A Week Down East | Part 5, Reconnections

The Michigan-Maine Connection

After participating in several multi-family house rental scenarios over the years, I have noticed that the final morning of every vacation has a particular feel about it. While there is wistful regret for departure, it is always comingled with ready anticipation for returning home. On flying trips, my primary focus turns to confirmatory flight planning and safe navigation of weather for the day.

Our final morning in Boothbay Harbor was no different, characterized by the usual scramble of repacking, cleaning the house, and sweeping each room for items left behind. (This exercise rescued one of The Bear’s socks from being lost forever.) We bid a temporary farewell to Mark, Dena, and Izzy and made the journey back to Brunswick down US-1 for the last time.

Alex and me sitting under a blue awning at Wild Oats. Photo by Kristy.

We met Alex for breakfast at Wild Oats, sitting outside on a beautiful -- but rapidly warming -- Maine morning. Alex and I have known each other since Junior High and remained friends through High School and college. The last time I saw him was on our previous visit to Brunswick in 2015 when he hosted us for a fun evening of delicious home-cooked whole lobsters. Unlike the whole lobsters, Alex did not need to teach us how to eat our breakfast paninis! It was great to see him again and catch up.

Callsign: Crossbow

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
25 June 2022	N21481	BXM (Brunswick, ME) - LCI (Laconia, NH) - SDC (Sodus, NY)	3.6	2468.7

Good VFR weather was forecast to dominate the day and our preparations to depart Brunswick Executive were made with minimal fanfare. Since we took on fuel a week earlier, Brunswick bought a new load and the price ballooned by $2/gallon to $8.15. As happens so frequently, I was thankful for the fortuitous combination of dumb luck and good timing.

A V-22 Osprey was practicing pattern work at Brunswick Executive as we taxied from parking to the runway. The novel hybrid vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft features twin rotors mounted on rotating wingtip pods that allow the Osprey to launch and hover like a helicopter or cruise like an airplane. I saw its experimental progenitor on display at the National Museum of the USAF in May.

I had never actually seen an Osprey in flight before. This one had a callsign of Crossbow-31, which absolutely delighted my aviation geek soul.

In addition to the Osprey, there were other aircraft arriving and departing Brunswick. Crossbow-31  observed us waiting to depart and kindly extended his pattern so that we could launch. Thanks!

The Osprey won't win any beauty pageants, but it is a highly functional aircraft with unique capability. On flight following with Portland Approach that morning, we heard multiple other Crossbow callsigns working around various airports in the area. It was the day of the Osprey!

Summer In Laconia

"Cherokee Four Eight One, we'll hold on to you all the way to Laconia." This from Portland Approach. While not overly endowed with local knowledge, I have flown into Laconia enough over the years to know that Boston Approach manages radar services there. This was the kind of information that ATC tends to share with local pilots expecting a handoff to another controller. I always appreciate being treated like a competent local when far from home.

Lake Winnipesaukee

We have landed at Laconia, NH many times since 2008, but starting in 2015 I have only visited the facility in winter. Situated on the frozen edge of Lake Winnipesaukee, Laconia makes for an ideal fuel stop after visits to the uniquely ephemeral Alton Bay Ice Runway (B18). As a result, it was unusual to find the massive lake existing in a liquid state and even more unusual to arrive there from the east.

Maneuvering for the pattern at Laconia.

Laconia's traffic pattern was crowded with students from the active flight school on the field. To my annoyance, the instructor aboard an Archer directly ahead of us on downwind chose to extend his pattern by a couple of miles. Rather than turn where I normally would and effectively cut them off in the pattern, I felt obligated to follow their circuitous route to the runway. This unfortunately led us between a pair of hilltops with houses on them. I questioned the judgement of an instructor that not only chose to disrupt traffic at a busy airport, but did so in a manner inconsiderate of nearby residents.

Warrior 481 on the ground at Laconia. Strange to see the place without any snow and ice.

Photo by a member of the line crew.

Similar to Alex, I have known Ann since Junior High School. In fact, the three of us were in many of the same classes during those years. I became good friends with Ann in High School and that friendship carried on to the Honors Program in college where we both met Kristy. A professor at Plymouth State University in central New Hampshire, we had not seen Ann since a post-Thanksgiving 2018 lunch stop in our mutual home town. We enjoyed another very overdue catch up over lunch.

Ongoing Osprey Action

When we returned to the Laconia Airport after lunch, members of the line crew were standing on the ramp excitedly taking photographs. The reason became obvious soon enough. There was yet another Osprey practicing at Laconia, another VTOL ship bearing the Crossbow callsign.

"Is it unusual to see those here?" I asked one of the line crew. He nodded emphatically in response.

Despite it being a very hot day, distortions from hot turbine exhaust were still visible in the Osprey's wake as it climbed away from Laconia.

As the Osprey practiced, I took on fuel from the Sky Bright pump on the main ramp. In all my years of visiting Laconia, it was the first time that Emerson's distant self-serve pump on the far north end of the airport was not the best deal on the field. Then again, at $7.00/gal, "good deals" have become a very relative concept.

Pauguas and Opechee Bays on Lake Winnipesaukee and Lake Winnisquam seen on departure.

Mount Ascutney on the Vermont border.

The Bear deeply engrossed in a book.

Overflying Becks Grove demonstrated how the airport really is just a notch in the trees.

Reflection

I always enjoy these trips. Our airplane gives us a fantastic superpower, the ability to leap easily from Rochester to destinations that would otherwise require an extensive drive time. 

Going back to my objectives for the trip, what did we accomplish?

• Escape? Check. We left Rochester behind and immersed ourselves in a completely different place. I love being near the sea. We enjoyed a lot of fresh seafood and good times with our friends.
• Exploration? Check. We were able to survey much of the Maine coastline from Brunswick to Eastport, adding a new easternmost point of landing. We learned about puffins, saw some beautiful lighthouses, sampled some excellent local Maine brews, and began creating a baseline on the collegiate experience for The Bear. 
• Reconnection? Check. It was not only wonderful to see Alex and Ann after so many years, but also good to catch up with Tom and Alicia even though I see them more frequently. Especially with friends that I have not seen in a few years, I always marvel at how easily these lapsed conversations can simply resume and flow. These situations always reinforce for me why we became friends in the first place.
• Exercising a technical skill? Check. I would not do this if I found the planning onerous. I genuinely enjoy it and no flight is ever the same. Planning and executing an IFR flight in actual conditions on the outbound leg definitely helped keep my pilot brain exercised.
• Absorbing the beauty of our world? Check. I am quite smitten with the dramatic Maine coastline.
• Handily beating the drive time? Check. That's just a given with these types of flights to this geography.