Blackhawk Airfield (87Y)
The weather finally got a little nicer so I decided to try flying into a new airport, and practice some ATC. I chose Blackhawk Airfield, a small field just SE of Madison and under Madison’s Class C shelf.
Winds were about 10-15 knots out of the NW, so I took off on runway 28 and headed south after my climbout. It had been some time since working with ATC, but I remembered to call up ATIS and note altimeter and information alpha. Then I called up Madison West Approach, reported my position, and that I was heading eastbound to Blackhawk. They promptly gave me a squawk code. I was in the Aerobat, which has a funky transponder switch, so it took my a bit of fiddling to get it to report altitude, but ATC was patient. They told me to just proceed on course to Blackhawk and report airfield in sight. Eventually they handed me off to East Approach, who eventually told me I was 4 miles from Blackhawk and cut me lose back to VFR.
By now I had the field in site. It looked downright TINY! Runway 27 was a right pattern so I approached a mile west of the field then turned downwind. It was a bit bumpy during landing and I had to keep careful control over my airspeed. I flared a bit high/slow but otherwise it was a good landing. The runway was quite rough, with weeds poking through, obviously not maintained too well. The taxiway back went up a hill, between some small hangars, up another hill, and then down the hill back to the runway. Quite weird, compared to what I am used to.
This field would make an excellent place for short-field practice, as 9-27 is only 2203×56. Still, larger than the original Morey runway that I learned on, before our 4000×100 was finished.
The winds were sufficient that I went for a normal take-off instead of a SFTO. After clearing the trees at the end of 27 I turned north and skirted the Madison Class C inner column around to the N and then W, at about 2000 ft MSL. A mid-field crosswind into the pattern back at Morey and a decent squeeker and I was back.
The Morey cafe is still closed on Sundays so I couldn’t get my usual “made it home alive” donut. I popped into a nearby Starbucks, where I ran into another pilot who had flown out of Blackhawk before moving to Kenosha. He filled me in on some Blackhawk history, then showed me a pretty nifty compass rose trick I hadn’t heard of before.
You can get the reciprocal of a heading by “adding 2 and subtracting 2”. You look at the two-digit heading, and if the number on the left is greater than or equal to 2, you subtract 2 and add 2 to the number on the right. Otherwise you add 2 and subtract 2 from the number on the right. This will give you the reciprocal heading every time. Clever!