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Landing at the House on Ice

Dvalcik

Well Known Member
Sponsor
I have been waiting for the right conditions with the ice thick enough. I have flown into Alton Bay multiple times. We live on Branch Lake just outside of Ellsworth Maine, close to Bar Harbor. Today was almost perfect to land on the lake for a photo op of the RV12 in front of the house. Winds calm, sunny and the Temps were ? 15 Celsius on the ground (a warm day for Maine.) The ice had very little of any snow and was almost Zamboni quality.

A few pictures of the plane on the ice with the house in the back ground
Branch Lake Landing 01.jpg



Branch Lake Landing 02.jpg



Branch Lake Landing 05.jpg



A short video on YouTube Branch Lake youtube.jpg

Branch Lake youtube.jpg

https://youtu.be/p3u1H0Xgaek
 
Camp David

Impressive Governor very impressive! You are probable the first RV in the Nation opened the ice season. What a beautiful view! I am proud I spent a night in that mansion couple years ago. A little local fly in on a weekend maybe weather permitting? :D
 
Impressive Governor very impressive! You are probable the first RV in the Nation opened the ice season. What a beautiful view! I am proud I spent a night in that mansion couple years ago. A little local fly in on a weekend maybe weather permitting? :D

Alton should open in the next week or two. Keep in touch :D
 
Wow- very impressive. Looks like a lot of fun. I never thought of our little go anywhere machines landing on ice. I guess that comes from living in the sunny south. Our only ice is when we get 1/2" or so on everything when the fronts are battling and the heavy rain turns into freezing rain.
 
Great milestone David

I know you were looking forward to this for a long time. Great job.
 
Beautiful, but...

Ok, this was just awesome!

But...

I can't believe no one asked the ONE question!

Was it slippery??? Either landing or taking off?

On the landing it looked like the wind must be blowing pretty good the way the plane was moving around. I was thinking as you were on short final that the wind was just going to weather-vane the plane.

Understand, I have no concept whatsoever of landing on ice, which is why I'm curious to learn how the plane felt - and if you felt like you had complete control both in landing and taking off?

Thanks again for taking the time to make such a great video!

Gary
 
Ok, this was just awesome!

But...

I can't believe no one asked the ONE question!

Was it slippery??? Either landing or taking off?

On the landing it looked like the wind must be blowing pretty good the way the plane was moving around. I was thinking as you were on short final that the wind was just going to weather-vane the plane.

Understand, I have no concept whatsoever of landing on ice, which is why I'm curious to learn how the plane felt - and if you felt like you had complete control both in landing and taking off?

Thanks again for taking the time to make such a great video!

Gary

I was thinking the exact thing while I was watching the video. I know you all do some crazy stuff on those lakes when they freeze (like drive multiple trucks on the lake and drags little fish huts out there) but I just can't wrap my head around that :eek: . Growing up in the South the only thing we do when we see ice is stay home ;) and then take our 4 wheel drive trucks out and pull people out of ditches :D.
All I was imagining was that if I did that I would be doing 360's in the middle of the lake.

That was a very cool video.
 
Thanks for sharing that. Must have been some funny conversations heard around the lake that day starting with "What the????".
 
Ok, this was just awesome!

But...

I can't believe no one asked the ONE question!

Was it slippery??? Either landing or taking off?

On the landing it looked like the wind must be blowing pretty good the way the plane was moving around. I was thinking as you were on short final that the wind was just going to weather-vane the plane.

Understand, I have no concept whatsoever of landing on ice, which is why I'm curious to learn how the plane felt - and if you felt like you had complete control both in landing and taking off?

Thanks again for taking the time to make such a great video!

Gary

Keep in mind I chose the day and conditions for Ice landings. It really needs to be perfect conditions :D

The only issue with the ice on a calm day is after you loose rudder authority steering with the castering nose wheel. This is somewhat interesting at slow speeds. Slow power on and off with differential braking movements will get the plane to change directions. (Most of the time) It helps if there is a little snow on the surface to add some friction. I was at Alton bay and had to have the guys on the ramp grab my wing as I tried to line up. He got hold of the handle on the wing of the RV12 and just a little hold she came around. - See the video from last year.

https://youtu.be/6nv7bcyy45M

On takeoff, line up and power up get the nose wheel off quickly as you should anyway. The rudder takes over in seconds and it is no different in calm winds. Let her fly off
 
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Oh what fun it is to ride in a (one-horse open sleigh) one hundred horse RV-12 :eek:!!!

Awesome milestone David, thanks for taking us along!
 
David,
Great pic. Now you need to figure out a way to put her on floats for the summer.

Gary
 
Very nice - has anyone figured out how to put a -A model on ski's yet?

I live on a nicely frozen river but there's too much snow to land on wheels...

:cool:
 
Very nice - has anyone figured out how to put a -A model on ski's yet?

:cool:

I communicated with an aviation entity on the other side of the globe on the subject. They do a lot of engineering for GA and can design/built skis for any airplane. We draw a memorandum of understanding couple years ago. Some Rf&D was performed I supplied the data but costs became prohibitive. For me at least :D

My answer is no, nobody put an -A model on ski's yet.
 
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