Lac La Biche Fly In 2020
Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:33 am
Wayne has been posting some great stuff on his Caribbean travels. Warm waters, lush green scenery and icey cocktails in the evening I’m guessing.
I thought I would take us the other direction. The Town of Lac La Biche is a 200+ year old settlement in northern Alberta located on a beautiful northern lake. For you folks who live on the Gulf Coast and wonder where the pelicans and cormorants spend their summers, this is it. When conditions are right in the wInter, they make an ice runway and have a fly-in. In 2015, 85 aircraft attended. Pilots get together, townspeople come out to see the airplanes and they organize some fun activities like horse drawn sleighs and ice racing. Of course there’s food for the pilots who visit and everyone makes a donation.
The runway this year is 31/13, 4000’+ Long and 100’ wide, which is good because the CRFI is essentially zero ! As it happens today had a particularly strong westerly wind around 270 and gusting up to 30 knots, so it was a definite challenge. There were some excellent pilots with tail draggers who brought their A game to land in these conditions. Great to see such proficiency. Our DA40s make guys like me know what they are doing so it went okay: maintain the centreline, drop the upwind wing and slip on to the runway. As we taxied back on the ice the wind actually pushed us off the taxiway centreline.
The Club gives you an “Ice Pilot” certificate and a touque with the same crest.
A couple of funny surprises. The TAWS went crazy of because it thought I was putting it into the drink. And the Synthetic Vision had me on the surface of the lake.
Watched some ice racers on the race course. There are different classes: no studs, Chevettes only, or full on ice tires which look like something out of Mad Max. Hilarious and if I ever get tired of flying, that’s gonna be on the short list.
(I apologize that the photos appear rotated. I don’t know how to fix this. If anyone has a suggestion please PM me and I can fix. If you click on the photos they display correctly.)
I thought I would take us the other direction. The Town of Lac La Biche is a 200+ year old settlement in northern Alberta located on a beautiful northern lake. For you folks who live on the Gulf Coast and wonder where the pelicans and cormorants spend their summers, this is it. When conditions are right in the wInter, they make an ice runway and have a fly-in. In 2015, 85 aircraft attended. Pilots get together, townspeople come out to see the airplanes and they organize some fun activities like horse drawn sleighs and ice racing. Of course there’s food for the pilots who visit and everyone makes a donation.
The runway this year is 31/13, 4000’+ Long and 100’ wide, which is good because the CRFI is essentially zero ! As it happens today had a particularly strong westerly wind around 270 and gusting up to 30 knots, so it was a definite challenge. There were some excellent pilots with tail draggers who brought their A game to land in these conditions. Great to see such proficiency. Our DA40s make guys like me know what they are doing so it went okay: maintain the centreline, drop the upwind wing and slip on to the runway. As we taxied back on the ice the wind actually pushed us off the taxiway centreline.
The Club gives you an “Ice Pilot” certificate and a touque with the same crest.
A couple of funny surprises. The TAWS went crazy of because it thought I was putting it into the drink. And the Synthetic Vision had me on the surface of the lake.
Watched some ice racers on the race course. There are different classes: no studs, Chevettes only, or full on ice tires which look like something out of Mad Max. Hilarious and if I ever get tired of flying, that’s gonna be on the short list.
(I apologize that the photos appear rotated. I don’t know how to fix this. If anyone has a suggestion please PM me and I can fix. If you click on the photos they display correctly.)