Oops... Airliner lands at the wrong airport...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/0....ap/index.html


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

NWA now in search of new pilots...

Lets see...
RAP is south of the Interstate.. and SE of the City...
RCA is North of the Interstate.. and NE of the City..

RAP is 14-32, 8700x150
RCA is 13-31, 13,500x300

RAP has a cross wind runway.. near the north end
RCA does not..

RAP, all terminals are west of the airport and centrally located
RCA, the MAIN RAMP is east of the airport.. with what looks like a small
town that is the air base

BT

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/0....ap/index.html


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"BTIZ" wrote in message
news:ZWoBc.4646$5t2.948@fed1read01...
NWA now in search of new pilots...

Lets see...
RAP is south of the Interstate.. and SE of the City...
RCA is North of the Interstate.. and NE of the City..

RAP is 14-32, 8700x150
RCA is 13-31, 13,500x300

RAP has a cross wind runway.. near the north end
RCA does not..

RAP, all terminals are west of the airport and centrally located
RCA, the MAIN RAMP is east of the airport.. with what looks like a small
town that is the air base


None of which they would know as they wouldn't have any information at all
for RCA on board the aircraft.

"Newps" wrote in message
...
None of which they would know as they wouldn't have any information at all
for RCA on board the aircraft.

Why wouldn't they have information about RCA on board? The NC A/FD lists
both RCA and RAP, don't airlines use something similar to the A/FD?

I would think the pilot might also notice a difference between runway
numbers 13/31 and 14/32. "Hey, who moved the runway!" ;-)

"G. Burkhart" wrote in message
news:zi6Cc.78176$Hg2.44705@attbi_s04...
"Newps" wrote in message
...
None of which they would know as they wouldn't have any information at
all
for RCA on board the aircraft.

Why wouldn't they have information about RCA on board? The NC A/FD lists
both RCA and RAP, don't airlines use something similar to the A/FD?

Many airlines only carry the charts for the airports they land at. It is
airplane specific also. For example we have United fly in here but we don't
get United DC-10's or 747's. In the winter we have about one United flight
per week land here because the headwinds are stronger than forecast and they
won't have the desired reserve, so they land and get gas. If it is a DC-10
or 747 they will not have any info for BIL, we will read it to them over the
air. Another example is American, they don't fly in here at all. Every
once in a while they drop in with a sick passenger or to get gas like
United. They also have no charts for BIL.

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message ws.com...
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Central/0....ap/index.html

I seem to remember an incident of a commercial flight landing at
Amman, Jordan instead of Tel Aviv, Israel, which is a pretty serious
snafu. Am I remembering right? I remember thinking that the crew had
to have been thouroughly unfamiliar with the area, since the Tel Aviv
airport is just a few miles from the Mediterranean coast and Amman is
in a desert landscape 60 or so miles inland. I once heard of a GA
pilot almost mistaking Beirut for Haifa (which would be an even worse
mistake), but at least they're both near the sea.

At the public terminal where I fly out of (Troutdale) there's a photo of a
United 707 that mistook Troutdale for Portland International. Imagine
landing a jet and realizing that the 11,000 feet of runway you expected is
only 5,000 feet long. They had to strip the plane of all excess weight and
bring it a special pilot to get the plane out. The pilot who landed it rode
the plane out with the stand-in crew. Was probably his last flight with the
airline.

-c

In article , gatt wrote:

At the public terminal where I fly out of (Troutdale) there's a photo of a
United 707 that mistook Troutdale for Portland International. Imagine
landing a jet and realizing that the 11,000 feet of runway you expected is
only 5,000 feet long. They had to strip the plane of all excess weight and
bring it a special pilot to get the plane out.

Anyone know what the balanced field length for a minimum-fuel 707 would
have been? Considering how much of an airliner's weight is fuel and cargo,
it seems like it would have been fairly short.

I didn't find anything much on the web about it -- not suprising considering
how long it's been since they were first-line aircraft. I *did* find a 737 training
manual that was pretty interesting.

Mike Beede

Mike Beede wrote

Anyone know what the balanced field length for a minimum-fuel 707
would have been? Considering how much of an airliner's weight is
fuel and cargo, it seems like it would have been fairly short.

Mike, the answer is not that easy, too many variables, some of
which require a longer field lenght than just balanced-field.
A late model 707 empty weighed about 150,000# and with a couple
of hours of fuel would weigh about 175,000# which would only
require somewhere around 4,000' of runway. I say around because
the charts do not go down that far because of the real limiting
factor which is VMC (ground) which is 122kts regardless of weight
and this factor sets the minimum value of V1 to 122kts.... the
equivalent of a 250,000# airplane and requiring a field length
longer than the 4,000'/100kt V1 numbers would indicate. Obviously,
the 175,000# airplane gets to 122kts faster than a 250,000# airplane
will, but at PanAm, our manual required a minimum field length
that would accomodate the 250,000#/122kt airplane, or about 6,000'.
That being said....I did operate 707s out of Arthur Jones' private
runway on his estate near Ocala, FL when it was only 5,000' long. It
has since been lengthened. Arthur made his fortune in the Nautilus
exercise equipment business and owned three B-707s. John Travolta
lives there now and flies his B-707 from the lengthened 6,000' run-
way.

Bob Moore

Thanks for posting, Bob! Fascinating stuff!

"Bob Moore" wrote in message
. 7...
Mike Beede wrote

Anyone know what the balanced field length for a minimum-fuel 707
would have been? Considering how much of an airliner's weight is
fuel and cargo, it seems like it would have been fairly short.

Mike, the answer is not that easy, too many variables, some of
which require a longer field lenght than just balanced-field.
A late model 707 empty weighed about 150,000# and with a couple
of hours of fuel would weigh about 175,000# which would only
require somewhere around 4,000' of runway. I say around because
the charts do not go down that far because of the real limiting
factor which is VMC (ground) which is 122kts regardless of weight
and this factor sets the minimum value of V1 to 122kts.... the
equivalent of a 250,000# airplane and requiring a field length
longer than the 4,000'/100kt V1 numbers would indicate. Obviously,
the 175,000# airplane gets to 122kts faster than a 250,000# airplane
will, but at PanAm, our manual required a minimum field length
that would accomodate the 250,000#/122kt airplane, or about 6,000'.
That being said....I did operate 707s out of Arthur Jones' private
runway on his estate near Ocala, FL when it was only 5,000' long. It
has since been lengthened. Arthur made his fortune in the Nautilus
exercise equipment business and owned three B-707s. John Travolta
lives there now and flies his B-707 from the lengthened 6,000' run-
way.

Bob Moore