Wausau, WI
I’ve been wanting to fly up to Wausau, WI since I noticed the downtown airport on the other side of Lake Wausau while driving down highway 39 a few years ago. I finally had the time, so I did it!
Walt, a student at Morey airport, wanted to come along for some cross-country planning experience, and I was glad to have him. He checked our progress on the sectional while I checked against the GPS.
The weather was stunning – cool, calm, mostly cloudless. A perfect late afternoon flight! We had a slight head-wind, so the flight up took almost exactly 1:30, with a distance of 108 NM. Not too shabby with a cruising speed of 90 KTS.
We pretty much headed due north the entire way, bypassing Central Wisconsin’s Class D airspace to the west. I didn’t want to try overflying it at 3800 ft, then diving down to 2200 on the other side into the unfamiliar Wausau area. Instead, we turned NW at the Big Eau Pleine Reservoir, turned N just west of the Central Wisconsin Class D, then NE again, crossing over the eastern end of Rib Mountain and down into the pattern for runway 30 into Wausau.
There were some gusts during landing, and I stalled out about a foot above the runway. Decent enough though, and shortly we were parked in front of the FBO there. The friendly staff directed us to a nearby sports bar where we grabbed some dinner and discussed flying and Entomology (Walt teachs it at the UW Madison).
At about 6:15pm we headed back, taking off on runway 30, swing around to the east and back again to the south. We had been listening to Central Wisconsin Tower on the radio and there was NOTHING going on, so I decided to climb up to 4000 and overfly their airspace. We called up the tower and told him this. I think he was grateful for something to do; it sure looked lonely down there. He did ask us to let him know when we had cleared the airspace to the south, which we did.
The flight back was smooth as butter, and we got to take in all the lovely scenery. There was very little traffic, which was surprising. It was fantastic flying weather.
When we got close to Madison we tuned in Madison Approach and listened in for awhile. It was VERY busy there; the controller was probably working 10 different planes, with continuous announcements. That Thursday evening was probably not the best time to practive some Madison ATC work.
The surface winds had calmed down by the time we reached Morey, and my landing was one of my best ever. I could barely feel the touch-down.
Total engine time: 2.8 hours
Total trip time: 4 hours