Off Airport - Farm Style

[Mtns2Skies]

Not all off airport landings have to be done in the wilds of Nevada or the Northern Rockies... sometimes it's fun to go play in farm country too. @rwellner98

 

[rwellner98]

Thanks @Mtns2Skies!

Did I tell you I'm going to plow the alfalfa field this winter...

 

[strangebird]

Deer season hunters in the field??, I can just see it, Bubette says to Bubba lookie there that must be one of those grey and white snowbirds headed South, lets shoot, bag and tag it, sure is big bird that just flew over and landed,

Fun video, get some bigger tires though I look for farmers runways even then you do not know what you are getting into since a lot of them are unused,

 

[MauleSkinner]

My Maule had row-crop gear spacing…I could land in bean or corn fields as long as I didn’t cut crop with the prop.

 

[jnmeade]

Remind me to tell you about the time I landed on a farm field and found out about half-way down that an irrigation pivot pipe was running across the runway.

 

[GaryM]

My Maule had row-crop gear spacing…I could land in bean or corn fields as long as I didn’t cut crop with the prop.

But not all row crops have the same row spacing. Decades later, I still remember what a pain in the butt it was to change the tire spacing on tractors.

 

[jnmeade]

I'm 80 and I've never changed tractor tire settings for row crops (especially corn). They used to be 40" (so horses could walk between them), then 38" or 36", then 30" but once set they stayed because your planter was set. Now there are a very few corn planters that are narrower. You don't change planter unit spacings and almost never change combine tire spacing, so once a farmer picks his row spacings around here it's pretty well set. I can't speak for wheat or cotton or that kind of crop. I'd say one would cut the crop if it was more than about 6-8" for most planes and that only lasts about 2-3 weeks after planting. Landing on harvested crops you want to watch that the bean stubble doesn't puncture the sidewall. Both bean and corn stems are much stronger now than they used to be and regular farm tires are often punctured. The new insecticides have much better crop stem health and they don't degrade and rot like they used to, thus they are stronger and stay sharp. I am very reluctant to drive my pickup in a soybean stubble field.