Shelter Cove Airport

is a public airport located one mile (1.6 km) west of Shelter Cove, serving Humboldt County, California, USA. This general aviation airport covers 50 acres and has one runway.

Approach into 30 could get quite turbulent, especially in the evenings when the sea-breeze sets in. For a new pilot, straight-in approach to 30 was quite tough for me. With the wind patterns rising from the ocean to the mountain tops, I had to constantly battle in keeping my wings straight (right wing keeps going up with the wind), and following my track (lots of left rudder). I finally gave up the straight-in approach and flew over the field at 3000 ft, well above the mountain heights. Then, I turned west to the ocean, made an 'U' to approach the field in a perpendicular direction, descending from 3000 ft to about 500 ft slightly to the right of the approach end. This had me contend only with a tail-wind requiring some forward slips with very less turbulence. That was a long descending base from the ocean, and I turned final at 500 ft and landed with a heavy wind.

Take-off again was very turbulent, so I flew a straight-out departure till I reached 4500 ft, well above the mountain heights and then did my cross-wind and down-wind turns to go south.

References

*FAA-airport|ID=0Q5|use=PU|own=PU|site=02294.4*A

External links