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January Lake Hopping
With the unseasonable warm weather in Wisconsin this past January who could not turn to the skies for some great and unusual Ultralighting in January? On Sunday, January 27 a few members did just that. The Mercury rose to another record 50 degrees F. A few last minute phone calls brought John Szigat (Challenger), Dean Turner (Sea Ray), Jim Shnowske (Kit Fox), and Steve Krueger(Mini Max), for an afternoon of great flying. We were wheels up out of Merrill early that afternoon (notice I said WHEELS) and headed north to Deans house on Lake Nokomis. Winds were smooth out of the South. As we climbed to a safe altitude we noticed our ground speed increased to a whopping 30MPH smooth tailwind at altitudes just below 3000 AGL (wow real jet jockey speeds for us). Our first stop was Somo Lake just NW of Tomahawk. We did a low pass to check out the ice surface and then set up our pattern to land. Although there were a few ice fishermen and some pickup trucks on the ice we felt confident it would support our light planes. However, we did send Dean to land first, just in case. He was the only one of us with the amphibious plane. By the way it just happened that Deans plane is 500 plus lbs. heavier than our light planes. We departed Somo for Nokomis and a landing in front of Deans house (plenty of ice). After a tour of Deans tropical fish and Moray eels it was off to the Willow Flowage for more of our Northwoods tour. We flew over the Willow and decided to come back to Swamp Lake for another lake landing with wheels. Swamp Lake is a deserted lake much like the Willow Flowage, it was quite interesting to be on this lake with no signs of civilization. It was a relaxing pit stop.
The only bad thing about this day or any day in January is the fact that sunset comes quickly. It was time to head south to our home ports. We stayed lower to avoid the strong south breeze aloft, but with the afternoon slipping away, the winds aloft diminished, and made for a nice flight home. It was a rare experience for us to go lake hopping on such a warm comfortable afternoon in late January with only WHEELS.
Thank You Dean for the tour of the Northwoods. It is an area that most of us can only comfortably fly over during the winter months when the lakes are frozen. I can only imagine how fun it would be on those long summer days with a float plane. |