Never Again: A monumental mistake

For months we had brainstormed, researched online, and hovered over planning charts. Carefully we had tweaked our airplanes for the 1,500-mile trek to reach the Navajo wonderland, and now having finally arrived we hungered for a sunset flight among the giant sandstone sentinels—dazzling backdrops for more than 100 Hollywood films. Monument Valley is not a U.S. national park with its attendant altitude restrictions. It is Navajo land. FAR 91.119 prevails.

We sat fidgeting on the porch of our rented cabin near the airport eyeing the distant monuments, watching the shadows grow and the vibrant colors come even more alive with a blazing intensity. Back and forth our gazes went between the burning buttes and the windsock down at the airstrip. It whipped about like a frolicking mustang’s tail. “I’m afraid it’s not going to die down much,” Tom muttered. “It will be too rough to enjoy the flight.” I agreed and we ambled down to tie our birds down for the night.

I stood holding a tie-down rope looking around. We only had three days. It seemed now the first one would be wasted. But then, maybe it was smooth up higher. “Tom, let’s fly!” I yelled. He hesitated, looked up and around. I saw him drop his rope. We mounted up—me in my Van’s RV–6, him in his Cessna L–19 Bird Dog. With a 60-knot airspeed difference, we had dubbed ourselves the Hare and Tortoise Tour.

Tom was seasoned ex-Army aviator with a Vietnam combat tour under his belt in the same type of airplane he now owned. I had both U.S. Air Force and airline wings stashed away in my retirement accoutrements. If any were able to handle a few gusts it should be us. So we figured.

The takeoff is always to the north at Monument Valley Airport (UT25), a private strip that requires permission from the resort that owns it. Vertical cliffs rising hundreds of feet above the field hug its west and south sides. The nearest AWOS was 60 miles north; the windsock was all we had. Tom went first, and then I started my roll. As soon as the wheels left the asphalt our airplanes began bucking and rolling, causing both of us to profoundly regret the decision.

The gusts slammed us so brutally my head hit the top of the canopy and sent my headset whirling into the baggage compartment behind me. While I tightened my harness and fished for the headset with one arm behind me, Tom wondered why I wasn’t answering his radio calls telling me what a sucker he was for falling for my suicidal suggestion to fly. He turned back toward the field with me in trail. His taildragger had a well-known reputation of not suffering clumsiness on its rudder even in calm air, and so did mine to a lesser extent. Onerous winds multiplied that threat enormously. I could have easily passed him and landed first, but I gutlessly pulled my throttle back to let the L–19 make the first attempt.

We saw the folly in our decision to fly when we turned back west. The setting sun exposed the pale yellow layer of dust above the desert floor—a certain sign of stiff winds, gusts, and low-level wind shear. By the time we reached the traffic pattern, the shadow of the mesa had advanced over the runway, cloaking it in an ominous darkness. I circled while Tom made a low approach. “It’s rough,” he transmitted. “But I’m gonna try it.”

I lost sight of him when he entered the mesa’s shadow on short final. I could hardly hold back calling him to ask how bad it was, but I didn’t want to distract him. Finally he transmitted and I heard a trembling in his voice—very uncharacteristic of him. “Boy, it was really bad. Be careful!” That sent a nauseating feeling into my stomach.

A sense of urgency sank in as I made a practice run over the runway fighting the gusts and bumps, wondering how I would get my beautiful RV down without banging it—and me—up on the narrow strip or in the desert brush alongside it. More distressing still, I didn’t have nearly the taildragger time Tom had, and even he had suffered a scare. With dimming daylight, a density altitude of around 8,500 feet, and gusting quartering tailwinds rolling off the mesa like horizontal tornados, this was the classic scenario of being miserably up here, wishing madly you were down there.

Tom suggested I try a landing to the north (into the wind), which was discouraged by field rules because of the terrain, but a measure of desperation was growing so I decided to try it. I slowed and entered a close-in right base to Runway 34. That put the mesa to my left a reasonably safe distance away, but it set me up for a short final approach segment—hardly enough space to establish a stable approach, especially with the winds we had. And the cliff bordering the field to the west was right in front of me. Overshooting final was not an option. It would be like maneuvering inside a dark bathtub. I got genuinely scared when I descended into the mesa’s shadow and the airfield’s features faded in the dimness. Then I lost depth perception on the cliffs ahead. I had seen enough. I powered-up and turned away.

Now I was considering diverting to Blanding, 60 miles north. Tom and I had been there earlier for fuel before landing at Monument Valley, which had no fuel. That put me in a pickle. I didn’t have the gas or the daylight to hold high waiting on the winds to die down or to make multiple attempts and then divert. I decided I would try one approach. If it was still nuts at 50 feet I would bolt for Blanding.

At a half-mile out I couldn’t track the centerline even with a steep right bank and the downwind rudder near the floor. My normal approach airspeed is 70 knots, but I held at 85 for the gusts. I checked GPS groundspeed—125 knots. The density altitude, the quartering tailwind, and the extra airspeed brought the asphalt toward me at an eye-popping rate. I drifted left, made a turn back to centerline and re-established crosswind controls, only to get blown to the side again. My 50-foot decision height flickered by and the RV was still bucking and rocking. Well past the threshold I was again drifting toward the left side, but the wind, still strong, seemed to be at least getting steadier. I decided to delay the go-around decision just a little longer.

I cranked in more upwind aileron than I had ever used before on the RV. Suddenly, the drift stopped and the center stripe stayed under the nose. I was concentrating so hard I was surprised when the upwind wheel touched. Then came the jolt of the downwind wheel rolling. I held the tail up as long as I could, knowing the RV would be a handful of nastiness when I let it down. I felt the tailwheel bump and suddenly I had a windshield full of cactus and mesquite. I caught it with rudder and a burst of power, straightened the nose and started breathing again.

When I rolled into the parking pad at the south end, Tom was still in his airplane. I got out and walked over to him on unsteady knees. I held my hands up to show him the shaking. The seasoned combat veteran said he had promised God so many things before making that landing that he would never be able to deliver.

The Navajo wind gods left us alone the next morning. With an orange sun throwing rock formation shadows for miles, we took off in glassy calm air and soared among the buttes and mesas like the pilgrims we were, turned loose in a promised land, living the dream flight of our lives. But we didn’t forget how the poor decisions of the first evening had humbled us and made us tremble and sweat like novices. We let the smugness of our fat logbooks write checks our abilities narrowly cashed.

Alan Cockrell of Alabama, a retired airline and U.S. Air Force pilot, owns an RV–6.