In the waning days of 1987, fellow pilot Bill and I went out to shoot a few practice approaches at Oxford Airport (KOXC) in central Connecticut. Bill was safety pilot as I flew the ILS 36 and NDB 18 approaches. In no rush, we cruised on down to the Long Island Sound shoreline to shoot the VOR-A approach into Griswold Airport (now closed).
Griswold was private, but nothing said we couldn’t shoot a low approach. On completion of the procedure, not seeing anyone around, I landed anyway because I couldn’t resist the challenge of landing on only 1863 feet of runway.
A quick landing and takeoff – what could possibly go wrong?
Local scuttlebutt alleged that a Griswold family owned the airport and that they were “crazy.” I resolved to make a U-turn on the runway and depart before anyone noticed.
Too late! Just after turning around, two men brandishing shotguns came running toward us, yelling that we shouldn’t have landed, and that the airport was NOTAM-closed. I pushed up the throttle, and we departed straightaway.
Back at our home airport, we did some research and found it was indeed closed. I felt ashamed for not having checked it out first even though we had no plan to fly there.
I learned an unforgettable lesson to read and fully understand NOTAMs for every flight, no matter how benign or routine. Flying with an FAA inspector many years later, he refused to land at an airport we had not briefed. He called Flight Service, who assured him there were no pertinent NOTAMS. I’m sure he learned that habit without facing the barrel of a gun.
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- Read those NOTAMs! - October 16, 2019
California weather: CAVU all summer except maybe along the coast. So I checked destination weather and took off from Orland headed for some place in the Bay area which took me near enough Travis AFB to fly over it at 7,500 feet to see the C-141’s, KC-135’s, and whatever else that might be there (this was in the 1980’s). I was still about 20 miles North when I saw an F-something in a vertical roll with smoke on – OH, OH, must be Travis Air Show weekend. So I changed course to quite well avoid any temporary restricted area that might be there. I think Travis Approach saw me coming.
Close call! Check NOTAMs, especially in these days of pop-up TFRs.
/fred
NOTAMS or not, per the picture provided I see that the runway is not Xd out.
It the boys with shotguns are that touchy and the runway has never been Xd, then maybe they should put down the shotguns and pick up a few buckets of paint to X out the runway.
Nate, the runway was not closed, just private.
They could have marked it PRIVATE though.
/fred
The picture you see is way back then, circa 1987. I don’t think it exists anymore.
More on the (Clark) Griswold airport:
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/CT/Airfields_CT_C.htm#griswold
I have been to this excellent web site. Many airports now closed and redeveloped since I started in 1976.
:-(
fred