It is privately owned, but open to the public.
In the past I had eyed this airport and made a few passes, however the field looked a little soft so I never landed in my Cessna 150. It has been a relatively dry fall so I decided to check it out in the Challenger.
Circling I could see that the northern 2/3 of Rwy 01/19 looked a little wet so I decided to use 01 and hopefully stop short of the soft sections.
Airlane
Crossing the road and slipping over the power lines I was well into the flair as the ground dropped away faster than my Challenger descended. As the runway leveled out I was able to touch down and and get on the brakes stopping with about 100 feet of good dry grass remaining. While 100 feet may not seem like much, a Challenger approaching at 45 mph and touching down in the low 30's with a 200' ground roll, 100 feet is a 50% margin.
The owner Ray Florczyk II came out to greet me. A very friendly and chatty guy, he is happy to share his peaceful airport with visiting pilots. He cautioned me to overfly the runway after a period of rain before landing. As with a lot of these small airports we need to use some common sense and accept responsibility for our decisions and the risks.
My Challenger II at Airlane
I thanked Ray and said I would be back in the spring to take him for a ride in the Challenger and also get some pictures of him flying his Aeronca Champ.
That evening I received an email from him with a link to a video of my take-off. I edited it in iMovie and this morning posted it to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxboPlyfuPI
