What's the most obscure airport you've visited?

[JOHN D HOLMES]

Been to Talbingo in a 182

 

[jpp42]

As the grass strip is only 750m long, no "luxury" jet can take off or land there, let alone a Cessna 172.

It's not commodious, but if the surrounding landscape is perfectly flat (no trees or other obstacles at either end), that's within the Cessna 172's performance envelope - it only needs 500m to take off and even less to land. But it's not for the faint of heart.

 

[The Flying Schwartz]

I have a vague recollection of landing in a Caribou at either an unused or privately owned airport in southern
Malaysia in the 1980s. I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called or where it was but am guessing it was in the region of Jahor. In the middle of the jungle and had a full terminal and associated buildings that were completely empty. We stopped to refuel in transit from Kota Kinabalu to Butterworth. In the misty light and with foggy heads it was quite surreal!

 

[TiredOldFlyer]

LXV - Leadville
Highest airport in the USA and 3rd highest (commercial ) in the world according to the town council.
9934 feet although the town is a little higher at just over
10 000 feet.
Situated in Colorado a few miles from Aspen, as the crow ,
(If they can fly at this altitude) but a long way, in winter, by road.
Average snow cover in winter 10 feet.
Old silver town and sometimes home of Doc Holiday.
Not recommended for Cessna 150's.

 

[clifford]

Did some flying training (C172) at TUM (Tumut), over 40 years ago.

Quite a nice little airfield, very quiet, with training flights over Blowering Dam. Very scenic.

 

[straitman]

LXV - Leadville
Highest airport in the USA and 3rd highest (commercial ) in the world according to the town council.
9934 feet although the town is a little higher at just over
10 000 feet.
Situated in Colorado a few miles from Aspen, as the crow ,
(If they can fly at this altitude) but a long way, in winter, by road.
Average snow cover in winter 10 feet.
Old silver town and sometimes home of Doc Holiday.
Not recommended for Cessna 150's.

This has reminded me of La Paz Bolivia. One of the few places where the aircraft cabin pressure is lower than the outside airfield pressure. We landed there in 2014 enroute to Santa Cruz Bolivia. They have medical staff scattered around the airfield and a full medical clinic where my SIL spend most of the time on oxygen whilst we were there. He was wheeled to the aircraft for departure and only really came good when the aircraft became pressurised.
La Paz airfield elevation 4,061.5 m / 13,325 ft

 

[Seat0B]

Did some flying training (C172) at TUM (Tumut), over 40 years ago.

Quite a nice little airfield, very quiet, with training flights over Blowering Dam. Very scenic.

We love flying around Tumut. It’s very scenic and the airfield is lovely. Many a family picnic. From memory, it was closed for a while in the last couple of years for upgrades. Must check if it’s open again and plan a visit. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[p--and--t]

This has reminded me of La Paz Bolivia. One of the few places where the aircraft cabin pressure is lower than the outside airfield pressure. We landed there in 2014 enroute to Santa Cruz Bolivia. They have medical staff scattered around the airfield and a full medical clinic where my SIL spend most of the time on oxygen whilst we were there. He was wheeled to the aircraft for departure and only really came good when the aircraft became pressurised.
La Paz airfield elevation 4,061.5 m / 13,325 ft

Fascinating place.

IIRC the airport at La Paz is at higher elevation than the city itself.

Huge difference arriving at our first (intermediate) stop after that at Viru Viru on our way to back to Santiago at only 373m

 

[JOHN D HOLMES]

Did some flying training (C172) at TUM (Tumut), over 40 years ago.

Quite a nice little airfield, very quiet, with training flights over Blowering Dam. Very scenic.

Indeed it is spent a whole weekend in the Flying Club there in the mid seventies due to weather and a VFR aircraft (VH-RGT deceased fondly remembered)

 

[straitman]

Indeed it is spent a whole weekend in the Flying Club there in the mid seventies due to weather and a VFR aircraft (VH-RGT deceased fondly remembered)

I only landed there a handful of time and that was in an Iroquois so slightly different procedures applied.

