Stuart and John’s Sugar House

Date: February 2019
Category: Flying and Airplanes
Type: Post

February 10, 2019

Emilie Phillips

Stuart & John’s is a family run maple sugar house and restaurant in rural western New Hampshire. One of the supercub.org pilots discovered it and found the great-grandfather in the family, Roger, loves airplanes. He keeps the neighboring fields open for airplanes and helicopters. A group of Super Cubs flies in every Thursday for his antique car evening. Tyson really wanted to go, but it wasn’t until last Saturday that he found a group going on the weekend — Mike in his Bird Dog from Brookline and Brian in his Husky from Crow Island.

The best part of the hay strip is 950 feet long, with the southern approach obstructed by the barns. The field has quite a side hill. It doesn’t show up in pictures, or at first glance from the air, but we had heard from other pilots that it was significant. One frosty morning, they all slid off the main field, and down the hill into the 800 foot long back field.

Tyson came in low between the barns. He landed on the downhill edge of the runway. To keep from sliding off the runway, he had to point the Bearhawk distinctly uphill from the direction of travel. We agreed afterwards, that the best tactic would be to approach low over the barns, touch down at the lower corner of the field, and roll out diagonally up the field.

Helicopters land in the smaller, but level, field adjacent to the restaurant.

We found a new use for the engine cover on the way home. On the ground, we wrapped the engine to keep it warm. In the air, we hung it at the back of the cabin and stuffed all the holes where the hot air blows out the back. Much warmer in the cabin.