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Old 19th April 2012 | 23:11
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Genghis the Engineer
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From: UK
Yes.

Barra in a PA28

Tarn sands in an F2a

Ardrossan beach in a Raven.


Wonderful experience. I reckon you need to flare a little more aggressively on dry sand - I suspect that the ripples reduce ground effect a little. (I have no theory to back this up, just experience).

Landing at Barra at a typical light aeroplane 5 degrees or so, the large pools of very shallow water look to be just water. Very disconcerting and you need to show great faith that you know exactly where you are and what you're doing.



Which reminds me of a story I'm sure I've told before. Place - around 30nm SW of EGPK, I was enjoying a sunny afternoon in a microlight, when a pillock in a PA28 tried to fly into me. He then came back and had another go.

So I filed an Airprox. The airprox board phoned me to clarify a few things....

"What altitude were you"?

"900ft on the QNH"

"On what QNH setting"

"I've no idea, I didn't note it".

"So how do you know it was QNH?"

"Because it read zero on the beach I took off from, halfway between the high tide and low tide marks"

"Errr, right. There may or may not be something wrong with that. I'll get back to you".

(Which he never did)

G
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