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Steepest, shortest, highest, most bent, overgrown airstrip you’ve ever seen.

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Steepest, shortest, highest, most bent, overgrown airstrip you’ve ever seen.

Old 3rd Jan 2021, 00:38
  #21 (permalink)  
 
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Originally Posted by chimbu warrior
I thought so too, but the shot at the end makes me think it is Luke.
I missed the end. Agree with you.
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 02:10
  #22 (permalink)  
 
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thanks Willy,
yep that's much better now - sadly it was before video cameras :/
we were hired by MAF and went to about a dozen strips stretching east and south of Nalca.
They were still building the settlements - choppers would fly US volunteers in to form the strips using hydraulic pressure - long pipes bringing in high pressure water from above the strip to literally carve them out.
Then C206/C207 or RAM Grand Commanders brought in portable sawmills and carpenters to make the fabulous homes for the missionaries - designs were copies of California beach homes. Spectacular. (the Commanders had reinforced fuselage bottom skins to allow for quick gear retraction on takeoff
There was one strip eastern end of the range (can't remember the name) - I swear it felt like a constant 25% but probably less than 20 - watching a 206 land from inside the house the strip seemed to go diagonally across the window.
Happy landings Willy, I really enjoyed my time there - and as you may know they bought a Nomad - I did the endorsement/rating for the MAF pilots.
Sad to hear of the tragedy some time after I left.
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 04:48
  #23 (permalink)  
 
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 06:22
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Aziana is the ‘shortest’ in country at 320m but it has 14% slope.

I have a MAF airstrip guide if anymore would like it.
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 06:41
  #25 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by Two_dogs
There’s the proof, looks like a chainsaw and a whipper snippet we’re all that we’re involved in preparation, holy snappin duck doo!
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 06:42
  #26 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by upacreek
Aziana is the ‘shortest’ in country at 320m but it has 14% slope.

I have a MAF airstrip guide if anymore would like it.
I’d love to see whatever you’ve got, thanks.
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 07:36
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Originally Posted by Flingwing47
Nalca
6700 amsl
350m long
10m wide
1st 100m 10% slope
2nd 100m 18%
3rd 100m 15%
last 50m 24% - 3 point turn at the top
Nalca is now 540 meters with an average 11% slope at 4750', and 29 meters wide.

Do you remember any of the other strips you went to?

The shortest in Papua were Tanggeam and Hukimo. Tanggeam was 210 meters, average 9% slope, at 4300'. Hukimo was 210 meters at 5900' and 17% average although the top is into the 20s. Big difference in their effective lengths. Both were new strips when we started going to them a few years back.

Bilai was an older strip, 280 meters, 3% slope, at 5400'. Even though you can go around until you touch down, it would have been an interesting one in a 185. About twenty strips 300 meters and less.

There were about a dozen strips with 20-22% average slopes and another two dozen average 16 to 19%, several with maximum slopes above 20%.

Last edited by StudentPilot479; 3rd Jan 2021 at 07:59.
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 08:19
  #28 (permalink)  
 
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Komako - a morning strip. Don’t go there after lunch cause of the tailwinds. Unquote.
Whistling up the river valley from the south one afternoon I noticed the windsock had nothing on it. Perfect. I’ll whip in and out and that’s one less job tomorrow.
Normal checks and approach, committed to land with the asi pegged at 65 knots. Zooming over the fence thinking we are way too fast.
With hard braking and sliding up the dog leg towards the bank at the end we came to a stop about 2 feet short of the spinner of my C206.

Those fockers had loaded the windsock with stones so anything less than a force ten gale was never going to move it.

Then there was Hauwabungo( spell check) Don’t go there in the early morning. Unquote. For another time 😁

I earned my ANO 28 mostly in the Huon and Menyamya areas.
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 09:52
  #29 (permalink)  
 
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I also had the privilege to operate a Dash 8 into Chimbu, together with quite a few others.

All the 4 stage takeoff criteria’s for a Part 121 aeroplane out of Chimbu don’t comply with anything, however the regulator in PNG approved the operation.

