Landing Lights Park off LGA Approach Runway 4
Greetings ...
Though probably lesser known than its “nearer neighbor” … Plane View Park (PVP) … to the end of LGA runway 4 … Landing Lights Parks (LLP) has an identity of its own as I’ve learned from experience.
Though LLP is located just a couple of blocks “outward” from PVP … arriving aircraft still swoosh overhead into LGA at dramatically low visual ... and high aural ...levels. These can be overwhelming ... even alarming ... to the uninitiated.
LLP also has a prominently sited and fenced in FAA landing lights facility … hence the park name. This alone deters me from photographing arriving flights here even though it’s a public park. I remember being stopped … questioned … and requested by NYPD to “move on” when photographing arrivals and departures from a small hill … really a knoll … just NORTH of the Grand Central Parkway ... i.e. within the precincts of LGA. The NYPD indicated an FAA landing aid facility at the corner of said hill. Remembering this … I avoid photographing at LLP as well.
But there’s another … aural … feature of LLP that I’ve noticed. It’s not the actual breathtaking passage of these beautiful, fast-moving airliners just seconds from touchdown. It’s the weird whistling, rippling, almost ethereal sound of rushing, twisting air that follows just seconds later. Call it “jet-wash” … “wake turbulence” … whatever. I’ve never heard this phenomenon at PVP.
Every time I hear it I’m reminded of the ill-fated American Airlines Flight 587 … a fully-loaded Airbus A300 … that left JFK on the morning of November 12, 2001 only to crash seeming seconds later into the community of Belle Harbor in the Rockaways with the loss of all 260 passengers and crew aboard plus five unsuspecting unfortunates on the ground.
Some reports blamed wake turbulence from the JAL 747 that immediately preceded AA587 down runway JFK 31L. Another report blamed her first officer for violently over-correcting for the aforementioned wake turbulence that resulted in 587’s tail section being completely wrenched off.
Whatever the ultimate cause … I always think of this tragedy … the second worse in U.S. aviation history … whenever I hear or read about wake turbulence. A poignant footnote to the tragedy is that American Airlines has never again designated one of their flights as “587.” The number had been permanently retired.
[For the non-drivers amongst you …
Both PVP and LLP are easily reachable by local transportation. The Q33 city bus shuttles between the 74th Street & Roosevelt Avenue and LGA’s main passenger terminal … passing within a block of both parks in succession. Get off the LGA-bound Q33 at Astoria Boulevard and 83rd Street and LLP is diagonally across the street to the left. Get off the Q33 a few minutes later at 23rd Avenue and 87th Streets and PVP is also diagonally across the street ... again to the left.
BTW … the Q47 city bus also shuttles between the 74th Street & Roosevelt Avenue and Marine Air Terminals. Get off at 82nd Street and Astoria Boulevard for LLP. Or … get off the next stop ... at 82nd and 23rd Avenue ... and walk one long block downhill to PVP. Or just walk directly from LLP to PVP in a few minutes. Just be sure in advance that the winds are from the NE and confirm via ATIS that LGA runway 4 is indeed taking incoming flights.
Mike (shamrock838)
