Posted by Having trained at San Carlos California, a towered airport located in very busy and complex airspace, I “grew up” in a structured and procedural aviation world. Pattern entry, altitudes, waypoints, etc are all pretty precise.
Fast forward two years, and I’m based at Petaluma, an un-towered airport known colloquially as the “wild west.” Many types and vintages of aircraft are based there (gyrocopters, experimentals, etc), not all of which have radios or pilots that choose to use them. Head-on-a-swivel is the standard approach procedure.
Ah young lad, how sheltered.
This week I experienced the real Wild West in Idaho and Montana. My airliner sensibilities were first tested at Nampa where, on short final, a taildragger passed under me, “sidestepping” Nampa’s runway for a different runway at a close-by airport. Intersection takeoffs seemed routine. Midfield crosswind departures, sure. Later at Miles City Montana, a Cub landed, turned toward the ramp, and taxied across the turf until it reached the apron. Who needs taxiways when you have big tires?
