Day 26 - Glens Falls and the Adirondacks

Tony Cacciarelli • July 10, 2020

Two A5s flying around the Adirondacks

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Fly by with Brett in the lead

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Lake Placid

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The view from the fuel pump at Lake Placid

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Original Instagram Post

Today wins for best flying day of the trip - hands down.

I've had other great days of flying, but today I got to fly with Brett, another A5 owner, all around the Adirondacks. The weather and water conditions were absolutely perfect and having two identical A5s [they are numbers 36 and 37] added a whole other level of fun.

We started out on Lake George with a formation flyby and a couple water landings. Then we moved on to Friends Lake. That was a pretty small lake with enough boats on it to feel crowded, so we decided to just fly over and move on to Long Lake.

Long Lake is a nice, big lake and it wasn't at all crowded so we were able to do a bunch of water takeoffs and landings and just generally splash around.

Our next stop was Tupper Lake. Not as big as Long Lake, but still had great conditions and not a lot of traffic, so we set down there to check our plan and see what our next move was.

We headed out for Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Winter Olympics and the Miracle on Ice. The landing pattern for Lake Placid airport has you flying right by the ski jump towers, which are almost as high as the pattern altitude! It takes a special kind of talent to launch yourself down something that high and into the air. I'll stick with wings, thank you.

We fueled up at Lake Placid then headed back to Glens Falls. We did one last low-level pass over Lake George and then into the airport. Conditions were getting a little bumpy at this point, so it was a good time to call it a day.

I honestly can't think of a better day of flying than this. Huge thanks to Brett for being the most gracious host anyone could ask for. He cooked up this whole route and flew lead for most of it. Neither of us had ever flown any kind of formation before, but we did an extensive briefing ahead of time and agreed to keep it pretty loose. But, it was still amazing to look out and see another A5 right there. Dunno if I'll ever stop smiling from this.

😀👍🏼

Having the benefit of hindsight, I can say this was the absolute best flying day of the entire trip. There are other special days for different reasons, but this was a perfect day of using the A5 for exactly what it was designed to do.

Meeting up with other A5 owners around the country was something I'd hoped to be able to coordinate. I'd been in touch with maybe 4-5 other owners and a few ICON sales reps before I left on June 15th, but when the time came to meet up something always seemed to screw it up. Either a plane was due for maintenance or the owner was out of town when I was passing through. I didn't know it at the time, but in the end I was only able to actually fly with Brett on this day.

I'd planned to give a few rides to some friends after Brett and I returned, but with the afternoon convection kicking up I didn't think it'd be a fun time for someone's first ride in a small plane. Unfortunate, but I was trying to get people excited about general aviation, not make them sick.

One last thing. I'd mentioned courtesy cars before. When I got to Brett's hangar he asked if I needed to borrow a car. I said yes and he handed me the keys to his gigantic party van. I honestly could've saved the money on a hotel room and just slept in that van. Definitely NOT the typical courtesy car I would've gotten from an FBO, but I was glad to have a way to get around! I did fill it up with gas before I left.