At the recent Lawyer Pilots Bar Association convention, held in Cocoa Beach, Florida, those of us who flew our planes to the convention were afforded the unique opportunity to land at the Space Shuttle Landing Strip, where we were then given a tour of the facility.
We were asked to touch down in front of the tower, at the midpoint of the 15,000 foot runway, where a photographer was strategically placed. I posted a video on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha1RlOC8naY.
The hardest parts of landing a DA40 at the midpoint of the Space Shuttle Landing Strip are keeping it 2 feet off the ground for a mile and a half, and then taxiing it another mile and a half to the taxiway at the end.
Sandy
DA40 Space Shuttle
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- Karl
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Re: DA40 Space Shuttle
Reminds me of the joke about a Navy pilot landing at an Air Force base. Instead of landing along the runway he lands across it and comes to a skreeching halt in front of the tower with the brakes smoking. As he climbs from the aircraft he comments that the Air Force runways are the same length as the Navy runways but much much wider.
- Steve
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Re: DA40 Space Shuttle
Very nice. It makes me smile to think that the final approach speed for the Shuttle was about 30% higher than Vne for my Diamond!
- Boatguy
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Re: DA40 Space Shuttle
I had a commercial flight in the 70's in a Britten-Norman Islander from Dunedin to Queenstown in NZ and the pilot did exactly that. Perfectly nice runway in Queenstown, beautiful unlimited visibility day, and he landed perpendicular to the runway on the grass, rolled over the runway and onto a taxiway.Karl wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 12:46 am Reminds me of the joke about a Navy pilot landing at an Air Force base. Instead of landing along the runway he lands across it and comes to a skreeching halt in front of the tower with the brakes smoking. As he climbs from the aircraft he comments that the Air Force runways are the same length as the Navy runways but much much wider.