The Aviation Tourist in Bostonby Philip Greenspun, updated February 2019 |
Cold and grey in the winter, hot and hazy in the summer, windy and gusty
in the spring and fall as the weather systems move through, New England
would seem to be a poor choice of destination for the aviation tourist.
Nonetheless, if business calls you to Boston and the weather gods smile
it is possible to indulge almost any aviation interest within a
45-minute drive of downtown.
Here are the things that you can do within a 30-kilometer radius of the city center:
You'll want the Boston VFR Terminal Area chart, available at any flight school, before venturing out. Boston Approach controls the low altitude airspace near the city and they tend to be fairly busy during the daylight hours, often too busy to provide flight following. Very seldom will they clear you through Class B airspace; you always always have to go around and underneath.
Despite the fact that Eastern Massachusetts is, by western North American standards, virtually flat, surface winds in excess of 15 knots usually translate into a very bumpy ride in the air. One way to escape the turbulence is by climbing. The air is usually smooth by 7500' MSL but sometimes you'll need to go as high as 9500' or 10,500' to be out of the bumps. Another way out is to head for the beach. Very seldom will you be more than a 10-minute ride from the ocean. Once you have the airplane a few hundred meters offshore the air is almost always smooth. Flying 1500' above the waves is a great way to see many of the most attractive houses in New England and more than likely following the coast won't add more than 15 minutes to the total flying time in reaching your destination.
Hanscom Field in Bedford (KBED) will very likely be the most
convenient base for your aviation tourism. If you're bringing your
own aircraft, there are three FBOs. None are inexpensive,
unfortunately,
but Rectrix
will likely provide the warmest welcome.
Hanscom is accessible from downtown Boston via public transit (Red Line on the subway to Alewife, then MBTA Bus 76) and is close to the high-tech companies on Route 128, also known as Interstate 95, the ring highway surrounding Boston. The closest hotel to the field is the Sheraton Lexington. If you're coming from the New York area you can even fly directly into Bedford on U.S. Airways or Pan Am.
Hanscom has a 7000' main runway with an instrument landing system (ILS) in both directions and a 5000' crosswind runway. The tower has radar and, aside from the high level of corporate jet and student traffic, Hanscom is a very easy place to operate. East Coast Aero Club (www.eastcoastaeroclub.com; no membership fee required) offers an assortment of well-maintained low-wing airplanes at low prices and a diversity of high-time instructors who are dedicated to teaching (and/or have rich wives). I was a student at ECAC starting in 2001 and have been teaching there since 2005. My specialties are the Robinson R44 helicopter and instrument airplane instruction in the Cirrus SR20. ECAC also offers aerobatics instruction with Marc Nathanson, a former fighter pilot, and Bill Witzig, a former USMC test pilot and current aerobatics competitor.
East Coast Aero Club is the only facility in Bedford with helicopter instruction using the four-seat Robinson R-44 at the world's lowest rates.
If you want to turn this into a day trip, land at the Plum Island airport (2B2), in and among the dunes, if you don't mind a 2100' runway. Bob Lobster, a classic New England seafood shack (with fully up-to-date prices!), is an easy walk east from aircraft parking.
The quintessential Boston getaway is to Cape Cod and the islands of
Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. If Cape Cod is your destination you
can save some air time by renting a plane on the South Shore, e.g.,
Marshfield or Plymouth . If you start from Bedford you'll spend your
first 20 minutes working your way southeast around the Boston Class B
airspace. You'll reach the coast near Marshfield (3B2; see below) and
proceed south along the beach. Keep going all the way around the
shoreline and land at the Provincetown airport (KPVC; 3500' runway with
ILS and VASI/PAPI). You can walk right into the dunes of the National
Seashore, a beach run by the U.S. National Park Service, or take a taxi
into "P-town", which has all the Victorian bed and breakfasts, fine
restaurants, and lively parties that you'd expect from the gay/lesbian
capital of New England.
A more conventional alternative is Chatham. Most of Cape Cod's "towns" aren't actually towns. Chatham is an exception, with a walkable main street. You can land at KCQX, which has a 3000' runway that can feel a little less comfortable than Provincetown's due to being embedded in a forest. The lowest instrument approach gets you down only to about 550' above the runway. The airport also has a popular restaurant where families congregate on weekends (photos). If you're not arriving by Gulfstream, I recommend Pleasant Bay Village, a motel-style complex with beautiful Japanese gardens, complete with koi (my photos from a summer 2014 stay).
Depart Provincetown Airport and head for the open water just to the
northeast. Look for whale-watching boats because they tend to
congregate around the whales. There aren't too many animals for which
the view from an airplane 500' above the surface is interesting, but
humpback, minke, fin, and right whales are certainly among them. When
you're done with whale watching, fly south along the Atlantic Ocean beaches, the east coast of Cape
Cod, and hold your heading over a 15-mile gap of water that separates
the Cape from the historic whaling island of Nantucket (KACK; 6000'
runway with ILS and VASI; control tower). Nantucket was one of the
largest and wealthiest towns in New England until the discovery of
petroleum took the wind out of the sails of the whaling business.
Consequently a 20-minute walk through the cobblestone streets of
downtown Nantucket will take you past dozens of interesting 18th- and
19-century buildings. If you're around in April, be sure to check out
the Daffodil
Festival, complete with antique car parade, dog parade, and three
million daffodils blooming. For bicycle rentals, contact Nantucket Bike Shop,
which will deliver bicycles to the airport or a nearby hotel, such as
the Nantucket Inn, adjacent
to the airport and famous for Sunday brunch (probably not the best
place on the island to stay).
See my 2014
photos, which includes quiet Madaket Beach, and also
www.nantucket.net for more
information on this island.
