View Single Post
Old August 27th, 2004, 17:47   #34
SteveC
Moderator
 
SteveC's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2003
Location: GRR
Posts: 8,367
Default Re: Navy jet rolls into S.D. Bay on landing

[ QUOTE ]
Speaking of huge runways, KVPS/Ft. Walton/Eglin AFB has a very wide runway as well. It's freaky because you're flying the visual and you feel like you're a lot lower than the aircraft actually is.

[/ QUOTE ]

And then you go someplace out in the middle of nowhere, like Marquette, Michigan (in the Upper Penninsula), and land on a runway that's 12,370 feet long x 150 feet wide. In real life, though, the runway is 300 feet wide, they just moved the lights in to 150 feet so the perspective is right (at least at night). SAW is a former B-51 base, now converted to civilian use. I flew into it while they were converting it (by moving the lights in), and they would shut 1/2 the runway (lengthwise) and work on it, then switch and do the other half. What a view. It fools you when you are a long ways out, since the proportions (12,370 x 300) look about right for a standard width 6,000 foot runway. It's only when you get closer that you say "holy cow, that's a big runway"!

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
SteveC is offline   Reply With Quote