Coolest place anyone has flown into?

[gsrcrsx68]

coolest place? In to a dried out wash(river bed) in N. az. pretty cool to see river banks on either side of the plain. I'm not sure if that qualified as maintaining a safe altitude(- 5ft agl) but it was my instructors idea and was crazy fun.

 

[Pickle]

re: Dominica

I also heard that a cargo company use to take a 727 in there. The runway isn't that long either. I think it's just over 5,000 feet.
Anyways, anyone else got anything to share?

The 727 cargo company you refer to is Amerijet, I flew with them for about 4 years. You are being generous with that runway length, as I recall it was more like 4200. We also went into St. Vincent, which was about 4400. As far as I know they still fly there. That was some fun flying, I once turned onto about a 1/3 mile final at around 300 or 400 feet in Puerta Plata. With no passengers on board, just the three of us freight dogs, we could be a little more, ummmm, aggressive and improvisational, let's say.

For those of you who have been into SJU, you may be familiar with the Bridge visual 10, and of course note 3 which states "procedure not authorized for jets or four engine props". We were on downwind (in a 727) for 10, but the controller wanted us to get in ahead of some American Airlines guy on a 10 mile final and slowed to Vref already, so they asked if we could "keep it in tight", so since he didn't clear us for the bridge visual, just asked us to keep it in tight, I did my best impression of the approaches I saw the Eagle ATRs do.

Keflavik Iceland with a 40 knot wind quartering headwind in an L-1011.

Maui in an L-1011.

 

[jsoceanlord]

chinle, arizona (navajo nation reservation). used to fly Ce 421 ambulances there at night. one guy hit a horse on landing, which almost killed him - buzzing required thereafter.

st barts is good- paul preston at tolair flew a dc-3 in there. the tamarindo approach at culebra puerto rico will have you hitting the roof if you're not strapped in (while dropping down past the ridge)..

 

[trigeek]

There were several one-way-in/one-way-out dirt strips in Central and South America that are memorable. The most interesting was landing on the highway turned LZ during the Gulf War. They packed dirt along the sides so it met the minimum width requirement of 60'. We definitely didn't stray from centerline.

The NVG 9-ship on 3 parallel runways in 15 sec for an airfield seizure was a lot of fun too.

 

[pilot141]

Turbo S7, yes!

I remember Araracuara well! I used to have fun with the radar guys by flying as low as possible as long as possible to see when they could pick us up. If we were good we could scare the crap out of the guys on "visual patrol".
I also remember turning final there and as we passed over the river gorge losing about 15 knots and getting the stick shaker. In 30 degrees of bank, power back, descending, stick shaker rattling and a HUGE cliff staring you in the face is not where I wanted to be. Oh, yes, we had the American ambassador to Colombia riding in the jumpseat. Now let's execute that stall recovery procedure SMOOTHLY and CALMLY so that no one is the wiser.....
Luckily the wind came back before it got too ugly, and we salvaged the landing.
We had a great lunch (spaghetti!), and then pressed on to other needed places (Leticia, Iquitos, etc).
What a great landing!

 

[TurboS7]

Souda Bay, Greece, runway everything is fun, but the best show on earth is watching those A-7's and F-4's do their thing in the pattern. Last year I was taking off out of Corfu and saw a flock of F-104's come into land, talk about a piece of history.

 

[jumppilot03]

Sky Harbor in northern Minnesota is one of the best. Basically an

island in Lake Superior. Walk through the back of the hanger

and you are on the beech. Great place to take the friends. Nice

folks there as well.