JF wrote:

The story I read was that he ran out of fuel while in a storm and

bucking a

headwind.  He wanted to land at Edwards AFB; but, was either denied

clearance or

could not communicate via radio with Edwards.  Any comments?

Tracy Crook wrote:

Sounds like nonsense or very poor judgement to me.  In a similar situation
(out of gas due to unexpected headwinds) I once landed on a closed runway
with a fence across the middle (also unexpected) and was immediately
surrounded by uniformed men with guns.  Did I regret the decision?  Hell no,
and I would do the same thing next time, (although I do more conservative
fuel planning now).

I think the law is on my side in this as well, but it still would not
matter.

Tracy Crook
rws@altavista.net
www.rotaryaviation.com

A similar incident happened to me one time. A float sank in a rental C172 I was flying. 
I saw this air field and told the controller I had it in sight. The irate controller 
said; You can't land there! That's a Military Base! Duh!!!  

It was Williams in Arizona before they closed it. I kept it running well enough 
to make it to one of the other many airfields in Phoenix by manipulating 
the mixture. I should have told him to take his cup of hot coffee and jam it
up where the sun don't shine.

The head wind part sounds plausible because we have a lot of incidents
like that around here. Robin and I were coming back from Death Valley and
we ran into stiff head winds. I landed at El Mirage before it became Jeff's
private airfield to get gas but the gas guy had absconded with the gas money 
the week before. No gas. Gas pump locked. Stupid me took off and tried 
to find Apple Valley on fumes in the rain and very poor visibility. This 
was before GPS. There I was, circling around in hostile terrain, looking 
for an airport on fumes. I finally found it and landed. The Apple Valley 
gas guy said he never ever put so much gas in a Piper Arrow before that.

Paul Lamar
 
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