the tires"...???? When I land it's not how lightly the tires touch, but how many times and are they on the runway or headed for the taxi lights?!(Good one Dan!)<!-- >'"><br><font color=red size=6>' or > missing in user HTML. Please fix the HTML.</font> -->
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Don Maxwell - Apr 30,2008
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I haven't yet gotten up the courage to land on a beach--but I've been thinking about it fairly seriously for a long time and have made a few observations that might be relevant here.<br /><br />Recently while crossing a ten-foot wide beach of fine, soft, dry sand to get back into the water I was too timid and got the main wheels very stuck, and had to dig trenches and wiggle and waggle to get unstuck. If I had gone to nearly full throttle while still on firm ground I probably would have been able to cross the soft patch without getting caught.<br /><br />While walking on the beach at Jekyll Island a few weeks ago, I tried to gauge the firmness of sand at various distances from the water. The beach was wide and the slope gradual. The tide was low and still going out. Where the sand was damp and brownish in color, it was almost as firm as concrete. You probably could have landed a 747 on it. (Or maybe a B-47.) Higher up the beach, however, where the sand was dry and 'sandy' color, it was quite soft (despite its salt content) and my bare feet quickly worked well down into it. It wasn't much firmer than the fine, dry sand that I got stuck in recently. There were four-wheeler tracks there, but even they had made deep ruts in the soft sand.<br /><br />Farther down the beach, where the waves were breaking, the sand looked rather dark brown in color. It was quite firm until a wave washed over it, and then it became almost liquid and washed away from under my feet.<br /><br />So on that beach at that time, there was a band of sand about 20-30-40 feet wide that would have been excellent for landing and taking off. It was between where the waves stopped washing up the beach and where the sand looked light, bright, and sandy-colored. I think it probably would have been relatively easy to see from the air. The only problem was that, there and then, the wind was directly across the runway at about 10 knots.<br /><br />I also considered the feasibility of landing in the water there and then. The waves breaking on the beach were low, about one foot high, or possibly 1.5 feet. At 50 yards from the beach, one could have landed along the swells and across the wind, and it probably would have been possible to beach the airplane--gear up--through the surf, even though there was a sea breeze that might have caused the airplane to weathercock. But I wouldn't have wanted to try beaching with the gear down, for fear that the wheels would dig into the sand, nor would I have liked the idea of leaving the airplane resting in the surf. Taking off by driving through the surf with the gear down might have been possible if you timed it just right, but you'd still have to take off across the wind to avoid crashing into the swells. So water ops would have been in the emergency category.
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Frank A. Carr - May 01,2008
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Don,All of the above is useful info, but I'm disappointed that you haven't published the Rockwell Hardness Test results as a function of distance, tides and phase of the Moon.<!-- >'"><br><font color=red size=6>' or > missing in user HTML. Please fix the HTML.</font> -->
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Russ Garner - Apr 30,2008
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Don, only Dan could get away with it, of course will never see those other pictures, the ones where he has replaced the sponsons with surfboards on his Searey.
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