Beach Landing

Several days ago I wrote about the Ocracoke Airport. As I mentioned, before the airport was built, and before NC12 was constructed (in the 1950s it sometimes served as a runway), pilots landed right on the beach. In the 1930s and 1940s the area from the edge of Ocracoke Village to where the NPS campground is today was a wide tidal flat, a near-perfect landing area. This is what was written in The Beaufort News in August, 1941:

Largest Plane Ever Made Can Land Safely On Ocracoke Island Beach

Photo by Aycock Brown

NO PLANE IS TOO large to land on the mile-wide beach of Ocracoke Island. Aviators who have landed there say it is the largest natural airport in the world. The above picture was made on Ocracoke beach a few days ago. It shows a partial view of the big 3-motored Stinson owned by Mayor R. J. Reynolds of Winston-Salem. In this plane, Mayor Reynolds, who is also treasurer of the National Democratic Committee, gets about the country in a hurry.