When I was a wee lad and visited the St. Louis Arch for the first time, my little brain got to thinking… it sure would be cool to fly a plane under it.
Behold this picture of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, obviously taken from the south-southeast.
To the west and southwest of the arch, there’s probably about half a mile or a mile of space where there are no buildings taller than sixty feet or so. Due west of the Arch you’ve got, probably, 3/4 of a mile or more of open space between downtown St. Louis proper and the Arch itself. East of the Arch is this big river that is probably a mile wide, and east of that is the flat, barren wasteland that is Illinois. The Arch is 630 feet high.
I’m thinking that a skilled pilot could approach slowly at around 1,000 feet from the west or southwest, dive down to around 300 feet (300 feet above the ground, not 300 feet above mean sea level), go under the arch, and have plenty of wide open space with which to climb back up to a safe altitude.
Now, we all know that, post 9/11, flying a plane at a low altitude near downtown of a major US city will get you escorted back to the ground by a couple of F-16’s. However, prior to 9/11, did anyone ever attempt to fly under the Arch? Was it illegal? What was their punishment?
Not that you’d asked, but it would be completely illegal, even under pre-9/11 regulations.
Code of Federal Regulations, Title 14, Part 91.119, Minimum Safe Altitudes, General:
Downtown St. Louis would definitely qualify as a “congested area.”
Also, Sect. 91.13, Careless or Reckless Operation:
There was always the story that an F-4 Phantom from MCAS Beaufort flew under the old Talmadge Bridge in Savannah, GA in the early 70’s, and the RIO (backseater) got so pissed at the pilot that the pilot did it again, inverted. No cites, and it smacks of a sea story, but it is a story nonetheless.
Adding to the difficulty for a pilot willing to get into big trouble for a foolish stunt are the tremendous air currents. The monument stands atop a steep riverbank. To the west are tall buildings and highway ramps. To the southwest is a wooded park. So, if the wind were from the west or southwest, it would swirl downward at the arch, then moreso at the bank. With the wind from the south, you’d have to crab sideways east of the arch, then react suddenly to a quick change just about the time you got to the arch. With an easterly wind, you’d encounter a monster updraft right at the riverbank.
The risk of destroying a national treasure, and by the way, dying, is very high, even for an excellent pilot.
I’m pretty sure those wind tricks are not written into your flight simulator software, Bongmaster.
I totally disagree with AskNott about the difficulty of that stunt.
Flying under that thing should be easy for any student pilot. It’s what, 600 feet high and 500 feet wide? Student pilots land on runways that are 50 feet wide. Any pilot should be able to fly under that arch, winds or not. Any pilot who can’t maintain an altitude within 600 feet or stay within 500 feet of a centerline has no business being in a cockpit.
That doesn’t mean it’s smart. It’s stupid, and anyone who tries it should lose their license.
Yeah, me too. I’ve also landed a helicopter in the outfield at Busch Stadium and flown a Cessna under the bottom arch at the Eiffel Tower. My next stunt is to fly a Cessna through the ground-floor tunnel at Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, I don’t think Microsoft Flight Simulator has the Castle blueprints worked into its database.
Well, keep in mind gang that Flight Simulator is to Real Life Flying as Reading Penthouse Forum is to Actually Being In A 3way With Two Members Of The Opposite Sex Who Get It On With Each Other & You For Your Pleasure And Theirs. Except sometimes flying is even more fun than that. But not always.
QtM
who has piloted a J-3 Cub, Fairchild PT-26, and a Stearman N2S3 along with co-piloting a Cessna Citation jet, and once got a ride with Bob Hoover in his P-51 Mustang.
BTW, if you were worried about the dangers of flying even a Cessna through the arch, you could always consider the Cri-Cri. Which, frankly, probably wouldn’t do much damage even if you did deliberately fly it into something.
The version of MSFS the husband and I have allows you to go on-line and hook into current weather. It does a pretty fair imitation of the normal wind effects around my home field, which can get quite, um, exhiliarating at times.
Obviously, if you were going to attempt such a stunt - and please do NOT do such a thing! - you’d pick a day with calm winds (yes, they do occassionally happen in the mid-west, hard as that is to believe) and do the deed early in the morning before thermals started up.
Possible? Oh, most certainly possible.
Also as illeagal as hell. At the very least you’d lose your license, be fined multiple times, and possibly be arrested on various possible charges from trespassing to reckless endangerment.
However, IF you had a good enough reason (say, you were staging a promotional photo on behalf of the Arch’s owners) you could write the FAA and all other authorities involved and ask pretty pretty pretty please with sugar on top could they make a tiny exception to the rules for this one occassion and let you do the stunt? Provided you could convince them that you weren’t a crank, you were able to outline various safety precautions for potential bystanders and observers, and so forth, they may grant you permission to perform said manuver(s).
So, in theory you might be able to do this and not be arrested, but it’s highly unlikely.
We used to have ‘fly-ex’ days at my flying club. A Fly-Ex was a fun fly and competition. The competition included spot landings, a flour bomb drop at a parachute target, a taxi contest, etc.
Most people could nail the spot landing within about 50 feet. No one was ever off by more than 100’ or so. The best attempts would usually be to touch down within 5-10’ of the spot.
The flour bombing involved flying at an exact altitude above the ground (500’), and then dropping a bomb out the window and trying to hit the target. Most people were on altitude and on heading, and missed the target forward and aft by misjudging the arc of the bomb. But almost all the bombs were within 200-300 ft of the target.
Flying through a 600’ x 500’ arch should be trivial for any pilot, assuming the approach and departure are free of obstacles and power lines.
