NetHeads, I'm going to try to keep this short, although I could easily take an hour telling the story of how my day went. I flew to this 2000' sod strip that I'd been told had clear approach on one end and no fences or other problems. Some EAA'ers wanted to see my plane and engine. Even with GPS coordinates, I thought I'd never spot the place, but finally I saw a bunch of planes clustered around a barn, and sure enough, there was some grass out next to it that could be construed to be a runway.
There were trees on both ends, and a fence on one end as well. I later found out that it was really only 1900' long, but maybe I'm splitting hairs there. It was also wet after the rains we've had lately, so stopping might just be a problem on the slippery grass if things got dicey. I tried to land (knowing better) and the trees forced me to land way down the runway. I don't mind scraping the cotton plants at Hazel Green with my tail wheel, but trees are a little less forgiving. I never even touched down...just went around twice after gliding too far down the field for comfort. So I tried it from the other end with similar results, although I did manage to "touch" (one of the many bumps) once before I decided I was going to hit the trees if I didn't firewall it. I came back and gave them a buzz just to be nice and headed back home. I see no way that a KR (or at least MY KR) could land on a 2000' grass strip with 40' trees on both ends, especially one that's not even level! As I flew away one of them came on the radio and told me if I'd fly to a nearby paved strip, he'd come pick me up. Now they tell me! He talked me over to this one (which was also not even on the sectional) and it was 2600' gravel, down in a valley, again bounded by trees on one end (but really only one end this time), and mountains on the other. So I pulled that off and managed to have 100' left when I turned around. He dropped in with a Cardinal and flew me back to Campbell Field, where he did the scariest landing I've ever seen....and unfortunately, from the back seat! He came in high and hot, and essentially pointed the nose right at the end of the runway at at least a 45 degree angle, slipping all the way in, S-turning, you name it, and the whole way I'm thinking "I'd have aborted this a half a mile from the runway...this'll never work"...but he must be REALLY GOOD to even THINK for a microsecond that he has a chance to get in there....otherwise he'd have aborted a loooong time ago and given up to do a go around! He put it on the ground about halfway down the "runway". The fence started coming up real quick, but he managed to get it stopped about 100' short of it. The pilots gave him a big load of abuse about that landing...one guy saying he didn't have a big card with a ZERO on it...whereby I chimed in that he'd need negative numbers to rate that "landing". I feel confident that he'll never live that one down, but he did take it quite well! I did get to meet some great guys and had a great time joking around with them. I was even brave enough to ride back with the Cardinal guy, where he once again impressed me with his ability to pull a botched landing out of....somewhere! Now you guys who say you can fly 1600cc KRs in and out of 1000' runways with trees on both ends can just blast away, but I ain't listenin'. I flew into a 1750' grass strip at Allison Iowa (at least it's on the sectional), but I had a 30k wind right down the runway, and bean fields on both ends. Trees are a non-starter on a runway that short. I'm a little smarter tonight... Mark Langford, Harvest, AL see homebuilt airplane at http://www.N56ML.com email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net
