Page 18 - Feb23T

Returning to the Backcountry
by Kevin Ware
The “runway” is just a little strip of rarely cut grass in the San Juan Islands, not much more than 1,200 feet long and 50 feet wide. It runs perpendicular to the shoreline and slightly uphill, with tall trees at the far end. On final at 800 feet and still over the water, it looks way too short and narrow to me. Maybe something on which I could comfortably drive a riding lawnmower but definitely not land an airplane. I have the power in the Cessna 180 at 14 inches of MP, the flaps all the way down, and the IAS down to where the stall warner is starting to whistle. That sound is what I am really paying attention to as opposed to the airspeed indicator. As I know from earlier practice in this particular airplane, it will stall at about 45 knots, and the stall warner will start sounding off about 20 knots before that, making my airspeed of about 65 knots actually about 1.4 Vso.
16 • TWIN & TURBINE / February 2023