By Ted Grussing
… when I was landing this morning I grabbed the camera and did some point and shoot whilst I turned into a short final for runway 3 at Sedona … there’s the number, confirmed, I have the right runway. About a 6 kt quartering tail wind and a nice landing about two thirds of the way down the runway … sometimes I get it so I can roll up to my shade without re-starting the engine.
Runways take their designation by the place on the compass rose they align with, round that number to the nearest ten and drop the last digit. Thus a heading of 030 (NE) becomes 3 … 210 (SW) becomes 21 and those are the two designations and alignments at Sedona. In Sedona the runway has a 1.9% slope so that the 3 is about 100’ lower than the far end of the runway and preferred runway for landing up to about ten knots tailwind (for most planes, 7 kts for me, I am a tail dragger) It is easier to land on a runway where the ground is rising to meet you as opposed to landing downhill and the ground is falling away from you. As you can see, landing short here is not a terrific idea.
I unfeather my propeller when landing and you can see the one blade upper right; two reasons, one it gives me a lot more drag which increases my sink rate and two, in case I have to do an engine restart, it is ready to go. Just offset from the runway you can see a canyon going up to the right of Wilson Mountain (left side). This is where Oak Creek Canyon and Munds Canyon meet/split. SR179 is just in front of the prop blade … kinda fun to look at a photo like this after the fact, because my focus was and always is keeping me on a descending glide slope to hit a point on the runway that I want to be rolling and the flying over … like I said, this is point and shoot, my eyes were focused on the runway.
The runway at KSEZ is 5132’ long and 100’ wide; to the left of the runway is the taxiway, and taxiways are designated with letters as opposed to numbers which is a good way to avoid confusion. In our case there is only one taxi way and it is designated “A” referred to as taxiway alpha. Looking down the runway you can see access/egress points and they are numbered on our runway A-1 through A-8 and the nearest access to me as I am landing is A-8, A-1 is at the North end of the runway. To the left of the taxiway you have the fuel farms, landing pads for helicopters and parking ramps for planes and going further up the runway there are the private hangars. You can see that there were not a lot of aircraft on the ramps this morning; to the left of the main ramps between A-6 and A-5 in the trees is the terminal building which contains the administrative offices, car rental and Red Rock Aviation, the FBO. They have trucks that will come to your hangar and refuel you and give all manner of assistance – good people.
At about A-4 you have the Mesa Grill, which has really good food and behind it Sedona Air Tours http://www.sedonaairtours.com/ ; Westwind Air Service also gives aero tours and they operate out of the Terminal Building:
Sedona’s airport is considered one of the most beautiful airports in the country and is home to a lot of neat planes and people who fly and service them. A super community and economic engine for the community. I’m fortunate to be a part of it, I started flying pure gliders out of Sedona in 1997 and my friend Elemer Katinsky gave me tows with his Rallye. Love this place! For complete information check it out at: http://www.airnav.com/airport/KSEZ
So, hope you have a terrific day as we get another week off to a start. Flying again on Tuesday … huge smiles.
Ted
“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
— Leonardo da Vinci
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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com
In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.
Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses. By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.
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