Alive, safe and sound.
Category Flying Safety
Hello from Alton Bay!!!
On Friday I said that this weekend was the Alton Bay Winter Festival and I was planning on flying myself, my Nephew and his friend there for a fly-in. Just like a Lotusphere presentation I decided to do a practise run on Saturday. So Saturday we started out heading south to Boston, where we hoped to do a scenic flight of the city, unfortunately the planes were leaving Logan directly over the city so that didn't work out. So we fly over to IBM Westford and Littleton, and buzzed the Nashoba valley ski slopes. From there we flew to Laconia and then across to Alton Bay. We landed at Alton Bay and then flew straight back out to Sanford Maine, where we stopped for breakfast at the Cockpit Cafe, which is a very popular place for pilots, as you can fly-in , taxi to the restaurants door, hop out and grab a meal. From Sanford, we left did a few pencil floating tricks in the plane, buzzed the picturesque Nubble Lighthouse and then returned to Portsmouth. The weather Saturday was great, with visibility greater than 60 miles, no clouds and very light winds. It wasn't warm, but it's wasn't much below freezing. The landing on the ice was pretty uneventful, yet the ice was very slick with no snow cover whatsoever.
This is the landing and takeoff from Saturday:
Sunday was a different day, with different weather. It was very windy, gusting up to 24 knots. There were scatted clouds at about 3000 feet for the early part of the morning, which meant we almost decided not to go to the ice festival. We delayed taking off for a couple of hours to let the clouds to life, which they did, so we were left with clouds at around 4500ft. We flew direct from Portsmouth to Alton Bay, and boy was it bumpy, as the saying goes kept the plane shiny side up so all were happy, but it was turbulent. We got into the circuit and landed the plane. The crosswind was pretty strong, and you'll see on this next video the wind actually turned the plane into a weathervane on the ice and turned us towards the snow bank (ice would be a more correct description) I'm glad that I managed to turn the plane back to going forward the right way and had no incident. As you can see in this picture however, someone landing after me was not as fortunate. I am glad to say that no one in the plane was hurt.
If you watch this movie of our Sunday landing, you will see what I mean about the wind turning us towards the bank towards the end of the video.
We left Alton Bay after having some lunch and getting my brother to snap our photo on the webcam. We had a great time. So how icy is an ice runway? Well, let me say this, before I took off there was a person ice skating around the taxi ramp!
Hello from Alton Bay!!!
On Friday I said that this weekend was the Alton Bay Winter Festival and I was planning on flying myself, my Nephew and his friend there for a fly-in. Just like a Lotusphere presentation I decided to do a practise run on Saturday. So Saturday we started out heading south to Boston, where we hoped to do a scenic flight of the city, unfortunately the planes were leaving Logan directly over the city so that didn't work out. So we fly over to IBM Westford and Littleton, and buzzed the Nashoba valley ski slopes. From there we flew to Laconia and then across to Alton Bay. We landed at Alton Bay and then flew straight back out to Sanford Maine, where we stopped for breakfast at the Cockpit Cafe, which is a very popular place for pilots, as you can fly-in , taxi to the restaurants door, hop out and grab a meal. From Sanford, we left did a few pencil floating tricks in the plane, buzzed the picturesque Nubble Lighthouse and then returned to Portsmouth. The weather Saturday was great, with visibility greater than 60 miles, no clouds and very light winds. It wasn't warm, but it's wasn't much below freezing. The landing on the ice was pretty uneventful, yet the ice was very slick with no snow cover whatsoever.
This is the landing and takeoff from Saturday:
Sunday was a different day, with different weather. It was very windy, gusting up to 24 knots. There were scatted clouds at about 3000 feet for the early part of the morning, which meant we almost decided not to go to the ice festival. We delayed taking off for a couple of hours to let the clouds to life, which they did, so we were left with clouds at around 4500ft. We flew direct from Portsmouth to Alton Bay, and boy was it bumpy, as the saying goes kept the plane shiny side up so all were happy, but it was turbulent. We got into the circuit and landed the plane. The crosswind was pretty strong, and you'll see on this next video the wind actually turned the plane into a weathervane on the ice and turned us towards the snow bank (ice would be a more correct description) I'm glad that I managed to turn the plane back to going forward the right way and had no incident. As you can see in this picture however, someone landing after me was not as fortunate. I am glad to say that no one in the plane was hurt.
If you watch this movie of our Sunday landing, you will see what I mean about the wind turning us towards the bank towards the end of the video.
We left Alton Bay after having some lunch and getting my brother to snap our photo on the webcam. We had a great time. So how icy is an ice runway? Well, let me say this, before I took off there was a person ice skating around the taxi ramp!
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Comments
You went ballistic?
Did you wear a parachute?
Were only required flight crew members on board?
Hey, Carl, on the video the snow bank looked awfully close. But since I think that anything that is still moving when touching the ground (or needs speed to get off the ground), should not fly at all, I am probably biased. But for a plank rider like you, going sideways must be exciting.
That looks like an expensive weekend trip for that Archer(?). Is the nose gear attached to the firewall or to the engine mount?
Posted by Christian Tillmanns At 01:41:37 AM On 02/16/2010 | - Website - |
Posted by Dadl At 05:50:57 AM On 02/16/2010 | - Website - |