Is he still landing on the taxiway?
**Is he still landing on the taxiway?**
Back in the summer of 88 I saw a guy do that in his Piper Aerostar (a hot piston twin) at the uncontrolled airport at Galesburg, IL.
With the high overcast sky that day, and the grass a bit dull from dry weather, the gray runway asphalt didn’t stand out nearly as good as the recently repaved parallel taxiway. The guy simply didn’t fly the pattern, just flew a long final.
I was wrenching on a Cessna in the maintenance hangar, and saw the guy coming in, and could tell when he was a 1/4 mile from the pavement (”over the fence”) that he was lined up with the taxiway. He touched down, immediately passing by the groundskeeper, (GK), who was going the same direction on a cabless tractor pulling a 20’ mower.
GK stopped, just sitting there staring at plane rolling out. The right wing had barely missed him. He was making his second pass mowing along that taxiway. Had he have been making his first, it would have been bad for him and the pilot (who was the only occupant).
GK (retired Army) promptly drove to the ramp to ‘greet’ the pilot. I couldn’t hear the words, but could see the his head bobbing as he yelled at pilot, whose head was bowed during the tongue lashing. GK went into the FBO office and told them what happened. The pilot admitted he locked his eyes on the black taxiway, only looking away to scan for traffic.