My direct aviation experience, at the moment, is limited. At the time of writing, I am just over 70 hours of logged time, in Stage 4 of my part 141 PPL training, and a PPL checkride just around the corner. I’ve been flying out of X51 – Homestead General Aviation Airport for all of my training, and have performed 250 landings, at least 230 of them are at X51. Embarrassingly, I just found something I should have found about 229 landings ago.
Operating Rules and Procedures for Homestead General Aviation Airport (X51)
Well, isn’t that fun. The county government, Miami-Dade County, owner and operator of X51, has published their own set of rules for the airport. Now, I have, in one form or another, been taught most of the rules pertaining to my type of flight, Powered-Fixed Wing, and we’ve followed them. However, the existence of this document was not commonly known around the airport.
Upon finding this document, I’ve shared it with everyone I know. We owe it to ourselves and others to make sure everyone knows the rules and procedures; and to keep ourselves out of trouble.
What did we know
I’ll run through, briefly, what rules we knew and followed. Our tribal knowledge did not fail us.
Parajumpers
X51 has parajumping operations at the airport, and the rules and procedures address safety for the jumpers. The jumpers utilize the southeast portion of the airspace for their jumpzone.
The instructors and FBO staff will inform everyone that passes through the FBO about avoiding powered operations (really operations in general) over the southeast corner of airport property.
But what about someone coming in who has never been there before? Over flying the airport to take a look at the windsock and traffic pattern markings can put an aircraft over the southeast corner. Looking at the sectional charts, and the directory supplement, we can see traffic patterns for runways 10 and 18 are to the right, and their inverses, 28 and 36, are to the left. We can extrapolate the info not to fly over the southeast corner with that information, but it isn’t laid out in specific terms.
You know where it is? In the Operating Rules & Procedures document from the operator! Section IV, subsection B, #15 specifies “Pilots shall avoid operating in or adjacent to the Skydiving Drop Zone, Aerobatic Box and the Ultralight, Glider and Paramotor Operations Areas.” Further down, either in Subsection F, #5, or in the diagrams of Exhibit A, we can see the drop zone is located in the southeast corner of airport property.
Back taxiing and turn arounds
X51 doesn’t really need back taxiing or on runway turn arounds. There are taxiways and runway transitions on the ends of both paved runways. However, if traffic is already on a taxiway, going the opposite direction, it could be tempting to take a runway that is not in use.
Back to our operation directives, Section 2, subsection B, #5 “Turn arounds and back taxiing on the runways are considered unsafe operating practices and are not authorized.”
Guess what, that shortcut could cause your quite the headache.
The ‘No Transgression Zone’
X51 has 2 northern runways; 9/27 Turf and 10/28 (paved). There are no authorized connections between the two, one is meant solely for the ultralight and glider operations, and the other is the east/west wind powered runway. The ‘no transgression zone’ is between the runways, marked with red & white markers.
But here is an interesting piece of information, X51 in in Homestead, FL where it rains year-round and the grass grows non-stop. It is impossible for all the grass to be cut all the time, and these markers disappear into the wilds of X51’s grass for most of the year.
Section 2, subsection B, # 10, as well as diagram Exhibit B tell and show us where the no transgression zone is, and what to do about it.
What we didn’t know
Admission time, but of course we aren’t admitting to actually doing anything. 😉
Operations on 9/27 Turf
9/27 Turf, to the unknowing airman, looks like a prime opportunity to practice a soft field take off and landing. Wouldn’t you know, Miami-Dade County has though about that, and probably the potential for an accident that would shut down the turf operations. Section 2, subsection B, #13 “Only existing paved surfaces are to be used for aircraft operations.. Glider Tow Aircraft and Tailwheel aircraft are the only conventional fixed wing aircraft currently allowed to operate on Runway 9/27 (Turf).” Sorry tricycle gear aircraft, no turf operations for you. 🙁
The Lesson
Today’s lesson is simple. You, as the pilot in command, must know everything there is to know about the airports you are operating within, the airspace, and the route. Local rules and procedures are part of the knowledge, and we as pilots should be looking for them. They not only tell us what can get us in trouble, but can also give us information on being a good aviator and neighbor.
The local rules exist, and we didn’t know they did, until I happened to stumble across them while looking up some other information. I now know to look for them.