A friend of mine was back here in the Philippines for a short break. Arthur, works in Singapore and booked a flight with me. Me and Arthur loves to travel, I was with him and a couple of friends when we toured Kuala Lumpur. Our next destination, Corregidor. The island fortress is just less than 50 nautical miles south west of Clark. The last time I was at the island was two weeks ago with Kozo.
The short flight took us over GuaGua, Mt. Samat, and the oil depots at Bataan. Aside from trying to fly for the first time on a light aircraft, Arthur wanted to test his brand new SLR camera. For this trip, he managed to take more than 300 pictures. Taking a photographer with you on a flight is really worth the trip :)
After 40 minutes of flying, we started our descent to Corregidor. The island’s short and unpaved runway is located on the east end of the island. Ravine on both ends of the runway and often times winds are strong and gusty. Wind cone shifts a couple of degrees to the right then to the left with different wind velocity. Runway 08’s approach has rising terrain on the right, creating turbulence wind shear and gusts. As we were on our final approach, a nasty wind shear was thrown to us. From 55 knots (Indicated Airspeed), it dropped suddenly to 40 knots causing the stall warning to alarm. You have to be quick on the rudder and power in cases like this. I even had to prepare the week before by practicing strong crosswind touch and go’s at Omni.
Just imagine how difficult it was for the American Pilots who landed there at night time, with no lighting during World War II!!! After landing, I described how hard the landing to Arthur and quickly celebrated our second chance in life. We headed immediately to the hotel to satisfy our hungry stomachs. The buffet caused 4 USD per head and the food was great. We also booked an island tour for 8 USD.
The island tour took us around the island for two and a half hours. One would see big artilleries invested by the Americans, but was of little use during the world war. The guns faced China Sea, but the Japanese invaded the island from Bataan. The ruins were a testimony on how hard the Japanese bombarded the island.
The tour was really worth every penny. The driver even brought us back to the airport. I did my pre-flight and soon found ourselves lining up again on runway 08. Before I pushed the throttle, I recited a short prayer. Taking-off from Corregidor has almost the same risk as landing on the island. You are at a low airspeed and trying to climb as fast as you can. A nasty wind shift/wind shear/gust will be very dangerous because you are closer to the ground.
The flight back to Clark was uneventful. Omni was closed already because of the drag race and we were given clearance to land on Clark’s largest runway, 20 Left. After flying on gusty winds at Corregidor, the 12 knots quartering crosswind somehow became a walk in the park.
After 40 minutes of flying, we started our descent to Corregidor. The island’s short and unpaved runway is located on the east end of the island. Ravine on both ends of the runway and often times winds are strong and gusty. Wind cone shifts a couple of degrees to the right then to the left with different wind velocity. Runway 08’s approach has rising terrain on the right, creating turbulence wind shear and gusts. As we were on our final approach, a nasty wind shear was thrown to us. From 55 knots (Indicated Airspeed), it dropped suddenly to 40 knots causing the stall warning to alarm. You have to be quick on the rudder and power in cases like this. I even had to prepare the week before by practicing strong crosswind touch and go’s at Omni.
Just imagine how difficult it was for the American Pilots who landed there at night time, with no lighting during World War II!!! After landing, I described how hard the landing to Arthur and quickly celebrated our second chance in life. We headed immediately to the hotel to satisfy our hungry stomachs. The buffet caused 4 USD per head and the food was great. We also booked an island tour for 8 USD.
The island tour took us around the island for two and a half hours. One would see big artilleries invested by the Americans, but was of little use during the world war. The guns faced China Sea, but the Japanese invaded the island from Bataan. The ruins were a testimony on how hard the Japanese bombarded the island.
The tour was really worth every penny. The driver even brought us back to the airport. I did my pre-flight and soon found ourselves lining up again on runway 08. Before I pushed the throttle, I recited a short prayer. Taking-off from Corregidor has almost the same risk as landing on the island. You are at a low airspeed and trying to climb as fast as you can. A nasty wind shift/wind shear/gust will be very dangerous because you are closer to the ground.
The flight back to Clark was uneventful. Omni was closed already because of the drag race and we were given clearance to land on Clark’s largest runway, 20 Left. After flying on gusty winds at Corregidor, the 12 knots quartering crosswind somehow became a walk in the park.
Art, Where's our next destination???
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