All Airstrip Reports
After the moisture this winter, the grasses and weeds have grown quite a bit. A little bumpier than the last time I was in to Piute. The SW portion of the runway is much softer than the NE portion. Landing to the west the runway slopes down to the west, particularly on the eastern end. I really like this strip because it's so remote and such a beautiful area.
A few deep hoof prints. Kinda soft but not bad. Not too many tracks. I am sure with more traffic it will get packed down. Opted to land uphill (32) with a tailwind. Waited until after the road that crosses the runway to touch town. There is a deep cut in the runway on the right side from the road avoid that. If you need the to cross the road cheat to the west.
Windsock is actually pretty OK, but has become detached from the hoop about halfway around. As others have mentioned, the runway is rutted, especially at midfield near the intersection between the runway and the road. Unless you have really big tires, you need to be stopped by that point. This makes the usable runway about 1500 feet long when landing uphill on 32. I did fine on my 850s taking off downhill on 14, making sure to be airborne before the midfield ruts. The runway really does need to be graded. Wonder if UBCPA could help facilitate that in some way.
Landed north of the crossing road in a C-180 with 8.5 tires. As previous comments have said we we walked the strip and. I found the SOUTH portion is actually in better condition than the north. Numerous 10 inch ruts. If I was to do it over again I would land on the south portion PRIOR to the road.
5 days agoI’ve been keeping an eye on this dirt strip for a while and this morning the weather was near perfect for my first attempt at landing this strip. It’s unique as it’s just on the edge of the Canyonlands Nationa Park. I’ve been practicing my slow flight skills and my approach was stabilized at around 50 kts and zero wind correction was needed. I landed northbound and kept the nose off the ground as long as possible…which was probably about 50 - 75’. I was able to stop in around 400’ without too much braking power. I explored the area and walked the runway to check for any major issues. The runway is pretty soft and there are ruts as this is also used as a 4x4 access road to the canyon. Cows have pocked up the runway a little but nothing too major. When I was ready to leave I took off southbound as the wind was picking up just a little. I found a couple of dips that I knew I wanted to be off the ground by so I made a mental note of where they were and decided to use the full flap technique to ensure I was flying by the mid-way point. The overall usable runway is around 1500’ but for the trike, I would say about 800 were usable. I applied full power and had 1 notch of flaps down then added full flaps after about 4 seconds (1 potato, 2 potato, 3 potato…etc…I actually verbalize this to help me count down). I glanced down when I added full flaps and I was around 30 kts…then flying around 40 kts. I rotated the nose over a little and allowed my airspeed to increase to 65 kts then removed 1 notch of flaps and climbed to around 500 AGL then cleaned up the flaps and lowered to Vx. I estimate my take-off to be under 500 feet as I was flying well before a rock that I placed alongside the runway at my abort point (800’). What a hoot! The Sportsman continues to amaze me with the shortfield abilities. I would have to say that the take-off was pretty bumpy and somewhere along the way my front tire tagged the front fairing as I could see tire marks on the fairing that were not there after my landing.
2 weeks ago in a Two Taylorcraft BC12-D 65hp Stromberg no mixture. with one 600-6 and the other 800-6 tires
After my T&G at Mineral, the two of us landed at Happy Canyon for an overnight. Lovely location. Despite very few horsepower, it was a dream. Flowers were in bloom, orange, yellow, purple and cacti too. Runway good, parking area soft but only for our solid Maule tailwheels. We landed at Sandthrax after that.
