One night last week I made my first landing on Rochester's runway 22. If the weather was any worse, the approach would have been impossible, yet the landing held no particular thrill. It was in fact a moment of calm between the descent through the snowstorm, and the task of finding my way diagonally across a snow- blind airport. The physical act of landing is seldom inspirational.
Concrete runways are usually as devoid of emotion as they are of distinguishing features; they are all built, maintained and inspected to FAA standards of conformity. Grass runways at country airports are different in so many ways. The underlying soil may be soft or hard, dry or wet. The grass might be long and the runways may slope up, down, through a saucer or over a hump. Some are as wide as a meadow, some as narrow as a farm lane, and most all of them are short.
The heart and soul, the romance of aviation, is out here in the countryside. The city is all business, you form a line to come and you form a line to go, all according to well defined procedures. Flying in and out of the big places is about as dull as going through the check- in and boarding procedures inside the terminal.
Every grass runway is unique, and I still feel a thrill each time I land at a little airport for the first time. Last month I experienced it all over again as I heard my wheels brush into the soft grass at the Honeoye Falls airport. I was out on one of my wanderings, and thought I would end up at Weedsport, but one thing led to another and I flew northwest instead of northeast. Not only did I have no plan to land at Honeoye Falls, I hardly knew the airport existed.
Having noticed it on the chart, I had to look hard to find it, tucked into the southwest corner of town between a corn field and a Ford dealership. I didn't know for sure if it was maintained well, if it was open, or if I would be welcome. It is always best to call ahead before landing at unfamiliar airports. I circled town warily at a tip- toe sort of power setting while I made up my mind to land or not.
I finally decided that I would hate myself to have passed up a chance to land at such a nice place on what might be the last of the grass- field days of the year. Approaching a small airstrip like this, you have to fly the airplane with some degree of accuracy, but you also have to eyeball the runway as though you were going to make a championship putt across it; soft spots? Long grass? Obstructions? Pitched up, down, or to one side?
In the end, all my concerns were for naught. The runway held no surprises, and best of all nobody took pot- shots at me as I got out of the plane. As it turns out there are more than a dozen planes based there, in hangars scattered around the north end. The entire Rochester area, in fact is rich with little airports and little airplanes.
The town itself was one of the area's earliest settlements, thanks to the abrupt drop in Honeoye Creek which was harnessed to power several mills. I was charmed by the walk into town from the airport, as I tried to hear the stories that each old house had to tell. The center of town is still clustered around the millsites at the falls, and seemed to smile with a grace that only comes with age.
A sweet little airport next to an interesting town... Why isn't the whole world like this?
Finishing a circle of town, looking south along the runway.
On the ground, parked out of the way.
A quiet autumn morning in a quiet town