Once More, Into the Breach

Jared Watkins — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last two weekends I’ve tempted fate by doing some day-to-night transition flying into the goose… my first solo night flying. With any other airport night landings are a non event to me… no more or less difficult than during the day… but goose creek is Not any other airport. The runway lighting consists of twenty 40 watt lights in glass jars along the 2300′ x 35′ runway.. there is no beacon… and it is only lit all the way down on one end… so no matter what the winds are doing you have to land 22. Trees obscure the end of the runway when you are on final… so you have to keep it a little high until the lights are revealed.. then drop it in at a pretty steep angle. The first time out I was in the 152 and ended up going around 3 times to get a setup I was happy with… I kept flying too tight a pattern and ending up too high. Last night I was in the archer and ony had to go around once… had a perfect setup the second time.

This week I’ll be starting work on a pilot controlled lighting switch for the goose.. this will allow the installation of a beacon and lower the operating costs of the airport which might result in better lights. Commercial units are out there of course… but I believe I can build one for far less.. using a basic stamp microcontroller and a few supporting circuits. It will be fun learning about these.. it’s been a long time since I did any electronics work. If this is not too difficult.. I may also try to build a better beacon… one that is solid state using very hight output LEDs.. there may even be some commercial possibilities here.

Getting Night Current at Goose Creek 28A

Jared Watkins — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0000

I went up with Matt last night in the archer… I’ve not done any night flying since meeting the requirements back in Dec. It was a nice reminder of just how enjoyable night time can be… it’s cooler.. there are no thermals to deal with… and it’s a lot easier to see other planes around you. For anyone who is not familiar with flying the goose after dark I’ll do my best to describe the experience. First biggie.. the runway is only lit all the way down for 22. So no matter what the winds are suggesting.. you have to land 22 at night. The second challenging aspect is finding the airport… the lights in use are not the standard PCL lighting system.. they are more like 60 watt household lights in clear outdoor jars. Trying to pick those out is a challenge as they are yellow in color and blend in with other residential lights. The best way is to approach from the direction of the Monroe airport. There is a road with street lights that will lead you directly into a 45 downwind entry for 22. If you are following that road to the north west.. you will eventually see a stoplight… the runway is about 1 o’clock from that stoplight. Once you get lined up on final you see the other challenge for this field. There are trees that are fairly close to the end of 22. The end of 22 is marked with two green lights.. in the winter you can see though the trees for the entire final leg… so when the lights stop twinkling that means you have cleared the trees. In the summer… as I learned last night… you can not see the green lights at all until you have cleared the trees.. and are very close to the threshold. So… keep the altitude up until you see the green.. then pull power and you should be able to land in the first few hundred feet of the runway.

Night-Flying on The Infinite Unknown

Once More, Into the Breach

Getting Night Current at Goose Creek 28A