Goodland Municipal Airport felt like the epitome of what a Kansas airport would be—wide-open spaces and lots of room. John and I were taxiing for takeoff on Runway 12. The problem was that the taxiway entered the runway several hundred feet to the southeast of the runway threshold. We looked at the little stub to the northwest, and then we looked to the southeast—and it seemed like there was plenty of length remaining. At that point, we made two decisions in rapid succession that constituted poor risk management.
First, we made the decision that it wasn’t worth it to back-taxi to get all of the runway. Second, we decided that the light breeze from the northwest was not enough to be concerned with and taking off slightly downwind would be fine. After all, it would be a long taxi to the threshold of Runway 30. Plus, the Hobbs meter was running in our rented Piper Comanche.
