November 24, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode of “Mike Dell’s World,” Mike Dell explores various airports located north of Traverse City, Michigan. He begins the show by introducing himself and referencing the previous episode about flight schools and aviation-related topics in the area. He explains that he will be discussing other airports he has flown to or has connections with, utilizing ForeFlight, an electronic flight bag, for reference.
Mike starts with Antrim County Airport (KACB), located northeast of Traverse City near Bellaire. He describes it as a small airport without a control tower in class E airspace, where pilots announce their locations on a common traffic frequency. He shares his experiences doing touch-and-go landings, low passes for practice, and highlights the airport’s amenities, including fuel services and a comfortable lounge.
Next, he moves further north to Pellston Airport, noting its significance as an airport with scheduled airline service and a restaurant on-site, which he humorously labels a “hundred dollar hamburger” destination. He continues to mention Charlevoix Airport, which hosts Island Airways that services Beaver Island. He details the two airports on Beaver Island but admits he has not landed there.
Mike then discusses Gaylord Regional Airport and Gaylord Airport, emphasizing their runway lengths and his experiences landing there. He contrasts this with Kalkaska City Airport, where he recalls the challenges of landing on a narrower runway. He also talks about Frankfurt Airport, sharing similar landing difficulties due to its relatively short and narrow runway.
He proceeds to describe Manistee County Airport, known for its changing airlines and essential air service. He mentions Cadillac Wexford County Airport, highlighting a unique grass runway formerly used for gliders, which is no longer operational. He shares experiences of flying over various other airports like Mackinac Island and Saint Ignace, where approaches involve over-water flights.
Mike mentions historic Acme Skyport Airport, which has been revived, and Thompsonville Airport, where he had an ultralight flying experience. He also reflects on Wertz Smith Airport, once a large military base with a long runway, describing his future intentions to visit.
Throughout the episode, Mike humorously shares insights about his experiences at these airports, including the challenges of landing, the uniqueness of each location, and the importance of navigating various airspaces, especially concerning military operation areas.
He concludes the episode by teasing that his next episode will cover his memories of the Blizzard of ’78 as a twelve-year-old.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
[Speaker 0]In a world created by Mike Dell, I
[Speaker 0]guess you would call it Mike Dell's world.
[Speaker 1]And this is the aforementioned Mike Dell, and
[Speaker 1]this is episode four thirty for November twenty
[Speaker 1]four twenty twenty five. And, yeah. Well, I
[Speaker 1]didn't create the world. I wouldn't wanna take
(00:23):
[Speaker 1]blame for that. But thanks to Mark there,
[Speaker 1]I have that stinger. Yeah. Anyway, So I
[Speaker 1]I yesterday's episode is all about flight schools
[Speaker 1]and, other schools, aviation related around Traverse City,
[Speaker 1]but there's a lot of other airports, around
(00:43):
[Speaker 1]the area. And in fact, I'm gonna just
[Speaker 1]kinda look here on, a thing called ForeFlight.
[Speaker 1]And what four ForeFlight is is no it's
[Speaker 1]known as a an electronic flight bag. And,
[Speaker 1]you know, used to be pilots would have
[Speaker 1]to carry a a flight bag full of
(01:04):
[Speaker 1]paperwork and maps and things, you know, because,
[Speaker 1]well, we didn't have iPads and iPhones and
[Speaker 1]Android devices and flat screen, glass panels with
[Speaker 1]all the maps and stuff on the airplane
[Speaker 1]I fly. There's you know, all the charts
(01:25):
[Speaker 1]are on the screen. You know? I can
[Speaker 1]split the screen in front of me and
[Speaker 1]have the flight instruments on the one side
[Speaker 1]and the maps on the other and get
[Speaker 1]all the same information. But I also have
[Speaker 1]an iPad that I can carry or I
[Speaker 1]do carry that also has all that information
[Speaker 1]on it. And the program I use is
[Speaker 1]called ForeFlight, and it shows all the airport.
(01:49):
[Speaker 1]It's basically the, you know, VFR sectional, does
[Speaker 1]all the IFR stuff. It, you know, it's
[Speaker 1]it's all the aviation stuff all packed into
[Speaker 1]an iPad. It's pretty cool. But, I'm gonna
[Speaker 1]use that to, talk about all the airports
[Speaker 1]that I've flown to. I I I won't
[Speaker 1]talk about too many other airports around, but,
(02:09):
[Speaker 1]at least the ones I've flown to or
[Speaker 1]flown around or flown near or have some
[Speaker 1]other connection to. So, of course, Traverse City,
[Speaker 1]we talked all about in an episode, about
[Speaker 1]Traverse City's airport. But the first other airport
[Speaker 1]that I flew to, you know, around here,
(02:31):
[Speaker 1]anyway, is, Interim County Airport. It's a little
[Speaker 1]north east of Traverse City. I had to
[Speaker 1]think about that for a second. And it's
[Speaker 1]a a little county airport, near Bel Air,
[Speaker 1]Michigan. And my fore flight just crashed. That's
[Speaker 1]always nice, but I'm using the web version,
(02:53):
[Speaker 1]not the iPad version. But but, yeah, Antrim
[Speaker 1]County is a nice, nice airport. They've got
[Speaker 1]a lot of hangars, a lot of general
[Speaker 1]aviation. It's in Bel Air, Michigan, and a
[Speaker 1]lot of, people have winter or summer houses,
[Speaker 1]I should say, or winter houses because there's
[Speaker 1]a big ski resort nearby. And, they utilize
(03:17):
[Speaker 1]the the Antrim County Airport or KACB for
[Speaker 1]those of you keeping score. And, Antrim, like
[Speaker 1]I said, it's a nice little airports. Note,
[Speaker 1]there's no control tower, so it's class echo
[Speaker 1]airspace, class e, which, you know, when you
[Speaker 1]fly into it, you you announce yourself five
(03:38):
[Speaker 1]miles out and and on the common traffic
[Speaker 1]frequency. And anybody that's flying around there will,
[Speaker 1]acknowledge you or at least know about you.
[Speaker 1]And then you you tell them you get
[Speaker 1]in a little closer. You tell them how
[Speaker 1]you're gonna enter the pattern. You know, usually,
[Speaker 1]it's, like in this case, it's runway zero
(04:00):
[Speaker 1]two and two zero. So depending on the
[Speaker 1]winds, which so say I was coming in
[Speaker 1]from the west or actually from the southwest,
[Speaker 1]I I would be coming in, and I'd
[Speaker 1]call them about five miles out on the
[Speaker 1]common frequency and tell them, hey. This is
[Speaker 1]whoever whoever, you know, your call sign. And
(04:21):
[Speaker 1]I'm gonna enter the left downwind for runway
[Speaker 1]two zero. And I'm gonna cross midway, midfield
[Speaker 1]and enter that, left downwind, and then you
[Speaker 1]follow the pattern around. Every time you make
[Speaker 1]a turn, you call, know, entering the downwind,
[Speaker 1]entering the the base, on final runway two
(04:44):
[Speaker 1]zero. And then when you land and you
[Speaker 1]taxi off the runway, say clear of the
[Speaker 1]air clear of the runway. You know? And
[Speaker 1]you you announce that even if there's nobody
[Speaker 1]else flying around. But if there is somebody
[Speaker 1]else flying around, generally, they'll tell you where
[Speaker 1]they are and what they're doing, and you
[Speaker 1]can just kinda slot yourself into the traffic
[Speaker 1]pattern. I won't explain this on every airport,
[Speaker 1]but in this particular case, this is what
(05:05):
[Speaker 1]I do when I go there. And, you
[Speaker 1]know, sometimes do touch and goes, sometimes do
[Speaker 1]go around, sometimes do a low pass. Low
[Speaker 1]passes are fun, by the way. And this
[Speaker 1]is a five thousand foot runway, and, that's
[Speaker 1]it's a lot of fun, I think. You
[Speaker 1]know, you get down as close to the
[Speaker 1]runway as you can without touching it. And
(05:25):
[Speaker 1]you go down the most of the length
[Speaker 1]of the runway, then you climb out. That's
[Speaker 1]called a low pass, but the the reason
[Speaker 1]for that is, you get to get into
[Speaker 1]ground effect, and that's a lot of fun
[Speaker 1]to, and good practice because, you know, the
[Speaker 1]more you get the feel for ground effect,
[Speaker 1]the more you can control your landings better
(05:46):
[Speaker 1]and, land the way you want to. You
[Speaker 1]know, they're short field or normal landing or
[Speaker 1]a soft field landing, you know, so you're
[Speaker 1]gonna land on grass or mud or snow
[Speaker 1]or whatever. You know, you do the soft
[Speaker 1]field technique. And like I said, getting used
[Speaker 1]to ground effect and experiencing that is a
(06:07):
[Speaker 1]really good way to get that muscle memory.
[Speaker 1]So that's mainly what I've done at, Antrim
[Speaker 1]is, like I said, do touch and goes
[Speaker 1]or do, you know, land land and taxi
[Speaker 1]back, for short field or or, short field
[Speaker 1]or, soft field technique landings and low passes.
