What do you do when you find yourself in the Washington D.C. area with half a day to kill and nice weather? In the immortal words of Delta House (for you Belushi fans)...."Road Trip!!" And where to go? Well, with an RV and five hours of open time, you look for the most interesting place within a couple hundred miles - and in this case, Louise and I picked Cape Hatteras.
We launched out of Shannon airport (KEZF) in Fredericksberg, VA in Louise's RV-6, headed south on a day with some haze, but fairly calm air and scattered clouds at about 5,000'. Since Louise is tuning up to take her instrument check ride, the haze wasn't important, as I wasn't going to let her look outside much anyway - the hood went on and I played ATC, vectoring her around the occasional buildup and a restricted area or two. In a little over an hour we were crossing Pamlico Sound and I told her she could take the hood of - the haze was just right that even though we were legally VFR, there was no horizon reference unless you looked sideways. That effect didn't last long though, as the barrier island that forms the cape came in to view.
We landed at Billy Mitchell Field - a runway built to support the aircraft that sank a couple of retired battleships to prove the concept of naval air power. The runway and ramp is nice, but the field is unattended with no support services except a gazebo-line structure for shelter and a couple of port-a-potties. Although we didn't have the time to explore toward town, a couple that road by on their bikes said that it's less than a half mile walk to a great sea-food place. We'll have to try that next time!
Here's a picture of the -6 parked on the ramp:
Instead of looking toward civilization, we decided we wanted to check out the beach - only about a 200 yard walk across the runway and dunes from the ramp. Here's a shot of the ocean from the dunes:
And looking back the other way to the airplane:
As you can see - a great place to fly to, park the plane, and head for the water! Louise was wondering why I was wasting time with the camera!
We flew back to the D.C. area via the barrier islands so that I could shoot a couple of landings at First Flight - just felt like should take the time to touch down there when I had the opportunity! Louise shot a few pictures of that part of the trip, and maybe she'll post a few when she has a chance. It was a great afternoon of flying as a prelude to a talk I gave that evening to the EAA chapters in the northern Virginia area - Had dinner with Rob Brooks and his wife and met a great bunch of RV'ers - we couldn't have capped off the day any better! Ah, the joy of flexibility and the gift of wings - again, made possible by the magic of RV's.
Paul
Cape Hatteras
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