Sort of like Bitburg and Spangdhalem back in the day.

Only 8 kilometers apart, the traffic pattern at Spang was left hand break
and at Bitburg was right hand break, in both cases to avoid the base housing
areas and to de-conflict extended downwinds.

Every once in a while (on those USAFE VFR days) an F-15 would show up on
initial at Spang, break right followed by an immediate left turn to Bitburg,
after the pilot had looked down and saw he was directly over the housing
area, (that wasn't supposed to be there).

--
Les Matheson
F-4C(WW)/D/E/G(WW), AC-130A, MC-130E WSO/EWO (ret)


"John Hairell" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 16:26:56 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

[stuff snipped]

All that being said, however, there are a lot of places in the world
in which pairs of airports are nearby and even have the same runway
alignment. It's usually a major part of squadron in-briefing to point
them out. Pairs that I recall include Bitburg/Spangdahlem,
Torrejon/Barajas, and Incirlik/Adana. The Spanish pair and the Turkish
pair all were 05/23 runways. And, all within ten miles of each other.
(Bit/Spang are 4.3 miles apart IIRC.)

"Caveat aviator"


Fort Hood has two airfields like this which have ensnared unwary
(mostly USAF) aviators. Hood AAF and Robert Gray AAF have runways
with the same headings. The runways are something like 7 miles apart.
Gray has 11,000+ feet (it was a SAC base at one time) and Hood has a
much shorter runway used mostly by helicopters. In two years that I
worked ATC at Hood I saw several USAF aircraft (mostly C-130s) attempt
to land there when they thought they were landing at Robert Gray.
This usually happened more in the evening or at night.

This was common enough that when USAF aircraft called final to Robert
Gray tower but were nowhere in sight the Robert Gray tower guys would
automatically call Hood tower on the hotline to look to see if they
saw a USAF fixed-wing on final. The aircraft would get a red light
and a warning on the guard push. I remember a C-130 one day almost
touching down on the runway when he figured out he was in the wrong
place. Evidently he didn't see the red light from the tower and
wasn't monitoring the guard freqs.

The interesting part was that Hood AAF had an always hot range just
north of it, which wasn't a problem with helicopter traffic which had
set departure/arrival corridors, but USAF fixed-wings had to make a
hasty right turn at low altitude to avoid getting shot down. I've
seen more than one C-130 make a near 90-degree bank at low altitude
trying to beat feet out of there.

Hood AAF tower commo to departing USAF (red-faced) fixed-winged
aviators: "Thanks for the low approach".

John Hairell )


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