(06:29):
[Speaker 1]So, anyway, that's Antrim. Antrim's got a really
[Speaker 1]nice, I guess it's not really an FBO,
[Speaker 1]but, I guess that's kinda what they call
[Speaker 1]it. They sell gas there and and, you've
[Speaker 1]got a nice lounge for you to lounge
[Speaker 1]around in and, bathrooms and whatnot. You know,
[Speaker 1]just a good place to stop off and,
(06:51):
[Speaker 1]and, do your aviation stuff. But that's that's
[Speaker 1]the one that I've been to the most,
[Speaker 1]and that's, you know, literally fifteen minutes, ten
[Speaker 1]minutes away from Traverse City. Gets us out
[Speaker 1]of the class delta at Traverse City where
[Speaker 1]the control tower is. And and, you know,
[Speaker 1]this makes it a little easier when it's
(07:12):
[Speaker 1]not busy at Andrew. If it's busy, you
[Speaker 1]know, in an uncontrolled airport, it's, it's better
[Speaker 1]to go somewhere else. And, well, since we're
[Speaker 1]going that direction, a little further north, and
[Speaker 1]I haven't been to a lot of these
[Speaker 1]airports. There's one in Charlevoix. There's one in,
[Speaker 1]Boyne City. What's that one? Always forget the
(07:35):
[Speaker 1]name of that. Harbor Springs. But the one
[Speaker 1]that I've been to, further north is up
[Speaker 1]by the tip of the, lower peninsula, pretty
[Speaker 1]close to the Mackinac Bridge is Pellston. And
[Speaker 1]Pellston is actually kind of a biggish airport
[Speaker 1]for an uncontrolled field. They actually have airliners
[Speaker 1]flying in there. Delta, I think, has two
(07:56):
[Speaker 1]flights a day in and out of there.
[Speaker 1]I think I've talked about that previously, but,
[Speaker 1]Paulson's kind of a neat little, well, not
[Speaker 1]little airport, but a little, you know, little
[Speaker 1]ish airport. And, one of the runways is
[Speaker 1]six thousand five hundred feet, feet, and another
[Speaker 1]one is five thousand four hundred feet. And
(08:17):
[Speaker 1]they have the distinction of having a restaurant
[Speaker 1]on the field. So a lot of people
[Speaker 1]go up to Charleston, specifically to go to
[Speaker 1]the the restaurant there. And, you know that's
[Speaker 1]kind of the hundred dollar hamburger destination and
[Speaker 1]a hundred dollar hamburger usually costs more than
[Speaker 1]a hundred dollars but it's still pretty cool.
(08:39):
[Speaker 1]Back to Charlevoix which is a little further
[Speaker 1]south of Pellston and along the shoreline. Shoreline
[Speaker 1]or shoreline. Charlevoix has the the distinction of
[Speaker 1]having a little airline there. I don't know
[Speaker 1]if it's an airline, more of a charter
[Speaker 1]thing. But Island Airways, which goes out to
(09:01):
[Speaker 1]Beaver Island, so the Wilkie Airport on Beaver
[Speaker 1]Island. There's actually two airports on Beaver Island,
[Speaker 1]the Beaver Island airport, and then there's Wilkie,
[Speaker 1]which is owned by Paul Wilkie and the
[Speaker 1]guy that runs Island Airways. So I don't
(09:25):
[Speaker 1]know anybody that actually uses the the one,
[Speaker 1]the the the regular Beaver Island airport. I
[Speaker 1]guess, probably, because they do have fuel there,
[Speaker 1]and they they and they are lighted, so
[Speaker 1]is Wilkie. But, you know, the Beaver Island
[Speaker 1]Airport, the the proper airport has three runways,
(09:46):
[Speaker 1]four thousand three hundred feet's the longest one,
[Speaker 1]and then they got two shorter ones that
[Speaker 1]are grass. But their asphalt runway is, like
[Speaker 1]I said, almost forty three hundred feet. And
[Speaker 1]then just a couple miles away or a
[Speaker 1]mile away maybe is Wilkie. And Wilkie has
(10:07):
[Speaker 1]one asphalt runway that's twenty five hundred feet,
[Speaker 1]and a grass runway is thirty five hundred
[Speaker 1]feet. So the grass runway is, is longer.
[Speaker 1]I wonder which one the islanders come in
[Speaker 1]on. Anyway, I've not been to either of
[Speaker 1]those. I have been over Charlevoix Airport. I've
[Speaker 1]have not landed there. Another airport in the
(10:28):
[Speaker 1]area is, the Grayling. No. Gaylord. Sorry. Grayling
[Speaker 1]Airport is an army airport or army Gaylord
[Speaker 1]or Grayling Army Airfield, but I have not
[Speaker 1]landed there. You can you can go there.
[Speaker 1]You know, it's a public use airport, but
(10:50):
[Speaker 1]it's, it's got a class delta, you know,
[Speaker 1]control tower and and all that. So I
[Speaker 1]haven't been there yet. At some point, I
[Speaker 1]might check it out, but it's, it's owned
[Speaker 1]by the, US army, Grayling Army Airfield. And,
[Speaker 1]but, again, it's a public use airport in
[Speaker 1]the town of Grayling, Michigan, not, not on
(11:14):
[Speaker 1]the base, which is south of town. Kind
[Speaker 1]of an interesting setup there, I thought. But
[Speaker 1]the one I've been to is Gaylord Airport.
[Speaker 1]That's, fifteen miles north of Grayling, along I
[Speaker 1]seventy five kind of out in the middle
[Speaker 1]of the state. And it's nice except for
(11:37):
[Speaker 1]there's a restricted area that's pretty close. Although,
[Speaker 1]you have to be up pretty high to
[Speaker 1]get in the restricted area, so it's not
[Speaker 1]really a problem. But, Gaylord Regional Airport, and
[Speaker 1]they have a couple of runways there at
[Speaker 1]both asphalt, a sixty five hundred foot runway,
(11:57):
[Speaker 1]and a forty two hundred foot runway, and
[Speaker 1]both of which are in good condition and
[Speaker 1]paved. And I've actually landed on, both the
[Speaker 1]runways up there, with there with an instructor
[Speaker 1]one time and, you know, just for a
[Speaker 1]place to go land. And then, did it
[Speaker 1]one other time by myself and landed on
(12:20):
[Speaker 1]a different runway. You know, I ran landed
[Speaker 1]on the north south runway when I was
[Speaker 1]by myself and, east west runway with the
[Speaker 1]instructor doing, some cross country training. Cross country,
[Speaker 1]really. Yeah. Around the late twenty eight mile
[Speaker 1]no. It's more than that. Fifty miles, I
[Speaker 1]guess. Forty something. I don't know. Whatever it
[Speaker 1]was, it was just a a thing I
(12:42):
[Speaker 1]had to do. And that was, you know,
[Speaker 1]that that was a cool airport, I thought.
[Speaker 1]One of my favorite airports to play around
[Speaker 1]with. The problem with this airport is if
[Speaker 1]Traverse City's airliners are running on two eight,
(13:03):
[Speaker 1]landing to you know, pointing towards the west
[Speaker 1]when they land, they come awfully close to
[Speaker 1]this airport. It's Kalkaska is the name of
[Speaker 1]the airport. It's Kalkaska City Airport, and, you
[Speaker 1]know, twenty ish miles, east of Traverse City.
[Speaker 1]But, went over there one time, early morning,
(13:25):
[Speaker 1]and I thought, oh, try that out. And,
[Speaker 1]they've got a thirty five hundred foot runway
[Speaker 1]that's only seventy five feet wide, which gives
[Speaker 1]you a whole different perspective than the hundred
[Speaker 1]and fifty foot wide runways at Traverse City
[Speaker 1]or the hundred foot wide runways, Antrim and
[Speaker 1]Pellston. So seventy five is pretty skinny, and
(13:46):
[Speaker 1]it gives you a different sight picture. So
[Speaker 1]the first time I tried to land there,
[Speaker 1]I I was way higher than I thought
[Speaker 1]I was, because of the weird visuals, you
[Speaker 1]know, just being used to a wider runway.
[Speaker 1]And, ended up doing a go around first
[Speaker 1]time and then did, I don't know, four
[Speaker 1]or five touch and goes there and then
[Speaker 1]came back. But it was first thing in
(14:08):
[Speaker 1]the morning and not a lot of airline
[Speaker 1]traffic. And even the airline, that's not really
[Speaker 1]a problem. The airliners usually turn somewhere between
[Speaker 1]Kalkaska and Traverse City. And, you know, you're
[Speaker 1]really not in their way, but, it still
[Speaker 1]makes you a little nervous being around a
[Speaker 1]lot of airliners. Of Course flying out of
[Speaker 1]Traverse City, we're around a lot of airliners
[Speaker 1]anyway, but, you have a control tower there,
(14:30):
[Speaker 1]Kalkaska. You don't. Let's see. One of the
[Speaker 1]other airports that, also yeah. I have this
[Speaker 1]habit. Whenever it's the first time I landed
[Speaker 1]an airport, I would say ninety percent of
[Speaker 1]the time, it's been a go around because
[Speaker 1]I somehow screw up the screw up the
[Speaker 1]approach. Yeah. It's just a a thing of
(14:51):
[Speaker 1]mine, I guess. But another one I did
[Speaker 1]that at was Frankfurt Airport. Frankfurt, Michigan is
[Speaker 1]over on the shoreline, and it's about as
[Speaker 1]far west of Traverse City as Kalkaska is
[Speaker 1]east of Traverse City. Maybe a little further,
[Speaker 1]but it's kind of down in a hole
[Speaker 1]kind of down on a bowl and so
(15:13):
[Speaker 1]the the approach into the airport both direction
[Speaker 1]well actually the south side is not too
[Speaker 1]bad but on the north side it's you're
[Speaker 1]kind of coming over a hill That's kind
[Speaker 1]of the same way in, Antrim, but, Antrim's
[Speaker 1]not quite as bad. But Frankfurt is, and,
[Speaker 1]their runway is is also seventy five feet
(15:34):
[Speaker 1]wide. So that was part of the problem.
[Speaker 1]They got a, you know, four thousand foot
[Speaker 1]long runway, but it's only seventy five feet
[Speaker 1]wide. So it has kind of a weird
[Speaker 1]weird thing going on there. And a bit
[Speaker 1]south of that, is Manistee County Airport, Blacker
[Speaker 1]Airport. And, you know, I've flown in and
(15:55):
[Speaker 1]out of there a few times, both commercially
[Speaker 1]and myself. It's a it's a neat neat
[Speaker 1]little airport, but it has a a little
[Speaker 1]airline. They're, they they keep changing the airline
[Speaker 1]out as part of the essential air service.