 

[Major]

Dochra YDOC which is near Singleton NSW, in a Caribou

 

[JOHN D HOLMES]

The maritime crosswind equivalent of Kai Tak ( Bodo Norway) its like this more often than you would like to hope

 

[RB]

Really enjoyed our hops between Whitehorse & Fairbanks. Got to land in Dawson City & Old Crow & I guess I probably will not get back there

 

[dylarr]

LYT/YLTT Lady Elliot Island for me. It's quite novel when walking across the island to stop at a flashing light whilst you wait on the edge of the airstrip for a plane to take off/land.



The landing is quite fun too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCjseqHNFPI

Trivia: before landing on a remote airstrip at night, the locals burn diesel soaked dunny rolls to light the field to assist RFDS landings. Apparently it meets CASA requirements so long as they are correctly spaced apart.

Did a tour at the RFDS Visitor Centre in Broken Hill last month and they spoke to the challenges of some of the airstrips their pilots have to land at including the airstrip edge lighting. The undercarriage of their aircraft are replaced with strengthened landing gear and they seek pilots with plenty of bush experience. Such an incredible organisation.

There's an interesting write up about the dunny rolls being phased out for lanterns including a video in a recent ABC article here: Diesel-soaked loo rolls once lit these remote emergency airstrips. An invention from the 1800s just changed that

Flights from these locations are free for certain passengers.....

Certainly a flight you never want to take though!

They told us last month on the tour they they do not charge for their services even for international tourists who find themselves in trouble which I found remarkable.

 

[Eastwick20]

Back in the 90's when Aerolineas Argentinas flew the Boeing 747 200 between Buenos Aires and Auckland the return flight used to have to land at the tiny Rio Gallegos Airport towards the bottom of South America to fuel up before attempting the polar route across to New Zealand

It was then small building which not much to offer,
We have to get off the aircraft via stairs and into the terminal for an hour while they refuelled and I was amused to find myself ( ( having cleared outbound immigration in Buenos Aires ) wandering around the airport car park land side as there was absolutely no sterile area or security operation

I just googled it below and it looks like they have upgraded the building in the decades since and now have a airbridge, very fancy!



The other is Coromandel Airport in New Zealand, Just a grass strip and hanger.
Fun landing and take off's in a small Cessna a couple of times

 

[Bjet]

Oh yeah... I flew from La Paz to Sucre. It was an amazing place. After took off, I was suprised why my plane kept flying so low (between the ground and the midair). I just realised that it was because we were in the highest mountain. lol I flew many times and have seen the planes take off higher from the ground but never seen it in the South America!

Also it was cool to see my plane (733) landed on the the top of the mountain (at the Sucre airport). I think that it was at the wide ridge as I could see the valley down there.

 

[justinbrett]

I didn't think of it as obscure at the time, but it's certainly turned out that way now.

GWY - Galway, Ireland. Flew here from CWL on Aer Arann in 2007.

Aer Arann is now defunct and the airport has since closed to commercial traffic. I don't think it will reopen as the Irish Government is trying to push the domestic market into five regional airports plus Dublin, for Galway this is Shannon Airport - just over an hours drive away (GWY was 10 minutes from the town centre).

Such a shame as it really added to the experience of visiting Galway - a tiny airport with a tin shed for a terminal. Immigration was just at a desk like rental cars and worked on the honour system (a friend and I were travelling on AU passports and stopped to check if we needed to talk to him, and he stamped our passports and handwrote our visas).

 

[RSD]

No really obscure ones in Australia, but I did the fly the TB-21 into Beirut International for a refuelling and lunch stop.

Post automatically merged: Apr 26, 2023

KIH - Kish Island, Iran
OMAS - Das Island, UAE

No prizes for guessing which industry you was working in!

 

[romney]

My first thought was HEH - Heho in Myanmar, but that at least had a small building.

Closer to home, YWMC - William Creek. We took off on the old runway, which meant taxiing across the main road. We landed at the air strip at the Painted Hills on Anna Creek Station, but I'm guessing that doesn't have a code.

Departure gate at William Creek...

 

[AIRwin]

Departure gate at William Creek...

No priority lane?!