Posted by They say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Probably safe to add landing an airplane to the list.
New York City must hold the distinction of being the nation’s busiest and most complex airspace. To be designated a “Class B” airport (most busy), the facility must process a minimum of five million passengers per year. That’s over 13,000 per day. An average state might have one or maybe two Class B airports. New York City has three, all within 25 miles of one another. In addition, the metro area also has three smaller commercial airports: Teterboro, Islip Long Island, and Westchester County. And then there are the many general aviation facilities including Republic, Morristown, and Caldwell. Never mind the heliports. Flying into this soup is not for the faint-of-heart!
After a long and careful review of the options, I chose to land at Caldwell / Essex County in northern New Jersey. We were flying under instrument flight rules meaning a ground controller was carefully slotting us into the various traffic flows. As we flew across Pennsylvania, we were “handed-off” from one controller to the next. Then came the moment: “2-8-2-Echo-Echo, contact New York Approach on 127.6.” Switching radio frequencies, we were greeted with what sounded like the live auction trading pit at the Chicago Futures Exchange. “101 Kilo Kilo turn right direct Whezy, 8 November Yankee maintain 3,000, 45 Foxtrot Mike maintain 5,000 expect RNAV 24, Flexjet 435 reduce speed 250 till advised………..” Waiting for the nanosecond opportunity to check in, we instead heard “2 Echo Echo, you up, third try to reach you!” Translation: “Welcome to New York, we’ve been expecting you!”
Now that we had become radio friends, we were directed with a series of instructions that would align us with the runway for landing. The winds were stout and a bit gusty, not unlike home but a healthy challenge nonetheless. As we were nearing the airport, my new friend offered me a one-time-only opportunity to land on a better (wind-wise) runway using visual flight rules. I jumped on it in a New York minute and bade farewell to New York Approach. “Hello Tower, Two Echo Echo visual 28.” “Two Echo Echo, right base 28, cleared to land.”
Not my best landing ever, but we taxied up to the terminal as four planes waited to take off and two more landed behind us. We were definitely not in Kansas anymore…
