Not sure when I had noticed the (approximately) 1500′ unused roadway at Parksville beach park. It extended from beach straight in to a ditch, perhaps purposely created to prevent driving from street to beach.?
In any case it appeared to me as a perfect short field aircraft runway…so after visiting with aviator friends at the Parksville/Qualicum airport. They departed for a short trip to the sunshine coast in their Cessna 172, I planned to rendesvous with them there.
For some reason which I don’t recall now I had taken on board the father of one of those other pilot’s who lived near the Parkville beach park. So as we flew over Parksville I rather impulsively decided to land on that unused roadway at the park.
I turned towards the beach and landed on that roadway with no difficulty at all in my Mooney M20 holding the nose up in order to reduce landing speed and distance. I delighted to land on short runways anywhere, but this was not an ‘approved’ landing site by any means! My elderly passenger was not traumatized, and he lived quite close by so simply walked home from there, perhaps shaking his head – as did his pilot son when he heard about it.
This took place in the 70’s and his son who is still with us and would confirm this really took place. And for no particular reason other than the airplanes nearly silent gliding approach no one appeared to witness it either, even though there were quite a few people on the beach and in the park at the time. Of course my fairly expeditious takeoff (before authorities might be advised) was a lot more noisy, but then again the beach activity and slight on-shore breeze probably mitigated the noise somewhat.
I can’t say it was a wise decision, all in all, but it was done safely and without incident. Just one more event to reflect on in my flying experiences.
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