[Speaker 1]I think I talked about in the other,
(16:16):
[Speaker 1]the other show I had about aviation. But,
[Speaker 1]yeah, I forget what the new newest one
[Speaker 1]is, but they fly, you know, little regional
[Speaker 1]jets back and forth to Chicago. I think
[Speaker 1]I talked about all that. So we'll just
[Speaker 1]skip that, but they've got, kind of the
(16:37):
[Speaker 1]same runway layout as Traverse City more or
[Speaker 1]less. Ten and two eight, the east west
[Speaker 1]runway, five thousand five hundred feet, long and
[Speaker 1]hundred foot wide. So, you know, that's not
[Speaker 1]too odd. And then they have a a
[Speaker 1]shorter runway, only twenty seven hundred feet, long.
[Speaker 1]It's a north south runway, at one and
(17:00):
[Speaker 1]nineteen. So not quite Traverse City's, three six
[Speaker 1]and one eight, and this is one nine
[Speaker 1]and zero one. It's a little bit different,
[Speaker 1]but, not not too much. Not enough to
[Speaker 1]notice. Still north south. And, yeah, I've never
[Speaker 1]landed on that one. I always land on
[Speaker 1]two eight or I think once I landed
(17:22):
[Speaker 1]on one zero that's, coming from the west
[Speaker 1]going east. But, been in and out of
[Speaker 1]that one a fair number of times. And
[Speaker 1]Cadillac, that's another one, that's south of us.
[Speaker 1]It's about yeah. Like I said, about about
[Speaker 1]an hour drive and, you know, maybe fifteen,
[Speaker 1]twenty minutes by air. And, they've got, well,
(17:46):
[Speaker 1]officially, two runways, but, really, it's just one.
[Speaker 1]It's o seven and two five, which is
[Speaker 1]kind of, you know, it's it's, you know,
[Speaker 1]not east west, not, not north south either,
[Speaker 1]kind of a diagonal. And the weird part
[Speaker 1]about that airport, you know, the runway is
(18:08):
[Speaker 1]a hundred and no. No. I'm yeah. Wexford
[Speaker 1]County. So the, yeah, the runway is a
[Speaker 1]hundred feet wide, so that's pretty standard for
[Speaker 1]a non towered airport. But the weird part
[Speaker 1]is they have this little grass runway that's
[Speaker 1]only nineteen hundred feet and a hundred and
[Speaker 1]fifty feet wide that was used for gliders.
(18:30):
[Speaker 1]They had a big glider outfit there. And,
[Speaker 1]you know, they talked about the schools yesterday.
[Speaker 1]I was gonna mention the glider school, but
[Speaker 1]they ain't there anymore. It was a glider
[Speaker 1]club that also gave instructions, and, they pretty
[Speaker 1]much exclusively use that north south grass runway.
[Speaker 1]Yeah. But, they've since donated all their airplanes
(18:52):
[Speaker 1]to, I think, Western Michigan University's aviation program
[Speaker 1]and and ceased operations in in Cadillac, officially
[Speaker 1]known as the Wexford County Airport. So those
[Speaker 1]are, you know, the main airports around here
[Speaker 1]that I've flown into. I've also flown over
(19:13):
[Speaker 1]a bunch of airports, you know, because going
[Speaker 1]going places. We go up and do the
[Speaker 1]bridge run. There's a I, another airport on
[Speaker 1]Mackinac Island, which I have not landed at.
[Speaker 1]I think next summer, I I wanna do
[Speaker 1]that, land on the island and take a
[Speaker 1]horse drawn taxi cab into town and get
(19:35):
[Speaker 1]some lunch. That'd be kind of fun. But
[Speaker 1]but that airport there is, let's see, the
[Speaker 1]thirty five hundred foot runway asphalt, kind of
[Speaker 1]an east west. And, you know, both both
[Speaker 1]approaches are over water, you know, Lake Huron.
[Speaker 1]It's in northern Lake Huron officially, but it's
[Speaker 1]really the straits which is between Lake Huron,
(19:57):
[Speaker 1]Lake Michigan. And, there's another airport just on
[Speaker 1]the other side of the water across the
[Speaker 1]bridge, Saint Ignace, Michigan. I never landed there
[Speaker 1]either, but we we did, you know, we
[Speaker 1]do the bridge around once a while. It's
[Speaker 1]always fun to fly up there and, you
[Speaker 1]know, you fly, fly up the east side
[Speaker 1]of the bridge and, and then, you know,
(20:21):
[Speaker 1]fly kinda over Saint Ignace and then come
[Speaker 1]back down the west side of the bridge,
[Speaker 1]get all the all the stuff or fly,
[Speaker 1]you know, fly near the island. You know,
[Speaker 1]I usually fly up in between the island
[Speaker 1]and and the UP. But, always like to
[Speaker 1]get a little altitude when I'm flying over
[Speaker 1]that much water. So we're usually up over
[Speaker 1]three thousand, thirty five hundred feet, maybe maybe
(20:42):
[Speaker 1]four thousand, something like that. Just, just so
[Speaker 1]that I got enough glide to get somewhere
[Speaker 1]if something conks out. You know, same thing
[Speaker 1]going over the bridge, you know, or going
[Speaker 1]across the straits near the bridge. You don't
[Speaker 1]fly right over it. I never have anyway.
[Speaker 1]But, so those two airports would be an
(21:03):
[Speaker 1]option if, if need be. It's also another
[Speaker 1]island airport on well, it's it's spelled Boyce
[Speaker 1]Blanc, but everybody calls it Pablo. But, there's
[Speaker 1]an airport there. There's nobody that lives there.
[Speaker 1]So I don't know how used the airport
(21:24):
[Speaker 1]is, but it is paved, and, it's there.
[Speaker 1]So yeah. To go check that one out
[Speaker 1]sometime. Thirty five hundred foot seventy five foot
[Speaker 1]wide runways would be another skinny one. But,
[Speaker 1]you know, that's kind of the the the
[Speaker 1]major airports around here. When I was a
[Speaker 1]kid, we my dad used to fly out
[Speaker 1]of Interlochen Airport or officially known as Green
(21:47):
[Speaker 1]Lake Airport, and that is a really small
[Speaker 1]little airport. I think I did talk about
[Speaker 1]that in in another episode, but, Green Lake,
[Speaker 1]that's the one that has the sports fields
[Speaker 1]on it. So they restrict you to flying
[Speaker 1]out there. But anyway, yeah, I did talk
[Speaker 1]about that. And then there's another airport that
(22:10):
[Speaker 1]I I've driven by a lot flown over
[Speaker 1]it and whatever, but it's, Lake Ann Airway
[Speaker 1]Estates. And, it's got a east west grass
[Speaker 1]runway. Used to have a north south runway.
[Speaker 1]I don't know what happened to that. But,
[Speaker 1]they they're, you know, it's out by Lake
(22:31):
[Speaker 1]Anne. You know? If you guys have been
[Speaker 1]with me since the beginning of podcasting, I
[Speaker 1]used to live in Lake Anne, Michigan. This
[Speaker 1]is kind of out there. It's a little
[Speaker 1]further out of Traverse City than, than the
[Speaker 1]town of Lake Ann, and it's a it's
[Speaker 1]a private airport, but public use. And what's
(22:52):
[Speaker 1]funny is on the chart, it, doesn't say
[Speaker 1]the name of the airport. It says questionable
[Speaker 1]or object object objectionable. That's right. That's what
[Speaker 1]it says over that airport. And I you
[Speaker 1]know, I've I've asked a couple of people,
(23:12):
[Speaker 1]what does that mean? And, usually, this mean
[Speaker 1]the the runway is not maintained well or
[Speaker 1]something. I don't know. But there's some houses
[Speaker 1]on that airport. It's one of those, you
[Speaker 1]know, where you can buy a house there
[Speaker 1]and build a hangar and whatever. I think
[Speaker 1]all the lots are sold now, but it's
[Speaker 1]a it's a it's a cool little airport.
(23:33):
[Speaker 1]There used to be another airport, and it
[Speaker 1]is still there technically, but it's a private
[Speaker 1]airport called, Miller Herald Airport. And that's, used
[Speaker 1]to be part of the Sugar Loaf, ski
[Speaker 1]resort, which is up, north of Cedar, Michigan
[Speaker 1]in Leelanau County. And they, I don't think
(23:58):
[Speaker 1]that that's available for public use anymore. Really,
[Speaker 1]the only thing there is a golf course,
[Speaker 1]so I don't know if, if there's still
[Speaker 1]a thing. It's another kind of a cool
[Speaker 1]airport up in Northport. I've been around it,
[Speaker 1]just not been into it mainly because it's
(24:19):
[Speaker 1]a, you know, grass runway or grass runways,
[Speaker 1]but, that one's got quite a history. At
[Speaker 1]some point, maybe I'll do a quick episode
[Speaker 1]about, Woosley Woosley Airport in Northport, Michigan. That's,
[Speaker 1]right up at the tip of the Leelanau
[Speaker 1]Peninsula. And there's another one that I haven't
(24:41):
[Speaker 1]been to yet, been over it several times,
[Speaker 1]drove by it several times, is Torchport. It's
[Speaker 1]in Torch Lake, Michigan along Highway thirty one.
[Speaker 1]So, you know, and and the runway comes
[Speaker 1]right up to the road or at least
[Speaker 1]the east west runway comes right up to
[Speaker 1]the road. And it was grass up until
(25:02):
[Speaker 1]the beginning of this summer, and they paved
[Speaker 1]it. So now there's a paved runway there,
[Speaker 1]and they're selling lots and houses and stuff
[Speaker 1]on that airport. So it's kind of a
[Speaker 1]airport community, but it is a public use
[Speaker 1]airport. So technically, we can, go in there.
