By Emme Hornung
With the pressure of thousands of spectators watching as you land at the world’s busiest airport during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, making a few practice landings beforehand can make all the difference — and the community at Warrenton-Fauquier Airport (KHWY) in Midland, Virginia, is making sure their pilots stick the landing with their very own green dot.
The idea first came in 2024 from Bob Hepp, EAA 175362, founder and chief flight instructor at Aviation Adventures. For years, the Aviation Adventures team has been bringing an Israeli pilot group from Virginia to Oshkosh for AirVenture (among other sightseeing stops along the way). But before they embark on their tour, the team checks out the pilots in U.S.-certified aircraft.
“But every year, I look at the dots on the runway, going, ‘That’s something that we haven’t checked people out in doing,’” Bob said. “Flying into AirVenture can get kind of wild and exciting sometimes, so this makes it as familiar as possible, for people to take one thing off their plate that they otherwise would be uncomfortable with.”
With FAA approval, Sean Jeans from Aviation Adventures used a bright green, temporary utility marking paint in the center of the 5,000-foot runway, giving pilots 2,500 feet of landing space “no matter which way the wind’s blowing,” according to Bob.
Sean did his research before painting the dot to maintain the same ratio of runway-to-dot width (KOSH’s is 150:50 feet), and his application method can easily be replicated. It’s as simple as a marking wand, a cord the length of the radius, and a weighted pole — place the pole in the center of the dot with the cord tied to both the pole and wand, and walk in a circle to create an outline before filling it in to make a perfect homemade green dot.
The airport welcomes any and all AirVenture-goers in the area to come practice landing on the dot. Airport tenant Sarah Patten, EAA Lifetime 776986, has found it useful in her preconvention preparations.
“I’ve flown into Oshkosh a number of times, and I’ll start practicing spot landings a few months before. I’ve always just used thousand-foot markers at different airports, but that’s a pretty normal sight picture,” she said. “The cool thing about where they put the dot here at Warrenton, it’s further down the runway, which is more like some of the dot placements at Oshkosh. And this gives you the chance to practice that sight picture before you actually do it at Oshkosh, which I think is wonderful.”
Airport Manager Stacey Williams reports that the process of getting FAA approval for the runway marking was smooth and easy, and a special NOTAM is issued so pilots are aware the dot is only for training purposes. She looks forward to continuing the new tradition in the future, as it gets the whole community excited for AirVenture.
Who knows, maybe it will become your airport’s newest tradition, too, and we’ll start seeing more special green dot appearances around the country!