Page 16 - Volume 10 Number 11

Ask the Expert
King Air Operation on
Unimproved Landing Strips
Iam sure many of my readers have a great deal more experience than I have in operating King Airs in remote areas where paved runways are few and far between. In fact, I’d wager that for many years now the King Air has been perhaps the most popular airplane in commercial service doing this type of work worldwide. Northern Canada, the Outback of Australia, Medivac work in remote areas in this country and elsewhere, war zones ... you will find King Airs in all of these places providing dependable and safe service.
by Tom Clements
Although my routine flying has mostly been from full-service airports, I have been fortunate to experience quite a few not-so-nice locations in my 44 years of King Air operation. A few that come to mind are Las Cruces and others on the southern Baja coast of Mexico, quite a few of the backcountry strips in Idaho, and remote areas of Alaska and Canada. Granted, not all runways in remote areas are unimproved. In fact, some are quite nice. However, the chance of finding a rough one tends to increase in direct proportion to how far it is from civilization.
The intent of this article is to present some procedures and techniques that help allow this type of operation to be conducted with minimum additional risk of harm to the airplane and its crew and passengers.
Before I discuss specific King Air procedures, it is important to remind us of the considerations that apply to any and all airplane operations in these types of environments. Weather, fuel, weight and balance, and alternative courses of action are four important considerations for all flights, but they take on added significance as the remoteness factor increases.
Weather: Keep in mind that reporting sites may be quite scattered. Also, the wonderful downlink weather that has had such a huge positive impact on our real-time weather knowledge in the last couple of decades may not be available. Being able to place a telephone, HF or satphone call to a person at the destination airport can
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ROYAL FLYING DOCTOR SERVICES
be wonderful help. Unfortunately, that capability does not always exist either due to the lack of equipment or the lack of a person to accept the call. Even when we do make contact with a person at the airport, the information we receive may be quite outdated by the time we arrive.
Fuel: To get to and from the remote location involves careful fuel planning since the options of refueling places may be quite limited and the weather situation may be more unknown than we’d like. There is a strong urge to tanker a lot of fuel yet that urge is counterbalanced oftentimes with the recognition that the remote strip’s length is short and safety is negatively impacted the heavier we are when departing.
Weight and Balance: This routine consideration for every flight operation usually takes on more significance here due to the length and condition of the remote strip, and the uncertainty of what we may find there. For example, did a recent downpour wash out one end? Did the passengers we’re picking up have a really successful trip and hence have a couple of hundred extra pounds of meat or fish to fly out? Did they make friends with a couple at the lodge and offered them a free flight out? It is amazing how often “the best laid plans” seem to go awry.
Alternates and Alternatives: Of course we will want to have an alternate airport in mind. What if the Otter landing before us ground-looped and is sitting in the middle of the runway? What if the weather turned so
NOVEMBER 2016