Tuesday, August 05, 2014

Water landings are routine events at David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport (KDWH): Spring facility is only land-locked water runway in Texas and just one of only five water runways in the U.S.

Terry Sonday makes a final check before taking off in his plane.


Takeoffs and landings are an everyday occurrence at airports all over the world, but it's less common to see aircraft taking off or landing on water.

And it becomes even less common to see water landings on general aviation airports that are landlocked.

However, seaplanes do have that option at David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport, but it takes a special touch.

"It's definitely different in the fact that your airplane is now like a speed boat (when it lands on water)," said Terry Sonday, a licensed pilot with more than 40 years experience. "It takes a little more control because the plane will wobble around in the water a little bit."

Sonday, who also trains seaplane pilots, has been licensed to fly seaplanes for 20 years, said landing a small aircraft on a runway does take practice, but landing on water takes a bit more anticipation of what the aircraft may do when it touches the water.

"On the runway you can just step on the brakes and straighten things out, but on the water, the plane slides from left to right so it can make it a little more challenging, but it's a lot of fun."

Amy Mounger, human resource manager at Hooks airport, said the water runway is used by Sonday more than any other pilot.

Mounger said the water runway is also significantly shorter that the concrete and asphalt runways at Hooks, which are 7,009 feet and 3,987 feet long.

"The length of the (water runway) is actually 2,530 feet," she said. "Relatively small aircraft are landing on this, so they don't need as much runway."

The water runway has been a part of the airport landscape since the late 1960s.

Roger Schmidt, the maintenance manager at Hooks airport, used to hang around at the airport when his father worked there for Charles Hooks.

He remembers when construction on what he called "the sealane" was completed.

"I remember as a boy seeing it as they were digging it," Schmidt said. "The southern portion was very deep at that time. Also there was a company here that sold the Lake Amphibious aircraft and they used the sealane to demo their aircraft."

While these types of runways are not unheard of, they are hard to find, especially in a city the size of Houston.

In fact, the water runway at Hooks is the only land-based runway in Texas, and one of five land-locked water runways in the United States.

However, water runways are widely used in sealanes in Alaska, and further south in Louisiana, California and Florida, Sonday said,

Although the unique runway is a fixture at the airport today, it didn't exist 50 years ago when Charles Hooks started landing his personal plane on a grassy field in 1963.

His hobby eventually evolved into a business and a public airstrip, and the airport, then known as Houston Northwest Airport, was opened.

Not long after the airport opened, Charles' son, David, was killed with three others in a small airplane crash.

The airport was soon renamed in his memory.

In the late 1980s, Hooks sold the airport to the Gill family, and it has grown significantly larger since then, to include a second runway, services for jets and helicopters, an FAA control tower, a privately owned diner and of course, the water runway.

Sonday said anyone with a pilot's license cannot just decided to fly a seaplane, and it in fact would require training in both types of aircraft.

"It's a little bit different," he said. "It's like an automobile. Most people get their drivers license in a car, and moved up to a pick-up or a (semi-truck). You typically learn to fly in a Cessna or a Piper Cub, and then after about 50 hours of training and practice you go and … get a pilot's license. Then after that, you could go and get a seaplane rating."

A seaplane rating, Sonday says, assumes the person has flying experience, so an instructor can teach the pilot the differences in both aircraft.

"It typically takes about five hours of transition training to fly a seaplane," he said.

While Hooks is one of the few land-locked airports with a water runway, there are plenty of water landing areas in the Houston area, such as Galveston Bay and Lake Conroe.

Of course, there are challenges associated with water landings, particularly on rivers where there are sand bars or floating debris, such as logs.

"Landing in the canals and bayous in Louisiana can also be pretty challenging," he said.

Splash landing

There are only five land-locked airports in the lower 48 states that also have water runways. Here's where those airports are located:

David Wayne Hooks Airport: Spring, Texas

Acadiana Regional Airport: New Iberia, La.

Folsom Lake Airport: Folsom, Calif.

Cooper Airport: Hartford, Maine

Felts Airport: Spokane, Wash.

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