“Airport of the Month” is meant to showcase the unique airports of New England and give our students and renters ideas on airports to go to.
Written by CHI Dispatcher Joe Palmer
What better way to spend Halloween than a cross country flight down to Norwood Memorial Airport (OWD). Throughout a busy day of lessons and dispatching, I planned a route to Norwood that would take us directly over downtown Boston. Weather was forecasted to be perfect for this quick down and back flight. The mission was to get a Bravo clearance direct to Norwood and then back through Boston to PSM. This is a big task for a new private pilot like myself, but I was lucky to have CFI Dan along for the ride in this busy airspace. Here is the planned route of flight and information on OWD.
After filling up with some much needed Chipotle, we hopped in N922CA, picked up VFR flight following on the ground at Pease, and took off towards the Boston area. Flying was incredibly smooth and 922CA felt like it was on rails. We engaged the autopilot and cruised at 2500 FT and called up Boston. Sadly, we were not granted a Bravo clearance, meaning we could not fly directly over Boston. This was down to Boston using 22L for arrivals. Arrivals for 22L tend to approach over Beverly and Lawrence and we would be in their way if we were cleared into the Class B airspace.
Things began to get busy and this meant that we had to deviate from our original flight plan. We decided to go direct Bedford (BED) and then fly underneath the shelf enroute to Norwood. It sounded like an easy deviation, but there are many things we had to keep in mind when doing this. Boston Airspace starts at 3000 FT and Bedford Airspace extends up to 2600 FT. We had to request transition through the Bedford Class D to stay at our present altitude. Boston Approach let us through and we continued onward. Despite the deviation, we still got a great view of Boston and Hanscom!
This is yet another thing to look out for when flying under busy airspace. There are obstacles like the Needham Towers that you must look out for. The tallest tower extends up towards 1447 FT MSL!
After passing the rather tall obstacles, we called up Norwood tower and were given a 15 mile straight in approach for runway 17. Check out the video Dan got of my landing below!
Norwood was quiet and the ramp was packed with Cherokees and 172s!
We departed and flew almost an identical route back to Pease. A great sunset capped off this Halloween evening flight and another Airport of the Month mission.
