Lake Lawn, Sunday April 17th

bstratt

bstratt

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A group of us are hoping to make Lake Lawn, WI, this Sunday for brunch as long as the weather gods cooperate. Rain out date will be the following Sunday. More details will follow as weather forecasts firm up.
 
bstratt said:
A group of us are hoping to make Lake Lawn, WI, this Sunday for brunch as long as the weather gods cooperate. Rain out date will be the following Sunday. More details will follow as weather forecasts firm up.
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I shall attempt to grace you with my presence again if I can get my new tach hooked up by saturday. The old one is in, but I have the new tach setting from the factory benig set to match what I have on there now.
 
Looks like the front fizzled out. Anyone going to Lake Lawn tomorrow?
 
Bruce, I just asked the same thing on the "Babes" forum. I didn't want to be there by myself. You still up for it?
 
yes.
MKC: 4:00pm UTC (1600Z)wind 080° at 5 knots, visibility 5 miles, mist, 3,000 feet broken.
RFD: 12:00 noon UTC (1200Z)wind variable at 5 knots, visibility greater than 6 miles, 7,000 feet overcast.
Weather will be significantly better at Morris, IL but for me it's neither here nor there....
 
I'll be there. What time?

"Clouds do not concern me Admiral!"
 
Well... No More Lake Lawn:

Walworth County Resort Closes After 132 Years
Down Economy Forced Lake Lawn Resort Into Foreclosure

DELAVAN, Wis. -- The Lake Lawn Resort, a Walworth County vacation destination for more than 100 years, has closed.

The troubled economy forced the resort into foreclosure.

General manager Pete Zellmer said it's difficult to imagine such a staple of Delavan closing its doors after 132 years in business.

"It's the longest continually run resort in Wisconsin," Zellmer said.
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http://www.channel3000.com/money/26070937/detail.html

I hope that whoever buys the property will keep the airport open - And maintain it better, too!

Or, maybe someone with some local ties can convince the city to buy the airport.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I hope that whoever buys the property will keep the airport open - And maintain it better, too!
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I hope whoever buys the property keeps it open to the public. It was just a runway with no ground facilities at all. If you landed there, chances are good you were going to the resort.

What a loss for the community. And what a great place to meet and eat and hang out too. Sigh.
 
azure said:
I hope whoever buys the property keeps it open to the public. It was just a runway with no ground facilities at all. If you landed there, chances are good you were going to the resort.
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There was a building adjacent to the ramp, but it was always locked.

With some renovation, they could have a really nice little airport there.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
There was a building adjacent to the ramp, but it was always locked.
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I remember it! But it was hardly big enough, as I recall, to even function as a decent terminal building... at least so it seemed from the outside.

With some renovation, they could have a really nice little airport there.
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I always wondered how they managed to get an NDB approach into that field. Someone really cared about it for a while anyway. Hopefully the resort will be reopened eventually under new ownership.

132 years and they have to close because of this recession... after surviving the Great Depression. Sigh.

Edit: now I see it's an RNAV (GPS) approach, actually one each way. Is my memory playing tricks on me? It's been over 5 years since I was there so it could be.
 
Bummer!

It is so close to my house and the airport that I fly out of that I only went there occasionally. I had noticed a couple of years ago that they were trying to turn it into a hotel condo place. Teh runway was getting more and more rugged as well and that combined to make me less inclined to go there. Too bad as it is a better place than the old Playboy club a few miles east of there. Hopefully someone would buy it and revamp it up.
 
azure said:
I always wondered how they managed to get an NDB approach into that field. Someone really cared about it for a while anyway. Hopefully the resort will be reopened eventually under new ownership.

132 years and they have to close because of this recession... after surviving the Great Depression. Sigh.

Edit: now I see it's an RNAV (GPS) approach, actually one each way. Is my memory playing tricks on me? It's been over 5 years since I was there so it could be.
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Wow - I had no idea they got GPS approaches! They were probably on the list of all the NDB approaches that were getting axed and got GPS approaches to replace the NDB one.

So, the change over 5 years is probably not your memory, but the winds of change. :)
EDIT: Searching airnav.com using archive.org, in February of 2005 there were both the 2 GPS approaches and the NDB. The NDB approach disappeared sometime between August 2006 and August 2007.
 
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I didn't have an IFR GPS back then so I probably never noticed those GPS approaches before. Good to know I wasnt hallucinating. ;)

BTW, this old thread brings back memories since that was apparently the last meetup at C59 that I was at. Jean and I were there in her Cardinal, and got stranded when the starter failed. Bruce and Ed might remember. Jean ended up staying with the plane, I had to work the next day but was lucky enough to get a ride back to PHN with a kind samaritan in a 172 who had flown in from Chicago with his gf. He would accept nothing for fuel or his trouble and just said to pay it forward when someone else needs a ride. Amazing the folks you meet in aviation. :)

I'm still waiting for a chance to do that someday.
 
azure said:
BTW, this old thread brings back memories since that was apparently the last meetup at C59 that I was at.
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I was just trying to figure out why I wasn't there. I flew to Milwaukee the night before for my fraternity's Founder's Day celebration. Maybe I was just tired? Too bad, though, since my trucking trainee at the time was a big-time aviation enthusiast - He had been a student pilot, and soloed, but then crashed (many years ago) and didn't finish. I flew with him about 4 times while he was with me, I'm sure he'd have loved to go to Lake Lawn.

