A Study in Contrasts

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go

When Upstate NY temperatures are forecast to peak at 50+ °F in December, exchanging a vacation day for altitude therapy is a must. This is especially true when that day is a Friday, when there are no meetings scheduled at work, and when the year is about to end with more than half of the annual vacation allotment still unspent.

With a vacation day proudly secured, I sat the evening before with the chart (OK, iPad) in my lap brainstorming ideas for someplace new to visit. I had a few really good ideas, but it quickly became apparent that a trip out of state during the pandemic was not only ill-advised, but flat-out disallowed depending on the state in question.

Deciding to stay closer to home, I eyed -- not for the first time -- Becks Grove (K16), a tiny public use airport eight miles northwest of Griffiss International. There did not appear to be anything to do there. In fact, even parking availability seemed questionable based on satellite imagery. But that was not the point. Rather, tall trees around the airport suggested that Becks Grove might be somewhat challenging to get into and back out of.

Good enough. I set my course due east out of Sodus.

The Notch

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
11 Dec 2020	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - K16 (Blossvale, NY) - RME (Rome, NY) - SDC	2.3	2195.8

All pilots know that unfamiliar runways can be difficult to find while inbound perpendicular to runway heading.  Over time, pilots learn tricks to spot airports even if the runways themselves are difficult to see.

In this case, none of my experience helped as I approached Becks Grove from the west while skimming across the top of a relatively featureless woods. The haze and angle of sun were most certainly not in my favor and I was astounded by my inability to locate Becks Grove as the mileage to the airport slowly ticked down through single digits. After several minutes of squinting across the top an apparently unbroken forest, the GPS announced an arrival at the destination. Surprised, I looked straight down just in time to see a notch in the trees disappear beneath the leading edge of the wing. I entered a left descending turn to intercept a 45° pattern entry for runway 6, losing sight of the airport once again while maneuvering.

Becks Grove Airport photographed while turning onto final approach for runway 6

It is little wonder that I missed the airport while inbound. Becks Grove is a 23 foot wide paved runway running through a 150 foot wide slot hewn from the forest. Per the FAA Chart Supplement, the surrounding trees are 80 to 130 feet tall, significantly higher than the FAA's boilerplate 50 foot obstacle.

I twisted the Warrior about two axes and plunged into the arboreal chasm in a steep, slipping descent, barely clearing the trees at the approach end of the runway in a way that reminded me of approaches to the turf runway at my first home field in South Haven, MI.

Being used to airports sitting in wide open clearings, I experienced mild claustrophobia as the Warrior dropped below the tree tops. Though I was focused on the narrow runway itself, trees filled my peripheral vision in all directions. I felt contained, like an X-wing hurtling through the Death Star trench. There is no displaced threshold at Becks Grove (or any runway marking at all) and I was conscious of wasting precious runway in spite of the steep approach I flew. When I was roughly 50 feet above the ground, the wall of trees looming at the far end of the runway gave an undeniable sense of immediacy. I consciously committed to land because I was rapidly running out of space to successfully abort a landing in the wooded box canyon.

I touched down smoothly about halfway down the 3,000 foot runway. Shadowed by the surrounding trees, the runway was covered with a thin layer of patchy ice (some visually obvious, some not). Nevertheless, the Warrior slowed to strolling speed and I added a touch of power to keep her rolling to the northeast end of the strip.

Raison d'être?

Although it appeared that there was room for parking on the grass to the left of the runway, the turf looked soggy enough to entrap any aircraft not equipped with tundra tires. Instead, I parked on a paved apron near the only hangar. It was an open hangar with a single large closed bay on the end. The open portion was half filled with airplanes and half filled with trucks and construction equipment for Da Man Construction Group also based at the field. The ramp space was tight enough that I had to shut down the engine and turn the airplane around manually with a towbar to avoid clipping a pair of snowplows with a wingtip.

I explored for a few minutes, wondering about the history of the airport and how it came to exist. Searching the internet afterward failed to bring up much in the way of history for the field. Despite being listed as public use, the facility had a private feel about it. As anticipated, there was not much there for an itinerant pilot to do, but the experience of flying in made Becks Grove a worthwhile destination for the morning (airport #213).

View across the northeast end of the runway from the parked Warrior

I contemplated my next moves for the day, finally deciding to hop over to Griffiss for inexpensive $3.23/gal fuel before heading home. I set the radios to the appropriate frequencies for access to the former Air Force base just eight miles away.

Back taxiing to the departure end of runway 6

I back taxied the sidewalk runway for departure, skidding the Warrior on black ice while turning around at the departure end of the runway. I momentarily worried about sliding off the pavement and getting stuck in the obviously soft surrounding grass, but managed to get the airplane straightened out before that happened. 

Departure end of runway 6

The tall trees at the end of the runway were daunting, but I treated the take-off as a short field departure by deploying 25° of flap and rotating at 52 KIAS. Warrior 481 levitated out of the manmade gorge about halfway down the runway; it was not really even close. Crossing through treetop height, I looked across the expanse of closely-packed treetops forming a false surface well above the forest floor and was reminded of climbing through a hole in the clouds.

Though it was far from the shortest paved runway I have used (that was Aeroflex-Andover at 1980 feet long) or the narrowest (the runway at Re-Dun is 20 feet wide), at 3000 x 23 feet with tall trees completely surrounding it, Becks Grove was an interesting and fun challenge for the morning and a welcome break from the monotony of landing at more typically configured airports.

Discount Fuel

But there was little time to dwell on the experience because rising out of the trees placed me less than four minutes away from Griffiss International. I picked up the ATIS information (Whiskey) and called the tower directly with a landing request while still (barely) outside the Class Delta airspace. Griffiss is a TRSA like Kalamazoo. Bypassing Approach and calling the tower directly at Kalamazoo, though legal, would usually elicit a rebuke from the controllers there. But if the tower controller at the former Air Force base was annoyed by my cold call, it was not detectable in his voice. He promptly cleared me to land straight in on runway 15.

The runway at Griffiss is 11,821 feet long by 200 feet wide and is without a doubt the largest runway that I have ever used. (Plattsburgh is close, but slightly shorter.) The contrast between the millions of square feet of pavement at Griffiss versus Becks Grove was striking. By way of example, I think that even the parallel taxiway at Griffiss is too wide to have fit in the narrow 150 foot notch at Becks Grove.

One mile final for runway 15 at Griffiss.

The proportions of large runways can be disorienting on approach, providing the illusion to pilots accustomed to smaller runways that they are lower and closer than they really are. Although I appeared to be about to cross the threshold, ForeFlight happily informed me moments after taking the above photo that I was still one mile away from it.

Put mildly, the view from the self-serve fuel pump at Griffiss International contained a bit more "elbow room" than Becks Grove.

After fueling, I accepted an intersection departure for runway 15 at taxiway Charlie that gave me about 4,500 feet of runway for take-off. Despite only using 38% of the available runway, no short field technique was required at Griffiss.

Last look at Griffiss on departure

Satisfied with the mild adventure of visiting a new airport and filling up with the lowest priced fuel in the region, I returned home against a headwind and spent the rest of the unseasonably warm afternoon washing Warrior 481 in anticipation of a long, cold winter.