A long time ago I landed on Waneta Lake. I had never been in a float plane before, and Ben Laughlin treated me to a ride in the Piper Cub that he kept on Seneca. It was quite a tour, and I recall we landed on seven lakes in the course of our evening's flight. Settling into a landing on such a boundless runway as a lake is exhilarating. Instead of a precisely defined runway which is usually measured in feet, lakes offer a landing area that is most readily measured in terms of square miles.

Since that time though, I have decided that the act of landing an airplane on the water accomplishes nothing but to exchange one hostile medium for another. We can't fly without wings, and we don't float well without a boat. I have never kissed the ground after landing an airplane, but I appreciate that only a terrestrial landing affords me that option.

Last week I returned to Waneta on my own terms. Earlier in the week, Larry Huntley and I were chuckling about my visit to Marv's last weekend, and the conversation strayed to landing on one of the lakes. I envisioned our usual group of guys converging on a lake and warming a pot of coffee, maybe on the little island in Lamoka Lake. Larry, a bit older and wiser, pointed out that Waneta Inn is open for lunch, and that we could all sit down for a real meal.

I have flown many winters, and viewed many frozen lakes. I have been aware that they are usually excellent places to land in an emergency, but I never contemplated doing it on purpose. I don't know why, especially since I have had the Commonwealth, with its tailwheel type landing gear, for the last three winters.

Ice flying comes naturally to Larry though. He grew up on Long Lake in the Adirondacks, and was so far from any sort of airport that all of his early flying was off of the frozen lake. Each year at freeze up, he would bring the plane over from the distant airport and fly until spring thaw. That is how he soloed, built time for his license, and in all, how he flew 150 of his first 200 hours.

It was last Friday before we both had the time to get together, but it was worth the wait. The weather was perfect, with light wind, plenty of sunshine and temperature in the low thirties. We had fairly loose plans for a rendezvous, but Larry firmed them up by landing at Dundee just before I was ready to take off. He was flying in the Subaru powered Kitfox airplane that he built in his basement during several years in the mid 90s.

The sensations of landing on the ice were much the same as landing on water. The vast expanse of runway ahead of the airplane is impressive, and the total lack of adjacent objects from which to establish a sense of perspective is exciting. Pilots always complain about obstructions near the runway, but the perspective presented by those obstructions helps us establish a sense of altitude just before landing. My wife's parting admonition only sweetened the fruits: If you wreck that thing, don't expect to use my carpet money to fix it!

The Inn is at the south end of the lake, and is the main access point and general headquarters for the ice fishermen. There were quite a number of fishermen on the lake, but they were all clustered within an easy walk of the Inn. The landing was a thrill, but uneventful and no different a feel than any other, except for the occasional tug of the deeper snow as the plane rolled through it.

Since I landed well away from the fishermen I had to taxi for quite a distance. The superior rough- ground qualities of the old- fashioned tailwheel gear showed well as the plane crossed through small drifts and the partially compacted trails of snowmobiles. A nosewheel plane would have had trouble taxiing. Larry, in the meanwhile, was enjoying the set of skis that he had recently fitted to his plane, and had no trouble at all with the snow

The departure was much less ceremonious than the arrival. Viewing the lake for the landing approach, it was easy to see where most of the ice fishermen were, but the best way to be sure of staying clear of all of them was to land at a distance and taxi in. On departure though, with the airplane sitting still and the fishermen at eye- level, it was easy to see where the clear lanes were.

I started the engine, turned the plane a little to the left, opened the throttle and took off. I skimmed over the lake northbound, climbed, turned around, and landed again in the middle of the lake just for the fun of it. I took some more pictures and just enjoyed the scenery, solitude, and the day. My final landing was next door on Lamoka Lake, to leave a set of tracks in Phil's "front yard" so that he could ask himself why he hasn't flown his Piper Pacer home on days like this.

In the end, I thought it a fitting revenge. All winter long, I make my nightly cargo flights with some concern about ice forming upon the airplane en route. On this beautiful day I enjoyed putting my airplane on the ice so that I could have lunch with a friend.