Madeline Island and Richard I. Bong Museum PIREP

Mary was landing on Rwy 31 (which the AWOS made clear the winds
were favoring), while another pilot was landing on Sky Harbor's Rwy 13 (?)
just three miles away -- which seemed pretty bizarre.

It does, till you're heading in to one and hear someone on the frequency aiming
for the other. Heads up! They're so close, it kinda makes sense to have them
on the same freq, in case you don't have 2 radios to monitor traffic at the
other strip, which could wander into your pattern. I love Sky Harbor, even
though I couldn't spot it the first time I went there until I saw a floatplane
landing on the "runway" next to it...in Duluth Harbor!

There's nothing like flying downwind for Sky Harbor's runway 14 and looking out
over that vast lake. You can't see the far shore and just as you think how cool
it would be to go fly out over it you hear the strains of Gordon Lightfoot's
"Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" in your mind and realize how cold and hungry
that water looks...it's about 40 degrees year-round, and has the greatest depth
of any place in North America. Don't ditch. You won't last long treading water.

Is the restaurant on Bong Field (nautical themed, with a few nods to aviation)
closed now? Is Barker Island another length of the Park Point strip that
shelters the harbor from the lake?

If you ever get a hankering to go even further north, Ely with its wolf museum
is a wonderful destination. Feels like you're at the top of the world, and the
sectional will warn you of the areas where the concentration of iron ore in the
ground tweaks your compass...

(StellaStar) wrote in message

If you ever get a hankering to go even further north, Ely with its wolf museum
is a wonderful destination. Feels like you're at the top of the world, and the
sectional will warn you of the areas where the concentration of iron ore in the
ground tweaks your compass...

The flight from Duluth to Ely messes with the GPS as well. I've flown
it three times and each time I lost position part way there. The last
time I was getting erroneous data...the moving map had me heading east
over Lake Superior at 600 knots! (I fly a Cherokee 140). I've learned
to have my sectional open on my lap for that leg, as you can't trust
the compass or the GPS. Ely has a VOR on field, but I like redundancy
in navigation. Ely is a cool place, sort of the last outpost before
the civilized world turns into wilderness. The economy relys on
wilderness tourism, so it has more than adequate amenities, but is
still unspoiled.

Our first trip there was a round-robin of Oshkosh to Mackinac Island
to Ely and back to Kansas. Our last fuel stop before Ely was Ashland.
Thanks for the memories, Jay and Stella.

JP Krievins

Is the restaurant on Bong Field (nautical themed, with a few nods to
aviation)
closed now?

The restaurant is open, although we sadly didn't get a chance to eat there.

Is Barker Island another length of the Park Point strip that
shelters the harbor from the lake?

Barker Island is that little spit of land between Sky Harbor and the actual
lake shore. It's full of tourist stuff, from a maritime museum, to a
marina, to hotels, to the new Bong Museum

See a map here at http://visitdouglascounty.com/maps-page-superior.htm .
It's hard to see, cuz when you click on it to enlarge the map, it neatly
splits Barker Island in half!

If you ever get a hankering to go even further north, Ely with its wolf
museum
is a wonderful destination. Feels like you're at the top of the world, and
the
sectional will warn you of the areas where the concentration of iron ore
in the
ground tweaks your compass...

Yeah, the iron ore does do strange things to a compass. Of course,
navigating from Ashland to Superior is as easy as pie -- just follow the
lake shore west! Who needs a compass?

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"