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Sometime around 1980 I flew to Portland in a Cessna 172 to visit my family. I landed at Troutdale because who wants to deal with the traffic at PDX? I'd called
by Stratoscope 5y ago
Sometime around 1980 I flew to Portland in a Cessna 172 to visit my family. I landed at Troutdale because who wants to deal with the traffic at PDX?
I'd called my mom from my refueling stop to give her an ETA and where to meet me. She parked her car on the wrong side of the runway, but why would that stop anyone?
As I taxied to the tiedown, I heard on the radio "Cessna 543 Whiskey Zulu, go around, woman crossing the runway."
- grecy 5y agoEvery year friends launch their float planes from the International Airport in Whitehorse, Yukon. All the float planes are out of the water for winter freeze up, put on trailers. So in spring when the ice is gone you get a friend to drive down the runway full speed towing the trailer and plane, then take off directly from the trailer - there are no wheels on the floats and taking them on/off is a pain and not worth it. My friend said it's always a little scary trying to remember how to fly for the first time in 9 months while being pulled behind a pickup truck at full throttle and around 180km/h. Because it's not tied down, he said if you're not on it, the plane just falls off the back of the trailer onto the runway - not good. There's essentially a couple of days in spring when all the float planes around town do it, and a lot of fun to watch on a runway that has daily international flights around the world.
- boulos 5y agoI came here to say “that sounds made up”. Then I did a Google video search for “Whitehorse airplane take off truck” and found: https://youtu.be/r5GAZC1YoCo https://youtu.be/r5GAZC1YoCo. Must be a long runway!
- grecy 5y agoThere are daily direct flights to/from Germany. So yeah, it's a good sized runway.