A short field landing at Meadowlark in the early 80's
I had rented the 172 from the flight school and took my old friend Clarence Olson up to try and video the beaches for some possible advertising media (Clarence was the only one I knew who had a video camera). My banner tow airplanes didn't have the comfort nor the clear window glass that the school airplanes did. Unfortunately it turned out to be a very turbulent day and Clarence could not hold the camera still enough for usable pictures. When we returned to Meadowlark we saw that an airplane had landed gear-up and was surrounded by H.B. Police and Fire.. The flight school informed me that that field was closed and would be for an hour or so (Duh). After circling a few times and thinking about the $42/hour I was eating up, I decided to go ahead and land; I had at least several hundred feet of runway before hitting the fire truck parked in front of the damaged airplane, so I had adequate room. I had no idea that Clarence was trying to catch the landing with the camera and was surprised at seeing it later. The video is about as poor as it could be; Clarence was having a tough time keeping the camera still. Poor as the video is, the content is interesting. Note the fireman motioning me off of the runway as if I had anywhere else to go. All of the "yakking" that is going on is me talking to Tanya at the Sky Ad office and her leaving the "mike" open for a minute or so. Surprisingly, I never heard a word from anyone about the incident.
A Short Field Landing at Meadowlark
Google has offered a "free" video hosting, so I am giving it a try. Here is another "landing" video at Meadowlark. Posey (now Captain Posey) and I had flown to Santa Rosa Island and landed on the beach. We collected a couple of bags of abalone and flew back to L16 for a special dinner. The entire flight from the shoreline at LAX to the hole in the clouds over the island was done in his Cub with no navigation equipment.
Returning from Santa Rosa Island
You can see still pictures of the trip at my site: