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Windsock error landing at Karumba
It was 20 May 1987. We were continuing in a mighty Cessna 206 loaded to the gunnels with five of us. We had taken off from Burketown where we took on some fuel, having flown non-stop from Gove. Karumba is a short flight from Burketown. There was virtually no wind at Burketown. This permitted us to land on runway 03 and then be up at the parking area.
We were booked into the caravan park at Karumba. Having no mobiles in those days, we had given the caravan park a call from Burketown with a rough idea of our ETA overhead. The owner said to fly low over the township and he would come out to the strip and pick us up. The strip is still located out of town on the coast of the Gulf. Karumba is on the Norman River about 5ks from the airport by road but only a couple of miles by air.
We descended to around 1000 feet over the town to do a slow obit with ten degrees of flap - he did say fly low. We could clearly see where the caravan park was – it appeared to be next door to a Pub, dangerously close – particularly with ‘Ian hate a drink’ on board.
It was a dirt runway in those days running 30 degrees off a north direction to the east with no crosswind runway. On locating the wind sock, I saw no indication of even a zephyr of wind. The sock was hanging limp. Looking around for confirmation of the wind and seeing nothing obvious, no moving car dust, no fire smoke and no discernable wind waves on the water, I continued on the current circuit direction to land from the south, back in a northerly direction the same as at Burketown.
Now days the runway is over 1300 metres. It seemed a lot shorter in 1987. The circuit and approach were uneventful if a few bumps as we came through 500 feet on short final over the Norman River. With full flap down we came over the river and over the stretch of land before the strip. I became aware of our ground speed. It was high – damn high for a day of no wind! There must be a wind and it was right up our clacker. I said to Ian up front with me, “We seem to be really moving along.” I thought for a moment of powering up and doing a go round to come in the other way. Against that, the runway surface was now only feet away and we seemed to be dropping nicely to land right on the end to make full use of the strip.
We had a lot of ground speed. It was a hot day; thus, the plane was moving along fast compared to the indicated airspeed, and it was not going to be easy to lift back up.
The decision process; if I went around, I was going to have to touch down (we were too close) then clean up the flap with full power while hoping to get enough airspeed in these conditions to take off. The decision was made - get on the ground and stay there, hopefully pulling up before the bushes at the end.
The touch down was smooth enough, immediately getting the flaps up - I needed quick weight on the wheels to grab the dirt while braking hard. The arguments about this immediate flap technique I suspect will continue. It has always worked for me. We did stop before the end, if by not much.
After taxing back to the parking area, I was a bit keen to see this wind sock close up, real close. Out of the aircraft, there was an obvious breeze from the south. All was then explained. The sock was stuck evenly on the pole thus looking from the air as if it was hanging limp straight down. Perhaps there had been a storm to wet the sock and it then stuck to the pole. It was just bad luck that perhaps a gust had caught the sock squarely on the pole to tell a lie about the current wind. I cleared the lie with a stick to work the sock off the pole.
On reflection perhaps one should have had a closer look at the windsock before determining there was no wind. The design of that sock permitted this to happen instead of hanging the sock further away from the pole.
© C McKeown 2022.