Annual Placidity

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
14 Oct 2018	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - LKP (Lake Placid, NY) - SDC	3.3	1880.4

Lee and I flew at 7500 feet, riding smoothly over scattered clouds en route to Lake Placid, NY. Elsewhere in the sky over the Empire State, five additional aircraft (and one car!) carried other Williamson Flying Club members to a lunchtime rendezvous at New York's famed mountain home for winter Olympic training.

Lee was recovering from shoulder surgery and unable to fly himself, but I was happy to have him along. It was just like the old days before he bought his Piper Colt.

We were supposed to fly to Lake Placid a week earlier, but consistent with other planned trips in 2018, had to fall back on our rain date. The fall color may have been a bit past peak, but we made it. We try to do an autumn flight to Lake Placid every year, but it is probably best described as quasi-annual. In other words, we go on those years that the weather allows.

As the Adirondack Mountains came into view, I was surprised to see that the tallest peaks were already snow covered. I have made many fall trips to the mountains over the years, but this was the first time I ever saw frosted peaks and fall colors coexisting.

We descended below the ragged cloud deck in a loose spiral south of the Lake Placid airport. Between arriving powered aircraft and active glider tows, the traffic pattern was quite active.

When we arrived on the ramp, we found that Mike's Cessna 150 was already there along with club Skyhawk Six Echo Sierra.

Olympic ski jump towers in the background

From the ramp, we had a great view of Whiteface Mountain living up to its name.

As we waited for other club members to arrive, we watched as a glider was towed aloft.

Barry arrived in his Seneca. Unfortunately, his door was broken and would not unlatch from inside. He managed to scramble out the back door to open the main cabin door from outside, which he described as embarrassing. I did not think it was embarrassing at all. I think it was lucky that he had a back door.

Brad, Paula, and Natalie arrived in the club Archer, Eight Five X-Ray.

Paula, Brad, and Natalie

Brad and Paula shared the flying duties in Eight Five X-Ray, two of our newest private pilots stretching their wings on their first flight to Lake Placid!

With six Williamson Flying Club aircraft on the ramp at Lake Placid (Dan's RV is out of frame), we hiked to the road to hail the Trolley for a ride to lunch. While we waited, we were joined by Tom and Alicia who arrived by car while driving home from vacation in Vermont. They indicated that the leaf peeper traffic was aggravating. Arrival by air was clearly the way to go.

(l-r) Mike, Paula, me, Dan and his wife, Lee, Natalie, Brad, Tom, and Alicia

We had seventeen for lunch at Lisa G's in Lake Placid. Great food, great time, great people. They were also fast people. The crew photographed above were all that I could corral for a group photo. Right after we took this picture, Barry's Seneca streaked directly overhead on departure.

Climbing back into Warrior 481 for the return flight to Sodus, I paused to admire the remaining club aircraft on the ramp. I don't know why, but there is definitely something appealing about flying with a group of other pilots.