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Alton Bay, NY Feb 14th

qbynewbie

qbynewbie

Practicing Landings
Joined
Oct 3, 2019
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82
There's a winter carnival tomorrow, Feb 14th, at Alton Bay, NH.

AB is a seaplane base most of the year but in the winter becomes the only FAA certified ice runway in the lower 48. They're expecting as many as 150 planes tomorrow, starting early in the morning. The activities go throughout the day. Landings should be interesting because the runway is now glare ice (no recent snow) and there will likely be a 14-knot direct crosswind. I'm looking forward to it!
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Sounds pretty interesting. Are you planning on attending qby? If so, good luck and pictures wanted!
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Yep, I'm flying over in the morning -- so long as the forecast doesn't deteriorate further. There are mountains between here and there, so I'm watching the forecast carefully. But it looks like it should be ok.
 
Well it's qby's big day. Wonder how he's doing flying over the mountains? Did you make it qby or did the weather keep you from it? Clue us in!
 
I made it to Alton Bay but they closed the runway as I was on a 45. A Dakota landed hard and had a collapsed nose gear. Evidently it was getting even slicker and the crosswinds had gotten stronger, gusty and really shifty, so they closed the runway for arrivals. I diverted to LCI instead. We drove down to Alton Bay for lunch and then flew back home.

Altogether it was 3.2 hours of XC time today but I have to say that it wasn't a lot of fun. The ceilings were quite low, so I was flying in and around the mountains (gotta finish that instrument rating!). It was very turbulent for the entire trip out and back, including one short episode of severe turbulence that ripped the yoke from my hands and caused me to hit my head on the ceiling of the plane. First time for either of those.

It was good experience, though. I was thinking of the crosswind landing thread after I landed at Laconia. After departing the pattern at Alton Bay, I flew up the lake to LCI, which was only about 8 to 10 NM away. The winds were strong and gusty but mainly from the west, so I decided to do a straight-in approach on 26.

The winds were nominally 320@14G24 but they were really all over the place. I touched down softly 12 inches to the left of the center line but the approach was crazy. As I wrote in that thread, I normally use full flaps (40 degrees in my plane) and I did today. I also wrote that I use the crab and kick in general, which I did today, too. But, because the winds were all over the place, I was crabbed strongly to the right then suddenly over to the left of the runway and then back to the right -- it was amazing how the winds were shifting in that little valley. I really had to work on that landing to even keep the plane heading toward the runway. The landing back home at GFL was a little similar on 30 but much easier, even though it was a night landing.
 
"It was a good experience, though."

Now there's a positive person if I've ever seen one!

Thanks for the update qby. Wish things had gone better at Alton Bay for you. I guess you're even off the hook for photos.
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qbynewbie" said:
It was very turbulent for the entire trip out and back, including one short episode of severe turbulence that ripped the yoke from my hands and caused me to hit my head on the ceiling of the plane. First time for either of those.
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Ooo, never had turbulence quite that bad before either. Good reason to make sure your lap belt is always snug though. No telling how many people have crashed after getting knocked out from turbulence. There's a story in the I Learned About Flying From That book that I have where a guy doing pipeline patrol in a jet. He could only remember flying along just fine, then waking up in a hospital. Took a long time to figure it out what happened. Talked to another pilot who flew the same type of plane, he complained about how crummy the harness was, as it would slack off real easily. He then realized that's what happened, which allowed him to hit his head in turbulence. Couldn't remember anything from the crash because he was already out before it happened and the plane just drifted down to the flat terrain.
 
No ice runway this year, festival to still be held.

A run of bad weather—including numerous heavy, wet snowfalls that left several inches of water trapped below the snow and above the frozen surface of New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee—has forced the volunteers who operate an ice runway to declare the season over. The runway did not open to traffic this year.
 
Here in the south we have festivals with ice, you know the little cubes that you put in your drink!
 
I used to live by Alton Bay in NH. They have a great little place there for chow, I believe it was "Shibley's". I lived about ten miles from Alton and would go there every weekend for a walk by the lake. I live in the Portland Oregon area now but loved living in NH. Skyhaven airport in Rochester NH is where I took my very first flight lesson.
 
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