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Interesting airstrip and over-run


Relfy

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Location City: Gustavia, St-Barthélemy, Guadeloupe Name:Gustaf III Old (Alt.):St-Jean ICAO / IATA:TFFJ / SBH

 

Details Type:Airport (Aerodrome, Airfield) Latitude:17°54'16"N (17.904444) Longitude:62°50'37"W (-62.843610) Elevation:49 ft (15 m) Runways:1 Longest:2133 × 49 ft (650 × 15 m), paved

 

650m was always going to require digit absent from orifice in an Aztec (I think?) but geez he had quite a bit of time there where he could have pushed everything forward and gotten away with it.

 

 

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I've been trying to choose one of my many blunders but couldn't come up with one serious enough to relate. And then I remembered that on a recent flight I had a moment of considerable alarm. I had my brother-in-law up for a scenic tour of the Central coast on what was not a bad day. There was a little bit of low cloud about but nothing much. As I was establishing cruise for the run to the coast I noticed that I was a bit higher than I would have liked relative to the scattered cloud base and thought I should give up some altitude for a bit of peace of mind.

 

Then, I turned my attention to something else for just a moment and, when I looked up again, we were entering cloud.037_yikes.gif.f44636559f7f2c4c52637b7ff2322907.gif037_yikes.gif.2082ee4b157a18e5ec01fc250b51372e.gif037_yikes.gif.f44636559f7f2c4c52637b7ff2322907.gif

 

Up until then I did not believe it possible that one could inadvertently fly into cloud. Well, I can tell you now it is possible.

 

While "cloud" might be overstating it a bit, more like a very light mist, but every microsecond it was getting thicker and, if I'd continued on course it could have become quite ugly.

 

My immediate reaction was a descending turn and, with the loss of less than 50 feet, we were completely in the clear. I could still see a fair bit while in the "mist" and I knew there was a lot of clear air just below us but it gave me perhaps my biggest fright ever in an Ultralight.

 

I think my passenger may have wondered why the strange look on my face. A sort of a mixture of shock, relief and self castigation.

 

Lesson: deal now with that which is really important if you want to avoid over exciting yourself later. As my instructor used to beat me over the head and say "Look out the window and fly the plane!"

 

We went on to have great scenic flight after that and my (photographer) Bro-in-law got some great shots. I'll post some when he sends them to me.

I am glad that you didn't get into any b-i-g trouble, Black Rod. I'm also glad you enjoyed the rest of the flight :-)

 

 

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