Boss Meri hated me going to Chimbu, probably because she is a Mogi Meri!!
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 14:40
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Bristol

As a shiny new ATPL holder, with no real world skill or experience and who jumped straight into an A320 RHS, Bristol 09 is pretty twitchy
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 22:39
  #31 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by tolip1
As a shiny new ATPL holder, with no real world skill or experience and who jumped straight into an A320 RHS, Bristol 09 is pretty twitchy
NZQN in the A320 is sufficiently sporting for me too! I wonder if it counts for mountain flying.......hmmm!
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Old 3rd Jan 2021, 23:02
  #32 (permalink)  
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This one is from somewhere in Papua, the slope is not so helpful if you immediately have to start climbing after being flung off the base.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 00:40
  #33 (permalink)  
 
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Thanks for putting up the Ononge video, Willie - I remember doing some training circuits in the Bou there, swapping over crews in the front so some of the time you were down the back watching through the cabin windows, with the oleos hammering up and down like pistons on a steam engine!
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 01:48
  #34 (permalink)  
 
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Willie, I think the shortest strip in PNG was for a short time was Tapen. It’s remains are still visible about 10 Nm down the valley from Tep Tep. This is just a bit further to the west of Kabuam from where you were. It was closed when I flew in that part of the world, but one of my good mates (RIP) had apparently landed there. He pointed it out on the way into Tep Tep one day. The strip looked a little like what Two_Dogs posted previously except if I remember correctly it was not at the top of the mountain. The strip was only 500ft long with about 10 degrees slope and the catholic priest apparently had it built. He had something like a C182 with a Robertson STOL conversion. He put the Cessna on its roof fairly early on (it might have been his first attempt) and then had a further landing accident once the aircraft was fixed. The then PNG DCA closed it to all except Army PL6 Porters. I don’t think it lasted more than 6 months. The strip would have been built around Independence. I first saw it about 10 years later in the early 80’s.

The guys operating out of Lae and later Nadzab into the strips in the Finisterre’s certainly got a good grounding in both PNG weather and STOL operations. Anyone else add to the Tapen story?


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Old 4th Jan 2021, 07:32
  #35 (permalink)  
 
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Forget the angle - it was the pigs that worried me

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Old 4th Jan 2021, 08:20
  #36 (permalink)  
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I bet, once you’ve opened the taps, you’re out of options almost immediately I would imagine.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 08:32
  #37 (permalink)  
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Originally Posted by Beez51
Willie, I think the shortest strip in PNG was for a short time was Tapen. It’s remains are still visible about 10 Nm down the valley from Tep Tep. This is just a bit further to the west of Kabuam from where you were. It was closed when I flew in that part of the world, but one of my good mates (RIP) had apparently landed there. He pointed it out on the way into Tep Tep one day. The strip looked a little like what Two_Dogs posted previously except if I remember correctly it was not at the top of the mountain. The strip was only 500ft long with about 10 degrees slope and the catholic priest apparently had it built. He had something like a C182 with a Robertson STOL conversion. He put the Cessna on its roof fairly early on (it might have been his first attempt) and then had a further landing accident once the aircraft was fixed. The then PNG DCA closed it to all except Army PL6 Porters. I don’t think it lasted more than 6 months. The strip would have been built around Independence. I first saw it about 10 years later in the early 80’s.

The guys operating out of Lae and later Nadzab into the strips in the Finisterre’s certainly got a good grounding in both PNG weather and STOL operations. Anyone else add to the Tapen story?


Beez51
Yep, you can have all the slope you like, 500 feet is getting pretty sporting!
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 09:03
  #38 (permalink)  
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I bet, once you’ve opened the taps, you’re out of options almost immediately I would imagine.
In places like Sopu, Fane and others of their ilk; Yes! SOP in the BN2s was stand on the brakes and go to full power, making sure that the mixture was lean enough to give you max revs.

Once you released the brakes you were committed for take off.
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Old 4th Jan 2021, 14:40
  #39 (permalink)  
 
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How do you land on slopes of 10%-20%? Is finals a climb so to make something like a normal-ish glide path? Or is it a monster rotate from a windshield filled with ground like dive bombing?
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Old 5th Jan 2021, 01:57
  #40 (permalink)  
 
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MAF = IFJ which is an abbreviation of their motto," I fly with Jesus", cos no one else could protect these risk taking pilots
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