[Speaker 1]Right now on the chart, it still says
[Speaker 1]it's grass, but their east west runway is
(25:23):
[Speaker 1]now paved with asphalt. I know that because,
[Speaker 1]friend of mine, Eric, he, he was, I
[Speaker 1]think, the first personal land there, after the
[Speaker 1]pavement was ready to go. He, landed his
[Speaker 1]Aztec there, which the twin that he had.
[Speaker 1]And he doesn't have the he doesn't have
(25:44):
[Speaker 1]the Aztec anymore. But, anyway, so that kinda
[Speaker 1]oh, one more airport, and I I think
[Speaker 1]I've talked about it, but I wanna talk
[Speaker 1]about it again because, I definitely wanna utilize
[Speaker 1]this airport at some point in the future
[Speaker 1]is the historic Acme Skyport. That's what it's
(26:07):
[Speaker 1]officially called, but that was a airport, you
[Speaker 1]know, back in the, I guess, fifty, sixties,
[Speaker 1]seventies. I know it was in the seventies
[Speaker 1]because dad and I flew in and out
[Speaker 1]of there a few times when they had
[Speaker 1]the north south runway. Now they just have
[Speaker 1]an east west runway that's rather short right
[Speaker 1]now. It's like sixteen hundred feet, which, you
(26:29):
[Speaker 1]know, not bad for you know, you you
[Speaker 1]can do it in a normal small aircraft,
[Speaker 1]but, it is a tad on the short
[Speaker 1]side for, when I'm flying. So although, Eric's
[Speaker 1]taken that those those planes in there no
[Speaker 1]problem, but, you know, Eric's a lot better
[Speaker 1]pilot than I am, and it's his airplanes.
[Speaker 1]So not gonna not gonna question that one.
(26:54):
[Speaker 1]But, it's it's a really neat airport, and,
[Speaker 1]Eric got it reopened here. Hell, I guess,
[Speaker 1]last year officially. It's, it was back on
[Speaker 1]the chart. I also use it as a
[Speaker 1]jump zone for, parachutists, and, he's been fixing
(27:14):
[Speaker 1]up the hangers out there. And, yeah, it's
[Speaker 1]a it's a it's a neat little little
[Speaker 1]thing, and it's, like I said, it's better.
[Speaker 1]It got closed sometime in the nineties and
[Speaker 1]then, like I said, brought back to life
[Speaker 1]here recently. And I look forward to that
[Speaker 1]becoming a little more active, and, I'd like
(27:35):
[Speaker 1]to get an airplane that, would be perfect
[Speaker 1]for that little airport. I think that would
[Speaker 1]be my best bet if I'm gonna own
[Speaker 1]an airplane. I'll own a little one, and
[Speaker 1]that'll be perfect. So that's, that's the story.
[Speaker 1]Let's see. What other airports? Thompsonville, that one's
(27:55):
[Speaker 1]kind of a neat little airport too. That's
[Speaker 1]right by, Crystal Mountain Ski Resort in Thompsonville,
[Speaker 1]Michigan. And my uncle had a a a
[Speaker 1]big part in getting that built up. He
[Speaker 1]built the first hangar out there that, you
[Speaker 1]know, sometime twenty or thirty years ago. I
(28:18):
[Speaker 1]mean, the airport had been there for a
[Speaker 1]long time, and, they got that one paved.
[Speaker 1]I forget which runway. Yeah. They paved a
[Speaker 1]twenty nine hundred foot, seventy five foot wide
[Speaker 1]runway. That's their east west runway, and then
[Speaker 1]they've got a twenty four hundred foot, not
[Speaker 1]quite north south runway that the, that's grass.
(28:40):
[Speaker 1]And, Thompsonville used to also have the, glider
[Speaker 1]club, and so did Frankfurt. So that glider
[Speaker 1]club moved a couple of times before closing
[Speaker 1]down in Cadillac. But Thompsonville, it was has
[Speaker 1]the distinction of the the only place I've
[Speaker 1]ever flown in an ultralight. Guy there had
(29:03):
[Speaker 1]a ultralight, two seater, and this was before
[Speaker 1]the Sport Pilot rule, and, so now there's
[Speaker 1]no such thing as an ultralight two seater.
[Speaker 1]Now now it's a sport pilot plane or
[Speaker 1]a sport light sport aircraft. But, this thing
[Speaker 1]was literally a hang glider with an engine
[Speaker 1]and and, you sat in a seat. It
(29:24):
[Speaker 1]was it reminded me of riding a motorcycle,
[Speaker 1]and it was a ball. I loved it.
[Speaker 1]But, got got to fly out of Thompsonville
[Speaker 1]there. And like I said, my uncle used
[Speaker 1]to keep his plane there and, bunch of
[Speaker 1]the bunch of the guys had, had that
[Speaker 1]had a big community hangar there that, I
[Speaker 1]don't know. They had probably five or six
(29:45):
[Speaker 1]aircraft in there, and it's kind of a
[Speaker 1]neat thing. That's, but, that that's one of
[Speaker 1]one of one of the airports at one
[Speaker 1]at some point I'm gonna go to, and
[Speaker 1]that would be another alternative place for me
[Speaker 1]to keep an airplane if I buy one.
[Speaker 1]But we'll see. Yeah. Might might not, might
(30:09):
[Speaker 1]not buy one. I might, just keep renting
[Speaker 1]for the little bit that I actually fly.
[Speaker 1]That probably be okay too. I don't know.
[Speaker 1]We'll see. Anyway, that's kind of a rundown
[Speaker 1]of the airports up north here. And like
[Speaker 1]I said, there's a lot of other ones.
[Speaker 1]I guess I I wanna I wanna talk
[Speaker 1]about one other one, and I talked about
(30:30):
[Speaker 1]it a little bit in the episode yesterday,
[Speaker 1]but the old, Wertsmith Air Force Base, which
[Speaker 1]is, in Oscoda, Michigan, which is kind of
[Speaker 1]on the East Coast of Michigan on on,
[Speaker 1]like, you know, on Lake Huron pretty much.
[Speaker 1]I mean, they're not right on Lake Huron,
(30:51):
[Speaker 1]but close. Really close. And, Wertz Smith Air
[Speaker 1]Force Base is now called Oscoda Wertz Smith
[Speaker 1]Airport, and they've got a really long east
[Speaker 1]west runway and a really wide one. It's
[Speaker 1]eleven thousand eight hundred and one feet long
[Speaker 1]and two hundred feet wide. And the reason
(31:14):
[Speaker 1]for that is they were a huge b
[Speaker 1]fifty two base. They had a bunch of
[Speaker 1]b fifty twos and k c one thirty
[Speaker 1]five tankers. And, you know, b fifty twos
[Speaker 1]like really long runways. And, you know, that's
[Speaker 1]just a tad over two miles of long
[Speaker 1]runway and two hundred feet wide. I was
(31:35):
[Speaker 1]always joking. If I was ever to go
[Speaker 1]there, I could do two or three touch
[Speaker 1]and goes in one pass, but, always wanted
[Speaker 1]to go to that one. So at some
[Speaker 1]point, I will, I will make the trek
[Speaker 1]over there and check it out. But there's
[Speaker 1]a lot of military airspace. Alpena Airport has
[Speaker 1]a, a fighter contingent there. And, and, of
(31:59):
[Speaker 1]course, there's Camp Grayling and the Grayling Army
[Speaker 1]Airfield and, you know, just a lot of
[Speaker 1]military operating areas, restricted areas. I'm looking at
[Speaker 1]the chart here. There's, you know, one, two,
[Speaker 1]three, four, five military operating areas. And then
(32:20):
[Speaker 1]around Grayling, there's a restricted and a couple
[Speaker 1]other places you're not supposed to fly without
[Speaker 1]permission. You know, not that you can't fly
[Speaker 1]through them. You you know, you you certainly
[Speaker 1]can, especially when they're cold. Meaning, there's not
[Speaker 1]anything going on. But even when they're not
[Speaker 1]cold, you know, as long as you, get
(32:42):
[Speaker 1]permission and kinda let everybody know you're you're
[Speaker 1]coming through, and they're cool with it. But,
[Speaker 1]again, you know, it's a it's a thing
[Speaker 1]you gotta worry about when you're flying. You
[Speaker 1]just can't go everywhere you want to. There's
[Speaker 1]certain air spaces. And, you know, kind of
[Speaker 1]out in the middle of Lake Michigan, couple
[Speaker 1]of there's a restricted area and a, an
(33:03):
[Speaker 1]MOA, which is kind of off the Wisconsin
[Speaker 1]shoreline. You know, what airport is that? Yes.
[Speaker 1]Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There's a big
[Speaker 1]restricted area. What's the altitudes on that? It
(33:24):
[Speaker 1]should tell you on the chart. Maybe not.
[Speaker 1]Anyway, I can look it up at some
[Speaker 1]point, but, now what is it? Anyway, so
[Speaker 1]there's a a military operating area and all
[Speaker 1]that. And I I think what they do
[Speaker 1]out there is simulated bomb runs or something.
[Speaker 1]I who knows? But, if you were to
(33:46):
[Speaker 1]cross Lake Michigan, which personally, I will not
[Speaker 1]do in a single engine aircraft. But, you
[Speaker 1]know, some people do. Nothing wrong with that.
[Speaker 1]It's perfectly legal. Although, I just don't like
[Speaker 1]to be over water where, I can't glide
[Speaker 1]to shore. So and not too long ago,
(34:08):
[Speaker 1]off of the off of, Milwaukee, They had
[Speaker 1]a Cirrus, lost an engine. They were coming
[Speaker 1]across Lake Michigan in the southern part of
[Speaker 1]the lake, and and, of course, the Cirrus
[Speaker 1]has a parachute system. So, you know, nobody
[Speaker 1]nobody died, but, they did go swimming. And,
[Speaker 1]the airplane, as far as I know, is
(34:30):
[Speaker 1]still on the bottom of the lake, but,
[Speaker 1]coast guard got to them and no problem
[Speaker 1]there. You know, they were they were wet
[Speaker 1]and lost their airplane, but, they walked away
[Speaker 1]from it. So I guess that's the goal.
[Speaker 1]You know, they always say a good landing
[Speaker 1]is is one you can walk away from,
[Speaker 1]and a really good landing is one that,
(34:51):
[Speaker 1]you can reuse the airplane. And, I always
[Speaker 1]like to go for the really good ones.
[Speaker 1]So and as they say, taking off is
[Speaker 1]optional. Landing is mandatory. Alright. With all that,
[Speaker 1]I think tomorrow what's it I'm gonna do
[Speaker 1]tomorrow? I I know I had something in
(35:13):
[Speaker 1]mind. Got it on my list. Oh, yeah.
[Speaker 1]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tomorrow, I'm gonna do
[Speaker 1]the blizzard of seventy eight, as I remember
[Speaker 1]it as a newly minted twelve year old.
[Speaker 0]In a world created by Mike Dell, I
[Speaker 0]guess you would call it Mike Dell's world.
[Speaker 1]And this is the aforementioned Mike Dell, and
[Speaker 1]this is episode four thirty for November twenty
[Speaker 1]four twenty twenty five. And, yeah. Well, I
[Speaker 1]didn't create the world. I wouldn't wanna take
(00:23):
[Speaker 1]blame for that. But thanks to Mark there,
[Speaker 1]I have that stinger. Yeah. Anyway, So I
[Speaker 1]I yesterday's episode is all about flight schools
[Speaker 1]and, other schools, aviation related around Traverse City,
[Speaker 1]but there's a lot of other airports, around
(00:43):
[Speaker 1]the area. And in fact, I'm gonna just
[Speaker 1]kinda look here on, a thing called ForeFlight.
[Speaker 1]And what four ForeFlight is is no it's
[Speaker 1]known as a an electronic flight bag. And,
[Speaker 1]you know, used to be pilots would have
[Speaker 1]to carry a a flight bag full of
(01:04):
[Speaker 1]paperwork and maps and things, you know, because,
[Speaker 1]well, we didn't have iPads and iPhones and
[Speaker 1]Android devices and flat screen, glass panels with
[Speaker 1]all the maps and stuff on the airplane
[Speaker 1]I fly. There's you know, all the charts
(01:25):
[Speaker 1]are on the screen. You know? I can
[Speaker 1]split the screen in front of me and
[Speaker 1]have the flight instruments on the one side
[Speaker 1]and the maps on the other and get
[Speaker 1]all the same information. But I also have
[Speaker 1]an iPad that I can carry or I
[Speaker 1]do carry that also has all that information
[Speaker 1]on it. And the program I use is
[Speaker 1]called ForeFlight, and it shows all the airport.
(01:49):
[Speaker 1]It's basically the, you know, VFR sectional, does
[Speaker 1]all the IFR stuff. It, you know, it's
[Speaker 1]it's all the aviation stuff all packed into
[Speaker 1]an iPad. It's pretty cool. But, I'm gonna
[Speaker 1]use that to, talk about all the airports
[Speaker 1]that I've flown to. I I I won't
[Speaker 1]talk about too many other airports around, but,
(02:09):
[Speaker 1]at least the ones I've flown to or
[Speaker 1]flown around or flown near or have some
[Speaker 1]other connection to. So, of course, Traverse City,
[Speaker 1]we talked all about in an episode, about
[Speaker 1]Traverse City's airport. But the first other airport
[Speaker 1]that I flew to, you know, around here,
(02:31):
[Speaker 1]anyway, is, Interim County Airport. It's a little
[Speaker 1]north east of Traverse City. I had to
[Speaker 1]think about that for a second. And it's
[Speaker 1]a a little county airport, near Bel Air,
[Speaker 1]Michigan. And my fore flight just crashed. That's
[Speaker 1]always nice, but I'm using the web version,
(02:53):
[Speaker 1]not the iPad version. But but, yeah, Antrim
[Speaker 1]County is a nice, nice airport. They've got
[Speaker 1]a lot of hangars, a lot of general
[Speaker 1]aviation. It's in Bel Air, Michigan, and a
[Speaker 1]lot of, people have winter or summer houses,
[Speaker 1]I should say, or winter houses because there's
[Speaker 1]a big ski resort nearby. And, they utilize
(03:17):
[Speaker 1]the the Antrim County Airport or KACB for
[Speaker 1]those of you keeping score. And, Antrim, like
[Speaker 1]I said, it's a nice little airports. Note,
[Speaker 1]there's no control tower, so it's class echo
[Speaker 1]airspace, class e, which, you know, when you
[Speaker 1]fly into it, you you announce yourself five
(03:38):
[Speaker 1]miles out and and on the common traffic
[Speaker 1]frequency. And anybody that's flying around there will,
[Speaker 1]acknowledge you or at least know about you.
[Speaker 1]And then you you tell them you get
[Speaker 1]in a little closer. You tell them how
[Speaker 1]you're gonna enter the pattern. You know, usually,
[Speaker 1]it's, like in this case, it's runway zero
(04:00):
[Speaker 1]two and two zero. So depending on the
[Speaker 1]winds, which so say I was coming in
[Speaker 1]from the west or actually from the southwest,
[Speaker 1]I I would be coming in, and I'd
[Speaker 1]call them about five miles out on the
[Speaker 1]common frequency and tell them, hey. This is
[Speaker 1]whoever whoever, you know, your call sign. And
(04:21):
[Speaker 1]I'm gonna enter the left downwind for runway
[Speaker 1]two zero. And I'm gonna cross midway, midfield
[Speaker 1]and enter that, left downwind, and then you
[Speaker 1]follow the pattern around. Every time you make
[Speaker 1]a turn, you call, know, entering the downwind,
[Speaker 1]entering the the base, on final runway two
(04:44):
[Speaker 1]zero. And then when you land and you
[Speaker 1]taxi off the runway, say clear of the
[Speaker 1]air clear of the runway. You know? And
[Speaker 1]you you announce that even if there's nobody
[Speaker 1]else flying around. But if there is somebody
[Speaker 1]else flying around, generally, they'll tell you where
[Speaker 1]they are and what they're doing, and you
[Speaker 1]can just kinda slot yourself into the traffic
[Speaker 1]pattern. I won't explain this on every airport,
[Speaker 1]but in this particular case, this is what
(05:05):
[Speaker 1]I do when I go there. And, you
[Speaker 1]know, sometimes do touch and goes, sometimes do
[Speaker 1]go around, sometimes do a low pass. Low
[Speaker 1]passes are fun, by the way. And this
[Speaker 1]is a five thousand foot runway, and, that's
[Speaker 1]it's a lot of fun, I think. You
[Speaker 1]know, you get down as close to the
[Speaker 1]runway as you can without touching it. And
(05:25):
[Speaker 1]you go down the most of the length
[Speaker 1]of the runway, then you climb out. That's
[Speaker 1]called a low pass, but the the reason
[Speaker 1]for that is, you get to get into
[Speaker 1]ground effect, and that's a lot of fun
[Speaker 1]to, and good practice because, you know, the
[Speaker 1]more you get the feel for ground effect,
[Speaker 1]the more you can control your landings better
(05:46):
[Speaker 1]and, land the way you want to. You
[Speaker 1]know, they're short field or normal landing or
[Speaker 1]a soft field landing, you know, so you're
[Speaker 1]gonna land on grass or mud or snow
[Speaker 1]or whatever. You know, you do the soft
[Speaker 1]field technique. And like I said, getting used
[Speaker 1]to ground effect and experiencing that is a
(06:07):
[Speaker 1]really good way to get that muscle memory.
[Speaker 1]So that's mainly what I've done at, Antrim
[Speaker 1]is, like I said, do touch and goes
[Speaker 1]or do, you know, land land and taxi
[Speaker 1]back, for short field or or, short field
[Speaker 1]or, soft field technique landings and low passes.
(06:29):
[Speaker 1]So, anyway, that's Antrim. Antrim's got a really
[Speaker 1]nice, I guess it's not really an FBO,
[Speaker 1]but, I guess that's kinda what they call
[Speaker 1]it. They sell gas there and and, you've
[Speaker 1]got a nice lounge for you to lounge
[Speaker 1]around in and, bathrooms and whatnot. You know,
[Speaker 1]just a good place to stop off and,
(06:51):
[Speaker 1]and, do your aviation stuff. But that's that's
[Speaker 1]the one that I've been to the most,
[Speaker 1]and that's, you know, literally fifteen minutes, ten
[Speaker 1]minutes away from Traverse City. Gets us out
[Speaker 1]of the class delta at Traverse City where
[Speaker 1]the control tower is. And and, you know,
[Speaker 1]this makes it a little easier when it's
(07:12):
[Speaker 1]not busy at Andrew. If it's busy, you
[Speaker 1]know, in an uncontrolled airport, it's, it's better
[Speaker 1]to go somewhere else. And, well, since we're
[Speaker 1]going that direction, a little further north, and
[Speaker 1]I haven't been to a lot of these
[Speaker 1]airports. There's one in Charlevoix. There's one in,
[Speaker 1]Boyne City. What's that one? Always forget the
(07:35):
[Speaker 1]name of that. Harbor Springs. But the one
[Speaker 1]that I've been to, further north is up
[Speaker 1]by the tip of the, lower peninsula, pretty
[Speaker 1]close to the Mackinac Bridge is Pellston. And
[Speaker 1]Pellston is actually kind of a biggish airport
[Speaker 1]for an uncontrolled field. They actually have airliners
[Speaker 1]flying in there. Delta, I think, has two
(07:56):
[Speaker 1]flights a day in and out of there.
[Speaker 1]I think I've talked about that previously, but,
[Speaker 1]Paulson's kind of a neat little, well, not
[Speaker 1]little airport, but a little, you know, little
[Speaker 1]ish airport. And, one of the runways is
[Speaker 1]six thousand five hundred feet, feet, and another
[Speaker 1]one is five thousand four hundred feet. And
(08:17):
[Speaker 1]they have the distinction of having a restaurant
[Speaker 1]on the field. So a lot of people
[Speaker 1]go up to Charleston, specifically to go to
[Speaker 1]the the restaurant there. And, you know that's
[Speaker 1]kind of the hundred dollar hamburger destination and
[Speaker 1]a hundred dollar hamburger usually costs more than
[Speaker 1]a hundred dollars but it's still pretty cool.
(08:39):
[Speaker 1]Back to Charlevoix which is a little further
[Speaker 1]south of Pellston and along the shoreline. Shoreline
[Speaker 1]or shoreline. Charlevoix has the the distinction of
[Speaker 1]having a little airline there. I don't know
[Speaker 1]if it's an airline, more of a charter
[Speaker 1]thing. But Island Airways, which goes out to
(09:01):
[Speaker 1]Beaver Island, so the Wilkie Airport on Beaver
[Speaker 1]Island. There's actually two airports on Beaver Island,
[Speaker 1]the Beaver Island airport, and then there's Wilkie,
[Speaker 1]which is owned by Paul Wilkie and the
[Speaker 1]guy that runs Island Airways. So I don't
(09:25):
[Speaker 1]know anybody that actually uses the the one,
[Speaker 1]the the the regular Beaver Island airport. I
[Speaker 1]guess, probably, because they do have fuel there,
[Speaker 1]and they they and they are lighted, so
[Speaker 1]is Wilkie. But, you know, the Beaver Island
[Speaker 1]Airport, the the proper airport has three runways,
(09:46):
[Speaker 1]four thousand three hundred feet's the longest one,
[Speaker 1]and then they got two shorter ones that
[Speaker 1]are grass. But their asphalt runway is, like
[Speaker 1]I said, almost forty three hundred feet. And
[Speaker 1]then just a couple miles away or a
[Speaker 1]mile away maybe is Wilkie. And Wilkie has
(10:07):
[Speaker 1]one asphalt runway that's twenty five hundred feet,
[Speaker 1]and a grass runway is thirty five hundred
[Speaker 1]feet. So the grass runway is, is longer.
[Speaker 1]I wonder which one the islanders come in
[Speaker 1]on. Anyway, I've not been to either of
[Speaker 1]those. I have been over Charlevoix Airport. I've
[Speaker 1]have not landed there. Another airport in the
(10:28):
[Speaker 1]area is, the Grayling. No. Gaylord. Sorry. Grayling
[Speaker 1]Airport is an army airport or army Gaylord
[Speaker 1]or Grayling Army Airfield, but I have not
[Speaker 1]landed there. You can you can go there.
[Speaker 1]You know, it's a public use airport, but
(10:50):
[Speaker 1]it's, it's got a class delta, you know,
[Speaker 1]control tower and and all that. So I
[Speaker 1]haven't been there yet. At some point, I
[Speaker 1]might check it out, but it's, it's owned
[Speaker 1]by the, US army, Grayling Army Airfield. And,
[Speaker 1]but, again, it's a public use airport in
[Speaker 1]the town of Grayling, Michigan, not, not on
(11:14):
[Speaker 1]the base, which is south of town. Kind
[Speaker 1]of an interesting setup there, I thought. But
[Speaker 1]the one I've been to is Gaylord Airport.
[Speaker 1]That's, fifteen miles north of Grayling, along I
[Speaker 1]seventy five kind of out in the middle
[Speaker 1]of the state. And it's nice except for
(11:37):
[Speaker 1]there's a restricted area that's pretty close. Although,
[Speaker 1]you have to be up pretty high to
[Speaker 1]get in the restricted area, so it's not
[Speaker 1]really a problem. But, Gaylord Regional Airport, and
[Speaker 1]they have a couple of runways there at
[Speaker 1]both asphalt, a sixty five hundred foot runway,
(11:57):
[Speaker 1]and a forty two hundred foot runway, and
[Speaker 1]both of which are in good condition and
[Speaker 1]paved. And I've actually landed on, both the
[Speaker 1]runways up there, with there with an instructor
[Speaker 1]one time and, you know, just for a
[Speaker 1]place to go land. And then, did it
[Speaker 1]one other time by myself and landed on
(12:20):
[Speaker 1]a different runway. You know, I ran landed
[Speaker 1]on the north south runway when I was
[Speaker 1]by myself and, east west runway with the
[Speaker 1]instructor doing, some cross country training. Cross country,
[Speaker 1]really. Yeah. Around the late twenty eight mile
[Speaker 1]no. It's more than that. Fifty miles, I
[Speaker 1]guess. Forty something. I don't know. Whatever it
[Speaker 1]was, it was just a a thing I
(12:42):
[Speaker 1]had to do. And that was, you know,
[Speaker 1]that that was a cool airport, I thought.
[Speaker 1]One of my favorite airports to play around
[Speaker 1]with. The problem with this airport is if
[Speaker 1]Traverse City's airliners are running on two eight,
(13:03):
[Speaker 1]landing to you know, pointing towards the west
[Speaker 1]when they land, they come awfully close to
[Speaker 1]this airport. It's Kalkaska is the name of
[Speaker 1]the airport. It's Kalkaska City Airport, and, you
[Speaker 1]know, twenty ish miles, east of Traverse City.
[Speaker 1]But, went over there one time, early morning,
(13:25):
[Speaker 1]and I thought, oh, try that out. And,
[Speaker 1]they've got a thirty five hundred foot runway
[Speaker 1]that's only seventy five feet wide, which gives
[Speaker 1]you a whole different perspective than the hundred
[Speaker 1]and fifty foot wide runways at Traverse City
[Speaker 1]or the hundred foot wide runways, Antrim and
[Speaker 1]Pellston. So seventy five is pretty skinny, and
(13:46):
[Speaker 1]it gives you a different sight picture. So
[Speaker 1]the first time I tried to land there,
[Speaker 1]I I was way higher than I thought
[Speaker 1]I was, because of the weird visuals, you
[Speaker 1]know, just being used to a wider runway.
[Speaker 1]And, ended up doing a go around first
[Speaker 1]time and then did, I don't know, four
[Speaker 1]or five touch and goes there and then
[Speaker 1]came back. But it was first thing in
(14:08):
[Speaker 1]the morning and not a lot of airline
[Speaker 1]traffic. And even the airline, that's not really
[Speaker 1]a problem. The airliners usually turn somewhere between
[Speaker 1]Kalkaska and Traverse City. And, you know, you're
[Speaker 1]really not in their way, but, it still
[Speaker 1]makes you a little nervous being around a
[Speaker 1]lot of airliners. Of Course flying out of
[Speaker 1]Traverse City, we're around a lot of airliners
[Speaker 1]anyway, but, you have a control tower there,
(14:30):
[Speaker 1]Kalkaska. You don't. Let's see. One of the
[Speaker 1]other airports that, also yeah. I have this
[Speaker 1]habit. Whenever it's the first time I landed
[Speaker 1]an airport, I would say ninety percent of
[Speaker 1]the time, it's been a go around because
[Speaker 1]I somehow screw up the screw up the
[Speaker 1]approach. Yeah. It's just a a thing of
(14:51):
[Speaker 1]mine, I guess. But another one I did
[Speaker 1]that at was Frankfurt Airport. Frankfurt, Michigan is
[Speaker 1]over on the shoreline, and it's about as
[Speaker 1]far west of Traverse City as Kalkaska is
[Speaker 1]east of Traverse City. Maybe a little further,
[Speaker 1]but it's kind of down in a hole
[Speaker 1]kind of down on a bowl and so
(15:13):
[Speaker 1]the the approach into the airport both direction
[Speaker 1]well actually the south side is not too
[Speaker 1]bad but on the north side it's you're
[Speaker 1]kind of coming over a hill That's kind
[Speaker 1]of the same way in, Antrim, but, Antrim's
[Speaker 1]not quite as bad. But Frankfurt is, and,
[Speaker 1]their runway is is also seventy five feet
(15:34):
[Speaker 1]wide. So that was part of the problem.
[Speaker 1]They got a, you know, four thousand foot
[Speaker 1]long runway, but it's only seventy five feet
[Speaker 1]wide. So it has kind of a weird
[Speaker 1]weird thing going on there. And a bit
[Speaker 1]south of that, is Manistee County Airport, Blacker
[Speaker 1]Airport. And, you know, I've flown in and
(15:55):
[Speaker 1]out of there a few times, both commercially
[Speaker 1]and myself. It's a it's a neat neat
[Speaker 1]little airport, but it has a a little
[Speaker 1]airline. They're, they they keep changing the airline
[Speaker 1]out as part of the essential air service.
[Speaker 1]I think I talked about in the other,
(16:16):
[Speaker 1]the other show I had about aviation. But,
[Speaker 1]yeah, I forget what the new newest one
[Speaker 1]is, but they fly, you know, little regional
[Speaker 1]jets back and forth to Chicago. I think
[Speaker 1]I talked about all that. So we'll just
[Speaker 1]skip that, but they've got, kind of the
(16:37):
[Speaker 1]same runway layout as Traverse City more or
[Speaker 1]less. Ten and two eight, the east west
[Speaker 1]runway, five thousand five hundred feet, long and
[Speaker 1]hundred foot wide. So, you know, that's not
[Speaker 1]too odd. And then they have a a
[Speaker 1]shorter runway, only twenty seven hundred feet, long.
