Coolest place anyone has flown into?

[capnflyright]

By far, the Idaho backcountry strips have the most radical approaches even though they are VFR. Here are a few sporty ones:

Shepp Ranch
Soldier Bar
Lower Loon
Pistol Creek
Wilson Bar
Thomas Creek
and the infamous

Mile High- 560 feet of usable runway, 20 upslope, no go around.

 

[pilot141]

Two (OK, actually three) submissions here - the first is Swan Island, owned by Honduras. Anyone who has flown into Roatan or flown into Honduras, El Salvador or Nicaragua has probably flown over it - it is "Cisne", as in "Isla de Cisne" on the charts. Nothing but a short (1,500 ft) coral strip and at one time a radar site for tracking the druggie traffic. The island has the highest population of iguanas per square mile than anywhere else on earth. On landing you'd squash at least 3 or 4 of 'em. While we were on the ground we'd go snorkeling - talk about an "undiscovered" coral reef! After seeing our fill of tropical fish we'd load up and head out. It was like flying onto Gilligan's Island.
For actual instrument approach fun, I say the now defunct Hong Kong curve. Nothing like flying an ILS to the top of a building and then turning at the checkerboard to line up on the always-with-a-strong-crosswind runway.
Finally, for absolute "What the f***?", it has to be Grand Cayman, and in about two weeks or so. Sometime in the late spring it becomes crab mating/migration/block party season, and the runway and taxiways are covered in crabs. Literally. On taxi out you can hear and feel them getting crushed under the nosewheel. There are thousands of them on the runway, so there is no way to avoid them. As we barrelled down the fairly short runway in our trusty 727 and approached V1 I wondered if anyone had figured out what the RCR of crab guts on the runway is. From my experience the inside of a crab is pretty slimy, and slimy means an RCR of about 1. I pictured us losing an engine and skidding into the water at the end of the runway, only to be asked later if we had taken the crab guts into account in our takeoff planning.

 

[trainerjet]

The NDB/DME to Dutch Harbor, AK was always fun. Most of the airports in Southeast--Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka...spectacular when the wx is nice.

 

[DC4boy]

Loaded landings at Grangeville, Chester Ca, the dirt runway, Rhonerville Ca.

 

[Bad-Andy]

FGBT -- Bata, Equatorial Guinea... No lights, no markings, no approaches, no radar, and one blind controller that speaks broken English. Just a chunk of asphault surrounded by jungle on 3 sides and ocean on the other. Pretty cool, especially during rainy season.....

 

[fatburger]

Hi Waitingforclass--

Your right about Dominica, it's beautiful. I did land "into the island and departed out over the ocean" during a day time operation with nil wind. I was flying for an air ambulance operation out of FLL at the time. Some other cool places:

Tegucigalpa, Honduras
St. Lucia (Vigie-north side of island) at night
Managua, Nicaraugua
Quito, Ecuador
Roatan, Honduras (I second someones earlier post)
Cape Haitia, Haitai (only half the runway was usable)
Lima, Peru (only because of the cool Russian airplanes)
Antafagasto, Chile (Neat salt cliffs)
Punta Arenas, Chile
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Havana, Cuba

Lot's of good stuff, thanks for rekindling some good memories.

fatburger

 

[publisher]

airport

Hazard Ky. in anything.

Oh wait a minute, you said cool places to fly in. Hazard is not cool at all.

 

[skiddriver]

Inside the crater of Mt Pinatubo (R.P) a few months after the big eruption back in the early '90s. We were providing base security for Clark and Subic with a det of AH-1W's and UH-1N's. Very hellish looking place, bubbling mud, steam and some noxious gas (we made a pretty quick pass through) but we were pretty comfortable in the Cobra. I wouldn't have gone near it in a Huey because you'd have been dead if you lost an engine. The area surrounding the volcano was several hundred feet of grey volcanic ash, cut with erosion canals as deep as canyons and huge dead jungle mahogany trees scattered all around like matchsticks.

Close second was a dormant volcano just SE of Subic Bay itself. Triple canopy jungle and a 200' waterfall into a clear pond at the bottom. Tropical birds everywhere and a monkey in every tree. You had to keep the forward airspeed down to around 60 KIAS to be able to turn inside the crater, and the crater itself was a perfect circle several hundred feet deep.

Beautiful country, too bad we couldn't make nice with the locals. FEDEX is probably a better tenant for the local economy anyhow.

 

[A Squared]

The Ruth glacier on Denali. It's at about 6000'msl. You're at climb power and actually climbing when your skis touch down. the views are unlike anywhere in the world. Taking off down such a steep incline is pretty foreign. On liftoff the VSI shows somewhere around 1000 fpm *down*.

I've also been fortunate to fly into some equally spectacular lakes in the mountains on floats.

regards

 

[avbug]

Warroad, Minnesota.

 

[Traumahawk]

a little steep

Anyone heard of Courchevel Airport in the French alps?
Check this web site out...some great pictures Illustrating the slope of the runway and the approach/departure techniques the Tyrolean Dash 7's would practice daily.

http://members.aon.at/~slenz/dash7.html#courchevel

-Phil

 

[Jiminmem]

A DC3 into St Barts,ouch. I've taken C182s, Bonanzas, and a Baron ito their, but wouldn't even want to imagine trying it in a -3. Had to get your pulse rate up a little

 

[typhoonpilot]

Kinmen

Kinmen, Taiwan, R.O.C.


A small dog bone shaped island about 3 kilometers from the mainland. The normal approach was an NDB circle to land runway 6. The last time you actually wanted to be on the inbound bearing was at the final approach fix. From there it was better to navigate by radar to the southern tip of the island so the turn to final could be set up farther out. The runway was set in the forest on the eastern side of the island. It was actually in a little depression right at sea level with trees at 150 msl on short final. If you overshot the extended centerline by too much you would be in communist Chinese airspace ( not good ). At the approach end of the runway was a mobile anti-aircraft battery and the rest of the runway was lined with machine gun enplacements.

Taxiing out for takeoff the soldiers on the anti-aircraft battery would always stand and salute. I always got a kick out of that.

The islands English name for many years was Quemoy. It was the subject of daily artillary duels with the mainland until a few years back. The big industry on the island is making knives out of spent shell casings.

 

[Ty Webb]

1) Telluride, CO is pretty interesting. At 9200' MSL, it sits atop a mesa.

2) Beef Island, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

3) Tegucigalpa, Honduras

4) Puebla, Mexico- next to a 17,000 MSL active, smoking volcano

5) any of the Family Island airports in the outer Bahamas

 

[SSDD]

Approaching Lake Powell just before sunrise from the west, is on of the most awe inspiring sights in the world.