**Please remember that you cannot park directly at the cache site,
but you can park about 30 yards on either side**
Most people love coming out to an airport to watch the planes taking off and landing. But, most do not know what some of the planes are doing as they are flying around the airport, planning on landing, and I wanted to spell out for you what is happening in the air just prior to landing.
As you look to the north up the runway, what you are looking at is Visalia's normal "active" Runway three-zero. Three-zero stands for for magnetic bearing that your plane would be flying if you land from this direction, or 300 degrees on a compass. If the winds are coming from the south (blowing toward the north) at more the 7 miles/hour, then the opposite end of the runway, Runway 12 (stands for magnetic bearing of 120), would be the "active" runway. Historically, the average winds in this location blow from the north toward the south and the runway was built so that on an average day the winds would be blowing straight down Runway 30 and making it much easier for planes to land, ie; "landing into the wind".
Generally, as a plane comes into the Visalia airport vicinity, they would normally call onto the Visalia radio frequency and say, "Entering a left downwind three-zero". "Downwind" in an airport traffic pattern means, in this case, that the plane is heading south at 1000 feet above the ground, just across Freeway 99 from you, paralleling 99 and the runway. At this point, the pilot is beginning to slow the plane down to prepare for landing. My wife hates this slowing because she says that it "feels like we are going to fall out of the sky".
After traveling the length of the runway, in a southern flight direction and on the other side of Freeway 99, the pilot would call the Visalia radio frequency and say, "Turning left base, three-zero", which means he's making a left turn, usually over the Shell gas station on Freeway 99 and Caldwell, and leveling out on a easterly direction. At this time the pilot continues to slow the plane by lowering the airplane's flaps which allow the plane to slow down even further. The pilot will also be looking in all directions for other planes that may be in the traffic pattern or flying near the airport.
A few seconds later, the pilot will call the Visalia radio frequency and say "turning final, three-zero". This means that the plane is now making it's final turn toward where you are standing right now, lowering his flaps even further which slows the plane down even more as they are descending to the runway and the plane is now ready to land. Keep in mind that the pilots DO see you and they love it that they've got an audience! I've observed people watching me land at many airports.
As the plane crosses over the top of you, the pilot would call out, "short final, runway three-zero", which means that landing is imminent. As the plane goes past you at this point, keep in mind that the airspeed is normally just ten miles/hour above the stall speed of the aircraft, or the speed at which the airplane stops flying. The technique for landing is, generally, to descend at this speed, get it just a few feet over the runway surface, and continue to fly while slowing further until the plane stops flying, sinks and touches down. One thing you can watch for here, is once the plane is flying just a few feet over the runway, watch to see if it takes the plane longer than 2-3 second to touch down. If it takes longer, then the pilot actually just came in too fast which caused "floating" over the runway, which likely means not such a great landing because he just extended the amount of runway that it takes to land.