The Eldorado landing. Every pilot has their story of their most, er, stimulating flight situation. I have a couple that vie for 1st place, but certainly a landing in El Dorado Arkansas one night is a serious contender for the number one spot. It was a few years ago when my friend asked if I could fly him and his son to El Dorado on a Sunday evening. The flight from Winnsboro is only less than an hour, so as the weather began to deteriorate that Sunday afternoon, I checked on it a number of times on the computer. As time drew close I had to make the go, or no go, call. The weather was overcast and mostly with rain showers and shattered thunderstorms increasing in occurrence further east. Ceilings were low - 1,000 to 1,300 above ground - minimal legal VFR flight conditions. It being only less than an hour flight, I decided we could start out and if it was too nasty we could turn back around. So we loaded up and down the runway we went. VFR means Visual Flight Rules - meaning the flight is conducted without the guidance of Air Traffic Control and the rules require flight free of clouds without any blind or instrument flight. As we climbed out, I saw lightning flashes off to the east both north and south marking the edges of thunderstorms. The ceiling was as predicted - roughly 1,000 above ground. So off we fly toward El Dorado 333 yards off the ground at 200 mph with wide eyes and tight fists. We scooted just under the cloud ceiling all the way. It was night, it was overcast and raining, and there wasnt a shred of light coming from above. El Dorado does not have a manned tower so there was no one at the airport to help me manage my approach in. Navigating by the gps I saw we were less than 10 miles from the El Dorado airport but I couldnt see any evidence of it. El Dorado airport is several miles outside of El Dorado, and is completely surrounded by forests. No house lighting, no ground lighting, no light from the sky. The only light that existed in the world was the lights from my instrument panel. Of course it was unnerving to be so close to my destination and still not have any visual trace of it to be found, but I wasnt going to let my passengers know how tense I was. When I saw on the gps that I was about 3 miles from the airport and hadnt seen anything, I realized that the runway lights must be pilot controlled. Many small airports, in order to save on electricity, do not leave their runway lights on at night. The pilot turns the runway lights on by clicking his microphone 6 times within 3 seconds on the correct frequency to turn the runway lights on for a 15 minute interval. So realizing that the El Dorado runway was not visible because the runway lights were not on, I clicked the microphone 6 times and - phoosh - there came the runway lights. It was now raining heavily, and with no home lighting around the airport, the runway lights looked exactly like a video game on a black TV screen. Not a modern high-tech video game - but like a video game from the late 1970s - that kind of visual experience. Just two parallel lines of white dots on a black screen, with a runway presumably between the rows of dots - presumably because there was nothing but sheer blackness between the white dots. With no reference to the earth other than these white dots and the angle they were at in relation to my point of view, I had to fly around the pattern and descend to approach altitude by only my instruments. I felt the hair rising on my neck as I turned on the base-leg before final and looked again through the driving rain at my white dots in hopes that now that I was closer there would be other objects visible for reference - no such luck. I raced all parameters through my mind over and over again impressing upon myself the stakes of not interpreting my relationship to the grid of white dots were as serious as it gets. I turned final, checking and re-checking all my considerations - landing lights, check; airspeed, check; gear down, check; flaps down, check; mixture full rich, check; prop rpm full, check; visual reference to my angle of relationship to the white dot grid, check. repeat, repeat, repeat. I saw the white dots getting closer and closer through the rain, and expected to see the surrounding terrain reflecting their light - no dice. It was as if these white dots were suspended within space, as if they werent even connected to the ground. Stabilized on final now, I was less than 100 off the ground approaching the white dot grid at 100 mph and descending at 500 per minute. Everything good. Check. Dots approaching. Airspeed good. Wheres the ground? No ground. 50 off the ground and 100 mph. White dots approaching, raining heavy. Wheres the ground? No ground. Closer, lower, tenser. When I crossed the threshold of the runway I still could not see it. 10 off the runway, wheres the runway?? No runway. 5 off the ground, suddenly through the driving rain the runway appeared, right where it was supposed to be. I made a textbook landing and taxied over to the terminal as if this was just another routine flight. The flight marked my psyche for Im sure the rest of my life. The takeoff and flight back home were routine and eventless. I came away from the experience impressed with my performance under the most unfriendly landing conditions I have ever encountered, but also with a stern chastening of myself for having placed myself and my passengers in the situation. While I pulled it off like a pro, it would have been smarter to stay home that night. Sometime Ill tell you about the other contender for most memorable flight.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 04:01:32 +0000