outside closed my eyes and thought I was in California. The temperature was 85, not a cloud in the sky and there was a light breeze out of the West. It was hard to imagine that just 2 weeks ago I needed a dust mask to walk across the street. Despite the good weather landing in the desert is still a challenge. Above are two pictures that show one of our aircraft in the landing profile. The downwind from our aircraft, the rotor wash, always kicks-up dust and debris on our approach to landing. The more refined or smaller the sand particles the dustier the landing. As we come into land both pilots and both aircrew in the back are making calls over the inner aircraft communication system as to whether or not they can see the ground. If at least one pilot and one aircrew in the back can not see the ground the pilots "pull power" to climb out of the dust and "go around" to try a second attempt to land - likely at different slightly spot. As you can imagine some landing zones are more challenging than other, if you think this looks bad in the day try it at night using the NVG's I spoke of in an earlier post. In case you were wondering this aircraft made a safe landing and I would call this a pretty dusty zone but not the worst I have ever experienced. Have a good day.
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