Jamie
Well Known Member
Day 1
My wife and I had planned a vacation a while back and my vacation kept being pushed back at work. Finally we got some time off. Our original plan was to go up to NYC for a couple of days and see the sights, but honestly although I probably could have gotten into there VFR, the forecast was for rainy weather the entire time we would be there and we didn't want to have to vacation with an umbrella.
So we had dropped off our son with his grandparents and came back to the house. We sat and I scrubbed the NYC trip due to the weather and we were basically sitting there at 2100. I asked my wife, "Ok, so where else would you want to go?" We went through a few suggestions then she mentioned going out to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I had never been there before so I thought it would be a great time.
We called and made a hotel reservation, I did some flight planning and we launched the next morning.
Approaching Roanoke Island...home of the "Lost Colony".
Flying out over the coast at 1000agl you can easily spot the Write Brothers monument. Be careful here as there are many, many banner towers in the area. They tend to fly at 500ft so it's not an issue most of the time. The banner towers seem to announce on the FFA CTAF (122.9) their present location.
Obligatory shot of N622JP in front of the monument at First Flight Airport.
After leaving FFA we went over to MQI (Dare County Airport) where we would be basing. We had also arranged a rental care there ($50/day, unlimited mileage and no BS fees). Very convenient.
We then decided to drive down and see Cape Hatteras and it's famous lighthouse.
Here's Jaime at the Body's Island Light House. For some reason or another they actually don't allow you to climb this one.
Jaime at the Cape Hatteras Light House.
The impressive thing to me about this light house is how they MOVED it to protect it from the encroaching sea. The light house is 210 feet tall and was built with 1.25 million bricks! The nice Park Ranger that I spoke with mentioned how they found 0 damage from move...not even a single crack developed in the brick morter. Definitely an impressive engineering feat.
We were really not sure what we were going to do the next day. That night I got a voicemail on my cell from RV-8A builder Steve Ashby. He had a question regarding his canopy. I called him back and when I told him where I was he mentioned that we should check out Ocracoke Island.
So that was our itinerary for the next day...we would load up the plane and fly down to Ocracoke!
My wife and I had planned a vacation a while back and my vacation kept being pushed back at work. Finally we got some time off. Our original plan was to go up to NYC for a couple of days and see the sights, but honestly although I probably could have gotten into there VFR, the forecast was for rainy weather the entire time we would be there and we didn't want to have to vacation with an umbrella.
So we had dropped off our son with his grandparents and came back to the house. We sat and I scrubbed the NYC trip due to the weather and we were basically sitting there at 2100. I asked my wife, "Ok, so where else would you want to go?" We went through a few suggestions then she mentioned going out to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I had never been there before so I thought it would be a great time.
We called and made a hotel reservation, I did some flight planning and we launched the next morning.
Approaching Roanoke Island...home of the "Lost Colony".
Flying out over the coast at 1000agl you can easily spot the Write Brothers monument. Be careful here as there are many, many banner towers in the area. They tend to fly at 500ft so it's not an issue most of the time. The banner towers seem to announce on the FFA CTAF (122.9) their present location.
Obligatory shot of N622JP in front of the monument at First Flight Airport.
After leaving FFA we went over to MQI (Dare County Airport) where we would be basing. We had also arranged a rental care there ($50/day, unlimited mileage and no BS fees). Very convenient.
We then decided to drive down and see Cape Hatteras and it's famous lighthouse.
Here's Jaime at the Body's Island Light House. For some reason or another they actually don't allow you to climb this one.
Jaime at the Cape Hatteras Light House.
The impressive thing to me about this light house is how they MOVED it to protect it from the encroaching sea. The light house is 210 feet tall and was built with 1.25 million bricks! The nice Park Ranger that I spoke with mentioned how they found 0 damage from move...not even a single crack developed in the brick morter. Definitely an impressive engineering feat.
We were really not sure what we were going to do the next day. That night I got a voicemail on my cell from RV-8A builder Steve Ashby. He had a question regarding his canopy. I called him back and when I told him where I was he mentioned that we should check out Ocracoke Island.
So that was our itinerary for the next day...we would load up the plane and fly down to Ocracoke!
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