Coming Up Short
Kent Davis
C141 Nav 1972-1991
Our normal landing field length for the C-141 was about 10,000 feet. A few
fields we went to were only about 7,000 feet long and
required special precautions for takeoff and landing. Any field shorter than
that required an instructor pilot and special permission to fly in and out
of.
That field for us was Laguna Army Air Field in Southern Arizona, just 20
miles north of Yuma, Arizona. The field was only 4,500 feet long and it was a
challenge to get into and out of. We frequently flew there for
special parachute drop training with the US Army.
We could neither land nor take off if it was raining but being that it
was Southern Arizona, of course, it hardly ever rained. The other
factor that limited our use of the field was heat; that is when the
temperature exceeded 40 degree Celsius (100+ Fahrenheit), which was not
unusual for Southern Arizona, we could not take off with a full load. At
those times all we could carry out of there was a minimum load of fuel and
five or six thousand pounds of cargo. (A normal load was 20,000 to 40,000
pounds of cargo and a max load was 75,000 pounds with a long runway, on a
cold day.) If we were taking up a big load on a hot day the Army had to
truck the load down to the Yuma Air Field, which was over twice as long as
the Laguna Air Field.
Laguna AAF was a place where a pilot had to watch his step in order
to keep from going off the end of the runway. When he came in to land the
aircraft he needed to be low (just over the top of the power wires prior to
the end of the runway), slow (right on approach speed) and plant the
aircraft (land firmly/hard) on the numbers (the beginning end of the runway
pavement). If this was not the case the other end of the runway could come
up a lot faster than one wanted to imagine.
The catch here was that most of our young instructor pilots were trying to
prepare themselves for the commercial airlines, where a good pilot dose not
plant the aircraft on the number, spill the passengers' drinks or rattle his
crew's teeth. Therefore as they flew the line and landed at the normal
10,000 foot runways they practiced the technique of floating the aircraft
just before the touch down. Thereby landing the plane with a "gentle touch".
And thus we came to Laguna Air Field one bright hot afternoon, on airspeed,
altitude and over the numbers but with a pilot not at Laguna but at some
10,000 foot runway, miles away. As the aircraft crossed over the
numbers, at 50 feet above the pavement, he pulled back on the yoke to float the
aircraft and set her down easy.
As the nose came up 5 degrees I shouted, over the roar of the engines,
"Don't float!"
The pilot yanked the throttles back to idle, pushed the nose over and the
aircraft dropped onto the runway, then the he put all four engines into
reverse and stood on the brakes.
The aircraft came to a stop three feet from the end of the runway. It had
not gone into the dirt but the pilot could only see dirt and not the end of
the runway. (The front wheels are about six feet behind where the pilot sits
in the nose of the aircraft)
The scanner opened a door and went outside on a long intercom cord to walk
with the aircraft through a turn back to the taxiway.
Hours and hours of tedious boredom punctuated with minutes of sheer
terror. Or should I say, any landing you can walk away from is a good,
landing.
Last Updated: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 09:15 am