Waypoints: The long and short of it

Runways, sealanes, notches on hillsides. There are some 5,200 public-use airports in the United States and about triple that in landing facilities in total; the majority of the rest of them are helipads and grass, dirt, and gravel strips sprinkled across the landscape. So that equates to more than 30,000 “runway” ends and each of them presents its own challenges; each its own personality. Trees, terrain, powerlines, winds—just a few variables that might make one end of a runway more friendly than another.

In this case, there were no worries about any obstacles or terrain around this long strip stuffed into a wildlife refuge. In fact, there is nothing but scrubby shrubs on either end of the NASA Shuttle Landing Facility next to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The famed runway is one of the longest paved strips in the world. Challenger was the first space shuttle to land on the runway, February 11, 1984—the tenth flight of a space shuttle; previous missions landed at Edwards Air Force Base and White Sands Space Harbor, which feature dry lake beds of some 35,000 feet or so. Atlantis was the last shuttle to land at Kennedy, on July 21, 2011.

That equates to more than 30,000 “runway” ends and each of them presents its own challenges; each its own personality.And there I was in my little Bonanza, puttering across the Indian River from Space Coast Regional Airport in Titusville to the mammoth and historic strip eight nautical miles away—no worries at all about a sonic boom. Level at 1,000 feet, I called the tower and was granted permission to land, the traffic ahead of me taxiing a couple of miles down the pavement. My goal was to touch down at about the mid-point, next to the plywood shuttle replica parked along the strip. I had plenty of time to finesse the landing, but I did worry a little about the optical illusion that can occur when landing on an exceptionally wide runway. The shuttle strip is 300 feet wide, which can cause pilots to perceive they are lower than they actually are, causing them to flare too high.

I remember watching shuttle landings on television and agonizing over the fact that they forgot to put the gear down. There they were on short final. Gear still up. What are they thinking?

And then, with only seconds to go, the gear would pop down and then, boom, touch down. I guess when you’re in a glider you don’t want to add any drag until you have to.

I asked Bob Overmyer, a friend who once wrote columns for this magazine and who flew the shuttle on two missions, what would happen—seconds from the cement—if the gear wouldn’t go down. “Oh, it will go down!” he assured me. “Our backup is a series of explosive charges. Trust me, the gear will go down.”

I recalled Overmyer’s comments as I put the Bonanza’s gear down in plenty of time, wanting no drama for the tower controllers. Soon my little Goodyears squeaked onto the grooved pavement and we began our 7,000-foot rollout. I was one of a group of 25 or so aviators invited to land on the shuttle runway and visit the space center. My logbook has a star in the margin next to that entry.

A few months later, I was on short final for another Florida runway—this time on a more serious mission, carrying supplies into the Middle Keys that had been trashed by Hurricane Irma. As with the shuttle landing facility, prior permission is required to land at Sugar Loaf Shores—a spit of land sticking out into the sea, its surface a weird combination of coral, pavement, and dirt. At 2,700 feet long, it’s not particularly challenging, but at only 12 feet wide it is quite the contrast to the shuttle strip. In fact, the shuttle strip is 25 times wider than Sugar Loaf Shores, if that helps paint the picture for you. It’s like landing on a sidewalk.

OK, truth: The pavement—what’s left of it—is listed as 12 feet. In fact, there are berms on either side that give you a more comfortable 40 feet or so to play with, but with the rough surface, you still want to be on your game.

Runways, our gateways to aviation, challenge us in different ways. Wouldn’t it be boring if they were all the same?

Email [email protected], follow on twitter @tomhaines29