Maybe we had to get on the road. :dunno:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
I was just trying to figure out why I wasn't there. I flew to Milwaukee the night before for my fraternity's Founder's Day celebration. Maybe I was just tired? Too bad, though, since my trucking trainee at the time was a big-time aviation enthusiast - He had been a student pilot, and soloed, but then crashed (many years ago) and didn't finish. I flew with him about 4 times while he was with me, I'm sure he'd have loved to go to Lake Lawn.

Maybe we had to get on the road. :dunno:
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I'd have to check my logbooks, but pretty sure this was early 2005, or late 2004.
 
EdFred said:
I'd have to check my logbooks, but pretty sure this was early 2005, or late 2004.
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Or you could check the thread title. :D

Seriously, I didn't log any time that day because of the starter failure, but I logged a solo trip to LDM on April 14 '05, and I remember afterward thanking the aviation gods that the starter lived long enough to get me home from there.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Wow - I had no idea they got GPS approaches! They were probably on the list of all the NDB approaches that were getting axed and got GPS approaches to replace the NDB one.

So, the change over 5 years is probably not your memory, but the winds of change. :)
EDIT: Searching airnav.com using archive.org, in February of 2005 there were both the 2 GPS approaches and the NDB. The NDB approach disappeared sometime between August 2006 and August 2007.
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Didn't Lake Lawn have the NDB on the airport? I remember hearing pilots using the Lake Lawn NDB for practice and later asking when it had been turned off.

The airport office and FBO must have been really active up until the 1990s. They had some sort of weather radar in the FBO. The antenna, which looks like a marine radar, is still on the building.
 
mikea said:
Didn't Lake Lawn have the NDB on the airport? I remember hearing pilots using the Lake Lawn NDB for practice and later asking when it had been turned off.
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From the Airnav page for C59:

NDB name Hdg/Dist Freq Var ID
LAKE LAWN 185/3.9 404 00W LVV .-.. ...- ...-
 
azure said:
From the Airnav page for C59:

NDB name Hdg/Dist Freq Var ID
LAKE LAWN 185/3.9 404 00W LVV .-.. ...- ...-
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Now maybe I know what the wires you fly over at the north end of the runway are for.
 
EdFred said:
I'd have to check my logbooks, but pretty sure this was early 2005, or late 2004.
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I know. I was talking about 2005. I wasn't training truck drivers in April of this year.

So, 4/17/05 for the one in this thread - But we did have a gathering there in late 2004 as well that I did make it to - I flew the Dakota down there. Dr. Bruce was there, it was the first time I met him in person. Barry Stratton and Moxie were there too, and a couple others. I still have the pictures somewhere.
 
This is why I hate necromanced threads. Is there anyway we can get a necromanced thread icon? Something that indicates a thread was started more than 6 or 12 months or more ago?
 
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I really enjoyed flying to Delavan... it sux that the resort is no more. :( I never stayed at the resort, but did go along on drives through the grounds just to look at what was there. The restaurant was good also. You can take your boat over and dock next to it and eat on the patio. I had an advantage when going there... having a couple of friends with cars, a boat, and also one of these:

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made going there a no brainer! I guess I will have to request a pick-up from Grand Geneva from now on. :(
 
I was meeting with a client in Delevan, WI today, and decided to drive past Lake Lawn (C59), and what do I see but this unfortunate bird sitting off the run-up area of runway 18. It looks like it's been there a while, but it doesn't appear in the AOPA accident database. Any guess on the type?
 

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Another view looking down runway 18. This is what neglect looks like. How sad for a once nice little airport.
 

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nddons said:
I was meeting with a client in Delevan, WI today, and decided to drive past Lake Lawn (C59), and what do I see but this unfortunate bird sitting off the run-up area of runway 18. It looks like it's been there a while, but it doesn't appear in the AOPA accident database. Any guess on the type?
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N68RW, Grumman Bearcat. I can find pictures of it from Oshkosh 2014, so it must have happened within the last year..
 
Looks like they got on the brakes a bit heavy but didn't stand it on it's nose.

Nice looking Bearcat!!
 
Those pictures really bring tears to my eyes... anyone know the current status of the resort? As bad as the runway looks, at least the airport is still listed as open on the sectional (I haven't checked for NOTAMs though, so it might be closed).
 
I have to check my calendar but I should be able to make it.
 
azure said:
Those pictures really bring tears to my eyes... anyone know the current status of the resort? As bad as the runway looks, at least the airport is still listed as open on the sectional (I haven't checked for NOTAMs though, so it might be closed).
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The resort closed in 2010, but a new investor group bought it in 2011, rehabbed it, and reopened it. Their website says absolutely nothing about the airport, which is odd.
 
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