A Tall Grass Strip

PART ONE (Link to pictures for the story)

On Saturday, July 11, 1998, my son and I decided to fly from Anoka Airport (ANE) to Detroit Lakes (DTL) with the idea of visiting my son's father-in-law’s lake place on a lake near DTL. We discussed that there was a Resort with a grass landing strip close by. It would reduce the drive time to DTL from the lake to pick us up from 1 hour to 5 minutes. We discussed the possibility of landing there. I called the resort, named Tamerac, and discussed the grass strip with the new resort owner. I asked her if there was a charge to land and if anyone had landed there this year. She said no charge, no one this year. She said only part of it was mowed to use by campers and that there was a narrow path down the center and that it was about 1/2 mile long. The owner said that their insurance agent said not to mow it, then it could not be considered an airstrip and they would not be liable. We decided that it was worth looking at.

We flew to DTL in about 1:20 for a distance of 151 nautical miles. We had a tail wind so we cruised about 105 knots all the way even though it was a hot and humid day. We landed on DTL's grass strip. My son thought it was a great landing and very soft even though I would have liked a slower flare to allow a really nicer touchdown. We talked to the people at the airport that knew the Tamerac strip. They were hoping it would be cut also because of the long drive to the area. I plotted a course to the lake, the resort and the landing strip, about 45 degrees and 20 miles out. On the way out, my son said that a lake below was one of those on the way. We were heading about 20 degrees but I thought it looked like the lake we were looking for also. (There is a 16-degree magnetic disturbance in the area and I thought that was causing the bad reading.) Now as I think about it, how could a magnetic disturbance affect a GPS! We soon figured out that we were north and finally headed in the right direction.

We arrived at Round Lake and saw the landing strip easily from the north. The strip runs north/ south and can be seen from the north and south but is hidden by the trees if you arrive from the east or west. We flew out over the lake and made a pass by the shore to see the cabin and even saw my grandson playing on the water slide. Next we flew over the landing strip and then a traffic pattern to allow us to look over the strip from south to north. Even though the wind was from the south, I felt that it would be better to land to the north because there were campers at the north end. We made 4 low passes over the strip to look it over. It did have long grass and some trees laying down on the edge of the clearing. I finally decided to make a low approach to the south. This approach was much better, slower, and we could touchdown on the cut part of the field.

We came over the trees at 60 kn. with full flaps (30 degrees and very small in a '48 C170 so not as much effect from full flaps as in a C170B) and dropped into the clearing nicely. We touched down nicely but then seemed to be going very fast. I would guess it was because of the trees on either side. I headed the plane directly for the cut path even though it was not very wide. As we continued into the tall grass I had some directional control problems. First I ended up going somewhat to the left but then slowed down and straightened out. We went down the entire length of the strip to the south end to turn around. We almost got stuck in an area of soft sand at the south end of the strip. We taxied back through the long grass trying to stay in the path. The path was narrower than the landing gear of my 170. We parked the plane, cleaned out the grass from the wheels, put the sun reflector in the windshield and went to the lake home. (Nice place, log cabin, with air and huge rooms.) I spent time with my grandson and we had a nice meal. About 3:30 we decided it was time to fly back.

To part two