Missa
En-Route
After a line of thunderstorms and extra work to do spoiled my normal Thursday Citabra lesson, I snuck out of work a little early yesterday and headed to the airport. The Citabra is at PTK which I have been told is the second busiest in the state of MI. I thought it was so cool to be flying in the pattern and have Lear jets and war birds going in and out of the parallel runway and a little super cub on floats doing touch and gos on the lake under the downwind, but this was nothing to where we went yesterday.
We decided it was time to do a little grass strip. So we took off about 5:30pm out of Pontiac and headed out west just shy of 30 miles is a little place called Maple Grove where I believe a little ray of heaven strikes the earth. The wind was favoring niner and I discovered why the AFD listed a displaced threshold due to ground. Being a flat land flyer I really couldn’t figure out why ‘ground’ was something to displace the threshold for… turns out there’s a little hill in the corn field just off the runway. We played in the pattern for nearly about an hour an a half and had it all to ourselves. We used both niner and a much shorter 36 for some crosswind practice. I managed several very nice 3 point landings. 36 was a challenge on both take off and landing. It’s 2000 ft with a 275 ft displaced threshold due to a road and it has a 55 ft power line 560ft off the runway to clear on climb out. The wind at Pontiac was being reported as 050 at 10 and the windsock was reading about the same. Talk about pucker, we had to hit 65 on climb out and keep it there, at PTK we climb out about 70 but I still let the airspeed swing by about 5kts before I catch it. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to power lines. I would have never tried that without the instructor in the back. I need lots more practice before I try that alone, but that’s not a bad thing because it just means more time flying in the Citabra. Back on niner I finally managed to get a greaser wheel landing, and then I did another. It was FANTASTIC.
As we flew it felt like we had gone back in time to the early days of Avaition. The take off end of niner is surrounded by a corn field, about halfway down on the right there is a small stand of trees with just enough room to park an airplane and throw out a blanket for a picnic between them and the runway. On the left just past the intersection of 18-36 is some corrals with some horses running around. Down at the end of 36 is a couple of hangers to the west and a small terminal building to the east with a couple of gas pumps beside it. There is a dirt road that runs just off the runway and I can’t be sure that the tail wasn’t hanging out onto the road when we swung around at the end to get the entire runway for takeoff over those wires. On the other side of the road is a pond and then a hill with lots of trees and some houses that seem awfully close when on final. Just up the road is a house with its own hanger out back. It was picture perfect. The only thing that made me sad was that when we were done flying in the pattern we left and went back to Pontiac instead of pulling into the hanger at the house down the road. How I envy Diana.
The picturesque setting with a gorgeous sun set, the feel of the stick in my hand, the wind blowing in from the open window… it’s as close as I will ever be to heaven on earth.
Missa
We decided it was time to do a little grass strip. So we took off about 5:30pm out of Pontiac and headed out west just shy of 30 miles is a little place called Maple Grove where I believe a little ray of heaven strikes the earth. The wind was favoring niner and I discovered why the AFD listed a displaced threshold due to ground. Being a flat land flyer I really couldn’t figure out why ‘ground’ was something to displace the threshold for… turns out there’s a little hill in the corn field just off the runway. We played in the pattern for nearly about an hour an a half and had it all to ourselves. We used both niner and a much shorter 36 for some crosswind practice. I managed several very nice 3 point landings. 36 was a challenge on both take off and landing. It’s 2000 ft with a 275 ft displaced threshold due to a road and it has a 55 ft power line 560ft off the runway to clear on climb out. The wind at Pontiac was being reported as 050 at 10 and the windsock was reading about the same. Talk about pucker, we had to hit 65 on climb out and keep it there, at PTK we climb out about 70 but I still let the airspeed swing by about 5kts before I catch it. That’s the closest I’ve ever come to power lines. I would have never tried that without the instructor in the back. I need lots more practice before I try that alone, but that’s not a bad thing because it just means more time flying in the Citabra. Back on niner I finally managed to get a greaser wheel landing, and then I did another. It was FANTASTIC.
As we flew it felt like we had gone back in time to the early days of Avaition. The take off end of niner is surrounded by a corn field, about halfway down on the right there is a small stand of trees with just enough room to park an airplane and throw out a blanket for a picnic between them and the runway. On the left just past the intersection of 18-36 is some corrals with some horses running around. Down at the end of 36 is a couple of hangers to the west and a small terminal building to the east with a couple of gas pumps beside it. There is a dirt road that runs just off the runway and I can’t be sure that the tail wasn’t hanging out onto the road when we swung around at the end to get the entire runway for takeoff over those wires. On the other side of the road is a pond and then a hill with lots of trees and some houses that seem awfully close when on final. Just up the road is a house with its own hanger out back. It was picture perfect. The only thing that made me sad was that when we were done flying in the pattern we left and went back to Pontiac instead of pulling into the hanger at the house down the road. How I envy Diana.
The picturesque setting with a gorgeous sun set, the feel of the stick in my hand, the wind blowing in from the open window… it’s as close as I will ever be to heaven on earth.
Missa