Martha's Vineyard is much larger than Nantucket and the industrial
whaling heritage is not as overwhelming. The big airport (KMVY) has a
control tower, an ILS, a 5500' paved runway, a good on-field restaurant
(breakfast and lunch only) in the fancy new terminal, public transit
service, and high prices for overnight parking. The small airport (1B2)
is Katama Airpark, which includes three grass runways, one of which at
4000' is claimed to be the United States's longest. The grass is quite
firm and the airport is regularly visited by tricycle-gear aircraft,
including light twins. The Katama airport has a restaurant on the field
and is just a short walk from one of the handful of public beaches on
Martha's Vineyard.
Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard get pretty crazy during the summer tourist season and summer weekends are beyond crazy. To escape the crowds consider a visit to tiny Block Island (KBID, 2500' runway with VASI/PAPI). Block Island offers similar geography and scenery to its big brothers but it isn't as large or clogged with Range Rovers and celebrities.
Bedford-Ptown-Nantucket-Vineyard-Bedford can be flown in about 4 hours of Hobbs time. See http://www.photo.net/us/ne/cape-cod for more of the author's photos and advice on Cape Cod and the islands.
A fun day trip in the helicopter is to fly down to Manhattan, circle the Statue of Liberty, and land at the Downtown/Wall Street helipad for lunch (not too much more expensive than parking a car in Manhattan). About four hours of round-trip flight time in a Robinson R44.
If you want to practice your radio communications skills and get some
beautiful views of downtown Boston there is no better trip than going
into Logan Airport (KBOS). If you avoid peak times such as weekday
afternoons you'll probably get a very pleasant reception. It will also
help if you study the ground diagram before departing and have that
diagram on your kneeboard. Start by listening to the ATIS and then
calling Boston Approach with your position and "Landing with [ATIS
code]". They generally have two runways in use, one for the
heavy airplanes and one for commuter flights. In many ways landing at
Logan is easier than at the busier general aviation airports. There is
no pattern at Logan. Pursuant to FAR 91 Appendix D, section 4, no
solo student pilot operations are permitted at Logan. You won't be
asked to identify and follow some other airplane "about to turn base";
you'll be vectored until you're lined up with the runway and then
cleared to land.
If you touch-and-go you might get away with paying only a $27 landing fee. Otherwise you'll fall into the hands of the only FBO at Logan: Signature Flight Support. Without fuel, a one-hour stop here will cost approximately $225. The Signature folks are helpful and will shuttle you to the main terminals or airport hotels in their courtesy van.
Departing Logan is a breeze. Ask for progressive taxi instructions and directions to a reasonable place to run up. Your biggest risk at an airport like this is a runway incursion or finding yourself on the wrong taxiway, nose-to-nose with a 747. Don't be afraid of sounding amateurish. Remember that this is an international airport. The pilots of the 747 might never have been to Logan before either.
None of this works during Boston Red Sox games. Under the general post-9/11 principle that only one American business can be functioning at a time, aviation within downtown Boston, aside from scheduled airlines, is shut down from 1 hour prior to a game until 1 hour after it ends. The NOTAM for sports games (primarily intended to exclude banner-towing aircraft from competing with in-stadium advertising) has an exception for aircraft on an ATC clearance, which of course you would be within the Boston Bravo. However, the FAA controllers within Boston tower have instructions to exclude airplanes, even ones not towing banners, from within 3 n.m. of the stadium during the game and +/- 1 hour.My procedure is to call Boston approach (124.4) from the vicinity of the intersection of Rt. 128 and the Mass. Pike at 2000'. "Request transit Class Bravo for City Tour [that's the local term for it], Charles River to Back Bay, then return westbound." Usually they'll assign a squawk code and hand you off to Boston tower or Boston skyway (the helicopter controller, 124.725). Sometimes they'll just suggest that you call the tower or skyway with the request. I generally fly down the river until abeam the Prudential or Hancock building (except when they only clear me as far as Mass. Ave.), then turn around to the left over MIT and Harvard. An anomaly today was that skyway cleared me into Class B at 1000'. I had to tell them that that would be too low for required terrain clearance. I requested 1200' instead, and they came back with 1500' after coordinating with TRACON. Remember to keep 2000' laterally from the tall buildings.
The coastal route up from Boston takes you past the former Pease Air Force base (KPSM), a towered field with the longest runway in New England--11,300'. This is a great place to practice touch-and-goes or low flight over the runway, but not a great place to stop for lunch as there is no restaurant on the field. Continuing up the coast be careful not to violate the prohibited area around an estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. Former U.S. president George Herbert Walker Bush was officially a resident of the great state of Texas, based on a three-night stay in a Houston hotel. This worked out well financially for Bush the First because Texas has no state income tax and the Internal Revenue Service apparently wasn't interested in investigating where George H.W. actually spent his time. As a pilot you need to be better-informed than the I.R.S. about where Mr. Bush spends his time. As of 2002 you weren't allowed below 3000' when Bush was at home, 500' when Bush was away. The next airspace obstacle to the beachcombing aviator is the Portland, Maine Class C. The controllers at KPWM are friendly and if you want to stop for a quick on-field lunch, this is a fine place to do so. Just remember to contact clearance delivery before contacting ground control for a departure taxi clearance. Halfway between Portland and Bar Harbor you might want to stop in Rockland (KRKD), which has an on-field transportation museum with a remarkable collection of automobiles and early airplanes. Downtown Rockland has a great art museum and hosts the Maine Lobster Festival every August.
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You mentioned flying near Acadia National Park. I hired (but did not fly) a small airplane for an Acadia National Park Aerial photography flight.
-- jim harrington, November 1, 2003