Frigid trip to Grand Geneva Resort

Jay Honeck wrote:

Inquire/Call for destination runway conditions!

Yeah, Grand Geneva had NOT NOTAM'd it as "ice covered/braking action nil" --
which kinda ****ed me off.

Did you report it to Flight Service?

George Patterson
Great discoveries are not announced with "Eureka!". What's usually said is
"Hummmmm... That's interesting...."

Good thing you skipped Baraboo - KDLL might as well have converted to a
curling club over the weekend.

I think the FBO situation at GG is the same as you describe Lake Lawn. I
went to Grand Geneva once in the summer to eat at one of the restaurants.
When we landed, there was no-one in site, until we saw a 172 land. It was a
guy who based his plane there. He had made the comment that the airport was
basically 'self service', and unstaffed.

Same thing going on at my home base, 87Y. They laid off the guy who
attended the airport part time, and sold both rental planes. No more flight
instruction or rentals at all. The only service is fuel, if the tank
doesn't run empty, and if you have a key to unlock it. (ie: hangar / tie
town tenant). No transient services, except for maintenance if you happen
to know the moonlighter doing it.

--
Ben
C-172 - N13258 @ 87Y

john smith wrote in message ...
Thanks Jay.
You just reminded me to add another item to my FSS weather
briefing/preflight checklist...
Inquire/Call for destination runway conditions!

John,

When you say inquire/call do you mean call the airport?

It's the only way.

I learned early on that small rural airports aren't good
about filing NOTAMs.

Worse, there's a systemic "gotcha": taxiway and ramp
conditions are considered "NOTAM-L"s and aren't available
beyond a short distance (200 miles I think). We once landed
at SGF after a 3 hr flight. The briefing had mentioned the
runway (center 200 ft plowed and sanded, braking action fair).
The briefing had failed to mention that the entire ramp and
taxiway system was covered w/ 2" of sheet ice -- because it
was a NOTAM-L and we were outside the "L" area when we took
off.

Cheers,
Sydney

Did you report it to Flight Service?

Nope -- good idea, though.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Snowbird" wrote in message om...

I learned early on that small rural airports aren't good
about filing NOTAMs.

And even if they are, it's just as likely that the info isn't disseminated.
I remember here when they changed the CTAF at a local field. For
some reason the FSS refused to issue a NOTAM on that. What they
did issue was a NOTAM saying that the PCL frequency changed (it
was moved when UNICOM was moved). Even with that CTAF,
even calling the FSS that had the NOTAM file, even specifically asking
for NOTAMS in a briefing with said airport at the destination, the
FSS puke didn't provide the information.