Have you ever seen video of Bush pilot's landing on glaciers and ice fields in the remote wilderness of alaska and salivated over how cool it must be?

Well I have some great news, you don't have to be a bush pilot in some remote part of the world to do this!

We have the only FAA certified Ice Airport in the country here in New England! Beautiful Alton Bay Seaplane Base [B18] in New Hampshire freezes over every year and is maintained as an FAA certified Ice airport.

If you search YouTube for "Alton bay" you will get many video results of people who have recorded their adventure into B18. These videos will show you what the ice runway looks like however they also demonstrate lot's of poor piloting skills, from flying the wrong traffic patterns to dragging the airplane in on a long low and slow final dodging tree's to the left and right.

I have developed a training course based on personal experience, observation of other pilots landing and accidents that have happened at B18 to bring you the Ice Runway Adventure. I have created this course in order to ensure the skill level for a safe trip into an airport that presents some very real safety concerns that if ignored can come back to haunt you in a hurry.

This is a full day training package that will put your skills to the test.

The adventure starts with a ground briefing of about 1 hour where we will discuss all of the operational considerations of the Ice runway. Next we will brief on the skill-set that we are going to practice on a normal asphalt runway prior to departing for B18.

This north-south runway is in a valley that even on seemingly calm days can develop swirling crosswinds. Due to the nature of Ice it we will always treat it as a contaminated short surface and apply solid short & soft field technique to every landing. The Ice also virtually eliminates braking, while the brakes can be used to a certain point it is much easier to lose traction and we will taxi, takeoff & land always using minimal to no braking.

Skill's reviewed: (I recommend practicing these prior to our review)
• Short Field Landing to a slow (walking) taxi speed without braking in 1800' or less
• Soft Field Landing to a slow (walking) taxi speed without braking in 1800' or less
• Crosswind Takeoffs & Landings while maintaining perfect centerline throughout approach, landing, & roll out.
• Taxiing without braking while maintaining perfect centerline control.

Upon meeting my standards for each of the above areas of operation (roughly 1.0 - 1.5 hours of flying) we will depart and make our way to B18. Upon completion of our landing at the airport we will park in the parking area at the approach end of runway 01 and pay a visit to the restaurant that they pull across the lake on a giant set of skids.

After a nice lunch we will saddle up and make our departure and return home!

Here are some things that I would advise bringing with you for the trip.

Recommended Equipment List:

• Yak-Trax or equivalent shoe mod (do not wear boots, you need sneakers to feel the rudders)
• Camera or Video Camera
• Warm Jacket, Scarf, Hat & Gloves

Trip Cost:

In your airplane: $700.00*
In my airplane: $1295.00*

*$250.00 non refundable deposit required to book trip.