[Speaker 1]It's a north south runway, at one and
(17:00):
[Speaker 1]nineteen. So not quite Traverse City's, three six
[Speaker 1]and one eight, and this is one nine
[Speaker 1]and zero one. It's a little bit different,
[Speaker 1]but, not not too much. Not enough to
[Speaker 1]notice. Still north south. And, yeah, I've never
[Speaker 1]landed on that one. I always land on
[Speaker 1]two eight or I think once I landed
(17:22):
[Speaker 1]on one zero that's, coming from the west
[Speaker 1]going east. But, been in and out of
[Speaker 1]that one a fair number of times. And
[Speaker 1]Cadillac, that's another one, that's south of us.
[Speaker 1]It's about yeah. Like I said, about about
[Speaker 1]an hour drive and, you know, maybe fifteen,
[Speaker 1]twenty minutes by air. And, they've got, well,
(17:46):
[Speaker 1]officially, two runways, but, really, it's just one.
[Speaker 1]It's o seven and two five, which is
[Speaker 1]kind of, you know, it's it's, you know,
[Speaker 1]not east west, not, not north south either,
[Speaker 1]kind of a diagonal. And the weird part
[Speaker 1]about that airport, you know, the runway is
(18:08):
[Speaker 1]a hundred and no. No. I'm yeah. Wexford
[Speaker 1]County. So the, yeah, the runway is a
[Speaker 1]hundred feet wide, so that's pretty standard for
[Speaker 1]a non towered airport. But the weird part
[Speaker 1]is they have this little grass runway that's
[Speaker 1]only nineteen hundred feet and a hundred and
[Speaker 1]fifty feet wide that was used for gliders.
(18:30):
[Speaker 1]They had a big glider outfit there. And,
[Speaker 1]you know, they talked about the schools yesterday.
[Speaker 1]I was gonna mention the glider school, but
[Speaker 1]they ain't there anymore. It was a glider
[Speaker 1]club that also gave instructions, and, they pretty
[Speaker 1]much exclusively use that north south grass runway.
[Speaker 1]Yeah. But, they've since donated all their airplanes
(18:52):
[Speaker 1]to, I think, Western Michigan University's aviation program
[Speaker 1]and and ceased operations in in Cadillac, officially
[Speaker 1]known as the Wexford County Airport. So those
[Speaker 1]are, you know, the main airports around here
[Speaker 1]that I've flown into. I've also flown over
(19:13):
[Speaker 1]a bunch of airports, you know, because going
[Speaker 1]going places. We go up and do the
[Speaker 1]bridge run. There's a I, another airport on
[Speaker 1]Mackinac Island, which I have not landed at.
[Speaker 1]I think next summer, I I wanna do
[Speaker 1]that, land on the island and take a
[Speaker 1]horse drawn taxi cab into town and get
(19:35):
[Speaker 1]some lunch. That'd be kind of fun. But
[Speaker 1]but that airport there is, let's see, the
[Speaker 1]thirty five hundred foot runway asphalt, kind of
[Speaker 1]an east west. And, you know, both both
[Speaker 1]approaches are over water, you know, Lake Huron.
[Speaker 1]It's in northern Lake Huron officially, but it's
[Speaker 1]really the straits which is between Lake Huron,
(19:57):
[Speaker 1]Lake Michigan. And, there's another airport just on
[Speaker 1]the other side of the water across the
[Speaker 1]bridge, Saint Ignace, Michigan. I never landed there
[Speaker 1]either, but we we did, you know, we
[Speaker 1]do the bridge around once a while. It's
[Speaker 1]always fun to fly up there and, you
[Speaker 1]know, you fly, fly up the east side
[Speaker 1]of the bridge and, and then, you know,
(20:21):
[Speaker 1]fly kinda over Saint Ignace and then come
[Speaker 1]back down the west side of the bridge,
[Speaker 1]get all the all the stuff or fly,
[Speaker 1]you know, fly near the island. You know,
[Speaker 1]I usually fly up in between the island
[Speaker 1]and and the UP. But, always like to
[Speaker 1]get a little altitude when I'm flying over
[Speaker 1]that much water. So we're usually up over
[Speaker 1]three thousand, thirty five hundred feet, maybe maybe
(20:42):
[Speaker 1]four thousand, something like that. Just, just so
[Speaker 1]that I got enough glide to get somewhere
[Speaker 1]if something conks out. You know, same thing
[Speaker 1]going over the bridge, you know, or going
[Speaker 1]across the straits near the bridge. You don't
[Speaker 1]fly right over it. I never have anyway.
[Speaker 1]But, so those two airports would be an
(21:03):
[Speaker 1]option if, if need be. It's also another
[Speaker 1]island airport on well, it's it's spelled Boyce
[Speaker 1]Blanc, but everybody calls it Pablo. But, there's
[Speaker 1]an airport there. There's nobody that lives there.
[Speaker 1]So I don't know how used the airport
(21:24):
[Speaker 1]is, but it is paved, and, it's there.
[Speaker 1]So yeah. To go check that one out
[Speaker 1]sometime. Thirty five hundred foot seventy five foot
[Speaker 1]wide runways would be another skinny one. But,
[Speaker 1]you know, that's kind of the the the
[Speaker 1]major airports around here. When I was a
[Speaker 1]kid, we my dad used to fly out
[Speaker 1]of Interlochen Airport or officially known as Green
(21:47):
[Speaker 1]Lake Airport, and that is a really small
[Speaker 1]little airport. I think I did talk about
[Speaker 1]that in in another episode, but, Green Lake,
[Speaker 1]that's the one that has the sports fields
[Speaker 1]on it. So they restrict you to flying
[Speaker 1]out there. But anyway, yeah, I did talk
[Speaker 1]about that. And then there's another airport that
(22:10):
[Speaker 1]I I've driven by a lot flown over
[Speaker 1]it and whatever, but it's, Lake Ann Airway
[Speaker 1]Estates. And, it's got a east west grass
[Speaker 1]runway. Used to have a north south runway.
[Speaker 1]I don't know what happened to that. But,
[Speaker 1]they they're, you know, it's out by Lake
(22:31):
[Speaker 1]Anne. You know? If you guys have been
[Speaker 1]with me since the beginning of podcasting, I
[Speaker 1]used to live in Lake Anne, Michigan. This
[Speaker 1]is kind of out there. It's a little
[Speaker 1]further out of Traverse City than, than the
[Speaker 1]town of Lake Ann, and it's a it's
[Speaker 1]a private airport, but public use. And what's
(22:52):
[Speaker 1]funny is on the chart, it, doesn't say
[Speaker 1]the name of the airport. It says questionable
[Speaker 1]or object object objectionable. That's right. That's what
[Speaker 1]it says over that airport. And I you
[Speaker 1]know, I've I've asked a couple of people,
(23:12):
[Speaker 1]what does that mean? And, usually, this mean
[Speaker 1]the the runway is not maintained well or
[Speaker 1]something. I don't know. But there's some houses
[Speaker 1]on that airport. It's one of those, you
[Speaker 1]know, where you can buy a house there
[Speaker 1]and build a hangar and whatever. I think
[Speaker 1]all the lots are sold now, but it's
[Speaker 1]a it's a it's a cool little airport.
(23:33):
[Speaker 1]There used to be another airport, and it
[Speaker 1]is still there technically, but it's a private
[Speaker 1]airport called, Miller Herald Airport. And that's, used
[Speaker 1]to be part of the Sugar Loaf, ski
[Speaker 1]resort, which is up, north of Cedar, Michigan
[Speaker 1]in Leelanau County. And they, I don't think
(23:58):
[Speaker 1]that that's available for public use anymore. Really,
[Speaker 1]the only thing there is a golf course,
[Speaker 1]so I don't know if, if there's still
[Speaker 1]a thing. It's another kind of a cool
[Speaker 1]airport up in Northport. I've been around it,
[Speaker 1]just not been into it mainly because it's
(24:19):
[Speaker 1]a, you know, grass runway or grass runways,
[Speaker 1]but, that one's got quite a history. At
[Speaker 1]some point, maybe I'll do a quick episode
[Speaker 1]about, Woosley Woosley Airport in Northport, Michigan. That's,
[Speaker 1]right up at the tip of the Leelanau
[Speaker 1]Peninsula. And there's another one that I haven't
(24:41):
[Speaker 1]been to yet, been over it several times,
[Speaker 1]drove by it several times, is Torchport. It's
[Speaker 1]in Torch Lake, Michigan along Highway thirty one.
[Speaker 1]So, you know, and and the runway comes
[Speaker 1]right up to the road or at least
[Speaker 1]the east west runway comes right up to
[Speaker 1]the road. And it was grass up until
(25:02):
[Speaker 1]the beginning of this summer, and they paved
[Speaker 1]it. So now there's a paved runway there,
[Speaker 1]and they're selling lots and houses and stuff
[Speaker 1]on that airport. So it's kind of a
[Speaker 1]airport community, but it is a public use
[Speaker 1]airport. So technically, we can, go in there.
[Speaker 1]Right now on the chart, it still says
[Speaker 1]it's grass, but their east west runway is
(25:23):
[Speaker 1]now paved with asphalt. I know that because,
[Speaker 1]friend of mine, Eric, he, he was, I
[Speaker 1]think, the first personal land there, after the
[Speaker 1]pavement was ready to go. He, landed his
[Speaker 1]Aztec there, which the twin that he had.
[Speaker 1]And he doesn't have the he doesn't have
(25:44):
[Speaker 1]the Aztec anymore. But, anyway, so that kinda
[Speaker 1]oh, one more airport, and I I think
[Speaker 1]I've talked about it, but I wanna talk
[Speaker 1]about it again because, I definitely wanna utilize
[Speaker 1]this airport at some point in the future
[Speaker 1]is the historic Acme Skyport. That's what it's
(26:07):
[Speaker 1]officially called, but that was a airport, you
[Speaker 1]know, back in the, I guess, fifty, sixties,
[Speaker 1]seventies. I know it was in the seventies
[Speaker 1]because dad and I flew in and out
[Speaker 1]of there a few times when they had
[Speaker 1]the north south runway. Now they just have
[Speaker 1]an east west runway that's rather short right
[Speaker 1]now. It's like sixteen hundred feet, which, you
(26:29):
[Speaker 1]know, not bad for you know, you you
[Speaker 1]can do it in a normal small aircraft,
[Speaker 1]but, it is a tad on the short
[Speaker 1]side for, when I'm flying. So although, Eric's
[Speaker 1]taken that those those planes in there no
[Speaker 1]problem, but, you know, Eric's a lot better
[Speaker 1]pilot than I am, and it's his airplanes.
