North East Flyers fly-in to Cherry Ridge N30

GMascelli

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GaryM
North East Flyers head to Cherry Ridge, N30, for lunch! We had a nice turn out and it made my day to catch up with friends and Pilots I haven't seen in a long while. I'm looking forward to our next adventure. Special thanks to Robert Ciotti for organizing the fly-in.

Here is a link to the write up and flight video
http://gmflightlog.blogspot.com/2020/10/north-east-flyers-cherry-ridge-n30.html
 
Hi Gary, I flew my daughter and I up to N30 for Labor Day weekend. My folks have a place close to lake Wallenpaupak and Cherry Ridge is pretty close. Good breakfast at the restaurant there. Cheap gas, too! Lemme know if you guys go again and I'll see if I can fly up.

Edit: Great blog, too! I like the way you write. It's like you capture the fun of this whole GA thing.
 
Hi Gary, I flew my daughter and I up to N30 for Labor Day weekend. My folks have a place close to lake Wallenpaupak and Cherry Ridge is pretty close. Good breakfast at the restaurant there. Cheap gas, too! Lemme know if you guys go again and I'll see if I can fly up.

Edit: Great blog, too! I like the way you write. It's like you capture the fun of this whole GA thing.

I spent my summers in a little town called Keystone, located in Plains township. The lake is a beautiful area and it was fun to finally check Cherry Ridge off the list of places to visit. I'm sure I'll be back, the leaf view was amazing, just about peak.

Thanks for reading the blog, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I started in 2005 and have kept it current with our travels. Since the accident things have been a bit slow and then covid shut everything down. We have some flights planned, with a trip out to next years balloon fest in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The best part about keeping a blog is easy research to remember a trip , hotel, FBO or any other info you need to find. ;)
 
Have you guys been to Spring Hill? I had an interesting landing and takeoff because it was either a big tailwind downhill or headwind but uphill towards the berm and hills beyond.
 
Have you guys been to Spring Hill? I had an interesting landing and takeoff because it was either a big tailwind downhill or headwind but uphill towards the berm and hills beyond.

70N - Not that I can remember, name doesn’t ring a bell. I don’t think there is a restaurant on the field.
 
It is just a handful of miles SW of Cherry Hill. It is actually for sale at the moment. A "one-way"ish airstrip that has quite a slope upwards in one direction with a large 30' berm immediately at the end of the runway 23 and rising terrain beyond. The other direction (05) is downhill and has falling terrain.
I flew in there for the first time after visiting Cherry Hill and landed, then realized 3 things after landing
1 - That it is at altitude-ish (1730', but this was a hot summer day and density altitude was pushing 4000')
2 - The runway was sloped upwards for runway 23 by 60' over the 2500' length and immediately at the end was a 30' tall dirt berm. Trees are cleared for 2000' so at least that is good.
3 - The winds were strong-ish at 12G20 and in line with the runway, but the wrong way. So a headwind for the uphill 23 or a tailwind for the downhill 05.
4 - Runway 05 ended in a 30' dropoff immediately at the end of the pavement. So an overrun would end up with a long tumble down a hill at the best.

So in my mighty C150 that hates hot days, I had to decide to takeoff uphill into a headwind, or downhill with a strong tailwind. I figured that I had more time to decide to abort going uphill on 23 and did not want to get hit with a big tailwind gust just as I was taking off from 05. I made it over the berm of 23 and had a long low flight over terrain as I climbed above.

But none of this info is alerted strongly enough in the Chart Supplement for 70N, in my opinion. You can see that the runways have a different reported heights, but that is not really info that screams there could be end up being a one-way strip and we probably just gloss over this if not alerted to it. There is an obstruction noted for 05, but it is noted for Runway 05 as a landing obstruction and not a takeoff obstruction for 23, and no mention of the actual runway slope or that you might get screwed if the winds just so happen to be in the exact wrong direction to takeoff downhill. I am sure that no local pilots takeoff uphill and probably just avoid days with the winds like I experienced.

Just a FYI to be careful and a reminder that there are situations that you may miss. If all the cards line up in the wrong way, things can get hairy.
 
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Funny you mention 70N - I took my dad on a sightseeing flight the weekend we were up at Cherry Ridge for Labor Day. I wanted to check out Spring Hill since it is closer to his house so we made a quick stop there. This is in a PA28R-200 Arrow.

Landing on 23 wasn’t a problem although the pavement wasn’t in great shape and the runway is narrow like a sidewalk. But plenty of room to fly over the highway, land and stop. We rolled out using aero braking for tHe most part and I did notice the upslope. Taxied back and the sock still favored 23. I think the DA was around 3000’ takeoff was safe, but yeah the takeoff roll seemed to take a lot longer than usual and the terrain did seem to be nearer in the windscreen than I like.... trees seemed a bit closer too. All in all it was a safe takeoff, but no way would I depart there in less than visual conditions. My dad and I decided we would use a Cherry Ridge when I come to visit even though it is a few minutes more drive for him to pick me up.
 
70N is for sale and a steal at 1.875 million !

Havent been to Cherry Ridge in years. due for a visit.
 
When I was there it was dead. Only one aircraft visible in the hangar. None on the ramp.
 
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