How to Land a Plane on Reed’s Rugby Field

Ever-present goose poop notwithstanding, Reed’s open spaces are the perfect place for relaxing, playing Frisbee, or fighting in the mud over a giant concrete owl. But did you know that you can also land a plane on them? As it turns out, Reed’s rugby field is just barely long enough to accommodate such an aeronautical adventure! The Great Lawn is unfortunately too short for planes to land on, though it might be the right size for helicopters and anything else that can take off and land vertically. (Indeed, Reed has hosted a hot-air balloon on the premises in the past! But I digress.) Here’s how you would go about getting a plane onto the rugby field.

First of all, airspace. I present to you Exhibit A, Seattle’s terminal area chart: the highest resolution aeronautical chart that covers the Portland area. (Chart can be found at https://aeronav.faa.gov/visual/02-20-2025/PDFs/Seattle_TAC.pdf and others at https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/vfr/.) More restricted classes of airspace are generally arranged in concentric rings around large airports, and our very own PDX is no exception. Reed sits within a segment of a ring marked 40/17, meaning that one must receive permission from Portland’s control tower to fly at altitudes between 1,700 and 4,000 feet inclusive. So that means anywhere below 1,700 feet is fair game for unapproved shenanigans!

However, there’s another snag. The FAA has general rules in place for all operations, and they’re pretty strict. Behold Exhibit B, Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, section §91.119(b). It states that for flight over congested areas, one must remain at all times above “an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft.” Phooey! How are we going to get this plane on the ground, then? The same way every plane legally gets back on the ground—there’s another part of the law that says it applies “except when necessary for takeoff or landing.” So since we’re landing, the limitation to stay 1,000 feet above obstacles within 2,000 feet does not apply. Hooray!

Now that all the pesky minimum and maximum altitudes are dealt with, it’s time to take a look at the runway. The rugby field is around 1,250 feet long in its entirety, with a slope going up from west to east. On a runway with such a pronounced slope, landing uphill takes precedence over any winds, so we can remove wind from the equation. In general, it’s good to land with a headwind and it’s very bad to land with a tailwind, so doing this on a day with a headwind would probably be best just in case.

Let’s say our plane is a Cessna 172, a generic four-seat small propeller plane. How long would it take to clear the trees at the west end of the runway and then come to a stop? The answer to that question depends on the altitude and the temperature. The colder the weather and the lower the elevation, the more favorable the numbers. Every plane has a Pilot’s Operating Handbook, or POH for short, that tells us what these numbers are. Enter Exhibit C, the Cessna 172 POH. It tells us that with the best possible circumstances—at sea level on a cold winter day—it would take 1,205 feet to land. That’s cutting it very close, but we might just make it. And there’s more good news! The POH’s default numbers are with no wind. But if there was an 18-knot headwind, it would only take 964 feet!

Unfortunately, runway surface material plays a part too, and not always a helpful one. The POH says that we would need to add 223 feet for landing on dry grass. Back to a very close shave again. But wait, this is Portland. Since when is the grass dry? Given the weather around here, if this endeavor is taking place on a cold day, chances are it’s going to be wet out, too. Given my (admittedly limited) experience landing on wet grass runways before, the mud will very quickly bring you to a stop, much more quickly than on a flat paved strip. My educated guess is that this will all come out in the wash and the landing distance would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000-1,200 feet depending on the circumstances of the day. Just barely enough!

How about if we tried a different plane? In a two-seat Cessna 150, the Cessna 172’s smaller cousin, the landing distance after clearing a 50-foot obstacle is 1,075 feet. A four-seat Piper Cherokee, another common small propeller plane, also has a landing distance of around 1,000 feet, though that number only holds for flat, paved, dry runways. It seems that any comparable kind of small plane, on a cold day with mud and a strong headwind, would just barely be able to make it.

Of course, this is not taking into account the fact that geese live in and around Reed, and would probably vehemently defend their territory to the bitter end. Indeed, in real life, a flock of geese managed to take down US Airways Flight 1549 via bird strikes on both engines, forcing it to land on the Hudson River in 2009 (miraculously, everyone survived). One can only assume that the geese have never forgotten that day and are just waiting for their next opportunity to take down their metal competitors once and for all. One can only assume that any local griffins would get mad, too. Eek! Perhaps we’d be better off simply buzzing Lewis & Clark.