[Speaker 1]So not gonna not gonna question that one.
(26:54):
[Speaker 1]But, it's it's a really neat airport, and,
[Speaker 1]Eric got it reopened here. Hell, I guess,
[Speaker 1]last year officially. It's, it was back on
[Speaker 1]the chart. I also use it as a
[Speaker 1]jump zone for, parachutists, and, he's been fixing
(27:14):
[Speaker 1]up the hangers out there. And, yeah, it's
[Speaker 1]a it's a it's a neat little little
[Speaker 1]thing, and it's, like I said, it's better.
[Speaker 1]It got closed sometime in the nineties and
[Speaker 1]then, like I said, brought back to life
[Speaker 1]here recently. And I look forward to that
[Speaker 1]becoming a little more active, and, I'd like
(27:35):
[Speaker 1]to get an airplane that, would be perfect
[Speaker 1]for that little airport. I think that would
[Speaker 1]be my best bet if I'm gonna own
[Speaker 1]an airplane. I'll own a little one, and
[Speaker 1]that'll be perfect. So that's, that's the story.
[Speaker 1]Let's see. What other airports? Thompsonville, that one's
(27:55):
[Speaker 1]kind of a neat little airport too. That's
[Speaker 1]right by, Crystal Mountain Ski Resort in Thompsonville,
[Speaker 1]Michigan. And my uncle had a a a
[Speaker 1]big part in getting that built up. He
[Speaker 1]built the first hangar out there that, you
[Speaker 1]know, sometime twenty or thirty years ago. I
(28:18):
[Speaker 1]mean, the airport had been there for a
[Speaker 1]long time, and, they got that one paved.
[Speaker 1]I forget which runway. Yeah. They paved a
[Speaker 1]twenty nine hundred foot, seventy five foot wide
[Speaker 1]runway. That's their east west runway, and then
[Speaker 1]they've got a twenty four hundred foot, not
[Speaker 1]quite north south runway that the, that's grass.
(28:40):
[Speaker 1]And, Thompsonville used to also have the, glider
[Speaker 1]club, and so did Frankfurt. So that glider
[Speaker 1]club moved a couple of times before closing
[Speaker 1]down in Cadillac. But Thompsonville, it was has
[Speaker 1]the distinction of the the only place I've
[Speaker 1]ever flown in an ultralight. Guy there had
(29:03):
[Speaker 1]a ultralight, two seater, and this was before
[Speaker 1]the Sport Pilot rule, and, so now there's
[Speaker 1]no such thing as an ultralight two seater.
[Speaker 1]Now now it's a sport pilot plane or
[Speaker 1]a sport light sport aircraft. But, this thing
[Speaker 1]was literally a hang glider with an engine
[Speaker 1]and and, you sat in a seat. It
(29:24):
[Speaker 1]was it reminded me of riding a motorcycle,
[Speaker 1]and it was a ball. I loved it.
[Speaker 1]But, got got to fly out of Thompsonville
[Speaker 1]there. And like I said, my uncle used
[Speaker 1]to keep his plane there and, bunch of
[Speaker 1]the bunch of the guys had, had that
[Speaker 1]had a big community hangar there that, I
[Speaker 1]don't know. They had probably five or six
(29:45):
[Speaker 1]aircraft in there, and it's kind of a
[Speaker 1]neat thing. That's, but, that that's one of
[Speaker 1]one of one of the airports at one
[Speaker 1]at some point I'm gonna go to, and
[Speaker 1]that would be another alternative place for me
[Speaker 1]to keep an airplane if I buy one.
[Speaker 1]But we'll see. Yeah. Might might not, might
(30:09):
[Speaker 1]not buy one. I might, just keep renting
[Speaker 1]for the little bit that I actually fly.
[Speaker 1]That probably be okay too. I don't know.
[Speaker 1]We'll see. Anyway, that's kind of a rundown
[Speaker 1]of the airports up north here. And like
[Speaker 1]I said, there's a lot of other ones.
[Speaker 1]I guess I I wanna I wanna talk
[Speaker 1]about one other one, and I talked about
(30:30):
[Speaker 1]it a little bit in the episode yesterday,
[Speaker 1]but the old, Wertsmith Air Force Base, which
[Speaker 1]is, in Oscoda, Michigan, which is kind of
[Speaker 1]on the East Coast of Michigan on on,
[Speaker 1]like, you know, on Lake Huron pretty much.
[Speaker 1]I mean, they're not right on Lake Huron,
(30:51):
[Speaker 1]but close. Really close. And, Wertz Smith Air
[Speaker 1]Force Base is now called Oscoda Wertz Smith
[Speaker 1]Airport, and they've got a really long east
[Speaker 1]west runway and a really wide one. It's
[Speaker 1]eleven thousand eight hundred and one feet long
[Speaker 1]and two hundred feet wide. And the reason
(31:14):
[Speaker 1]for that is they were a huge b
[Speaker 1]fifty two base. They had a bunch of
[Speaker 1]b fifty twos and k c one thirty
[Speaker 1]five tankers. And, you know, b fifty twos
[Speaker 1]like really long runways. And, you know, that's
[Speaker 1]just a tad over two miles of long
[Speaker 1]runway and two hundred feet wide. I was
(31:35):
[Speaker 1]always joking. If I was ever to go
[Speaker 1]there, I could do two or three touch
[Speaker 1]and goes in one pass, but, always wanted
[Speaker 1]to go to that one. So at some
[Speaker 1]point, I will, I will make the trek
[Speaker 1]over there and check it out. But there's
[Speaker 1]a lot of military airspace. Alpena Airport has
[Speaker 1]a, a fighter contingent there. And, and, of
(31:59):
[Speaker 1]course, there's Camp Grayling and the Grayling Army
[Speaker 1]Airfield and, you know, just a lot of
[Speaker 1]military operating areas, restricted areas. I'm looking at
[Speaker 1]the chart here. There's, you know, one, two,
[Speaker 1]three, four, five military operating areas. And then
(32:20):
[Speaker 1]around Grayling, there's a restricted and a couple
[Speaker 1]other places you're not supposed to fly without
[Speaker 1]permission. You know, not that you can't fly
[Speaker 1]through them. You you know, you you certainly
[Speaker 1]can, especially when they're cold. Meaning, there's not
[Speaker 1]anything going on. But even when they're not
[Speaker 1]cold, you know, as long as you, get
(32:42):
[Speaker 1]permission and kinda let everybody know you're you're
[Speaker 1]coming through, and they're cool with it. But,
[Speaker 1]again, you know, it's a it's a thing
[Speaker 1]you gotta worry about when you're flying. You
[Speaker 1]just can't go everywhere you want to. There's
[Speaker 1]certain air spaces. And, you know, kind of
[Speaker 1]out in the middle of Lake Michigan, couple
[Speaker 1]of there's a restricted area and a, an
(33:03):
[Speaker 1]MOA, which is kind of off the Wisconsin
[Speaker 1]shoreline. You know, what airport is that? Yes.
[Speaker 1]Sheboygan, Wisconsin and Manitowoc, Wisconsin. There's a big
[Speaker 1]restricted area. What's the altitudes on that? It
(33:24):
[Speaker 1]should tell you on the chart. Maybe not.
[Speaker 1]Anyway, I can look it up at some
[Speaker 1]point, but, now what is it? Anyway, so
[Speaker 1]there's a a military operating area and all
[Speaker 1]that. And I I think what they do
[Speaker 1]out there is simulated bomb runs or something.
[Speaker 1]I who knows? But, if you were to
(33:46):
[Speaker 1]cross Lake Michigan, which personally, I will not
[Speaker 1]do in a single engine aircraft. But, you
[Speaker 1]know, some people do. Nothing wrong with that.
[Speaker 1]It's perfectly legal. Although, I just don't like
[Speaker 1]to be over water where, I can't glide
[Speaker 1]to shore. So and not too long ago,
(34:08):
[Speaker 1]off of the off of, Milwaukee, They had
[Speaker 1]a Cirrus, lost an engine. They were coming
[Speaker 1]across Lake Michigan in the southern part of
[Speaker 1]the lake, and and, of course, the Cirrus
[Speaker 1]has a parachute system. So, you know, nobody
[Speaker 1]nobody died, but, they did go swimming. And,
[Speaker 1]the airplane, as far as I know, is
(34:30):
[Speaker 1]still on the bottom of the lake, but,
[Speaker 1]coast guard got to them and no problem
[Speaker 1]there. You know, they were they were wet
[Speaker 1]and lost their airplane, but, they walked away
[Speaker 1]from it. So I guess that's the goal.
[Speaker 1]You know, they always say a good landing
[Speaker 1]is is one you can walk away from,
[Speaker 1]and a really good landing is one that,
(34:51):
[Speaker 1]you can reuse the airplane. And, I always
[Speaker 1]like to go for the really good ones.
[Speaker 1]So and as they say, taking off is
[Speaker 1]optional. Landing is mandatory. Alright. With all that,
[Speaker 1]I think tomorrow what's it I'm gonna do
[Speaker 1]tomorrow? I I know I had something in
(35:13):
[Speaker 1]mind. Got it on my list. Oh, yeah.
[Speaker 1]Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So tomorrow, I'm gonna do
[Speaker 1]the blizzard of seventy eight, as I remember
[Speaker 1]it as a newly minted twelve year old.
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