Winter Flying, all over again

Matthew P. Cummings wrote:

I agree flying in the Winter is nice, but dang, I couldn't find the
blasted runway today. Our airport isn't known for plowing after a snow, I
had 8 inches on the ramp in front of the hangar, and I bet it'll be there
a week from now if it doesn't warm up.

Perhaps it would be good to rephrase: winter flying in and out of busy,
well-maintained airports is great. I fly out of a busy class C (which would
be a class B in the U.S.), and even with an outside tiedown out on the grass
in the sleepy GA north field, I didn't have to shovel my plane out once last
winter (in Ottawa, Canada). The big problem is that there are fewer places
to fly to -- many of the friendly little country grass strips just shrivel
up and die until the ground dries out after the spring thaw, so you're
limited to bigger airports, mainly those with scheduled air service or at
least moderate-to-heavy G.A. use.

As a side note, when I did my primary flight training, my instructor
mentioned that the most likely real-life use for the whole
precautionary-landing technique was checking for snow and ice on a runway (I
also use it for unmonitored grass strips, of course).


All the best,


David