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I have wanted to make the trip down to First Flight Airport (KFFA) in the Outer Banks for North Carolina for some time. What cooler place is there in the world to take an experimental to, other than the location where the first ever experimental/airplane flew?? The weather looked great for the day. My friend Dave was coming with me. Instead of him driving an hour out to my house, and then us driving 20 minutes to the airport, I decided to pick him up at the airport closest to his house - Fallston (W42). We decided that I would send him a text message when I was leaving KDMW, and that would give him ample time to get to Fallston and take some pictures of my approach and landing...Well turns out I beat him! As I was on short final I saw his car pulling into the airport. Wow, it's amazing how this airplane can turn a trip via car of 60 minutes into a 10 minute flight. While I understand the physics behind it, it always blows me away.  With Dave in the airplane, we headed south. Here we are approaching the Bay Bridge.  Off to the distance is Smith Island. About 360 people live on this island. The only way to get to it is by boat.  At the end of the DELMARVA peninsula we flew by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel connecting the eastern shore of VA to Norfolk.  There were a descent number of merchant ships either waiting for their dock to open up, or waiting to hear where they are off to next.  Shot of the Inter-Coastal Waterway (ICW) south of Norfolk. I have taken a boat down here.  Downwind to KFFA   Base  Securing the tie down rings on the RV.  Obligatory shot  And a picture of Dave - he's too serious in his pictures.   Another pic of serious Dave.      We weren't dressed appropriately for the beach. It was a beautiful day on the beach. We really should of brought some swim trunks.  We thought this would be a fun place to grab lunch.  Ecco-Friend beer!  We made a lot of friends at the bar at the restaurant and some of them came over to the airport to see us take off. Back to Maryland, we flew about 500' off the beach for about 10 minutes. The ocean is so blue down here - we are used to a more brown colored ocean off of MD.  The forecast was calling for a nasty headwind on the way back - however, we somehow lucked out with a little tailwind.  Dave is enjoying his trip home.  We did a low pass by The Salmon Farm (53VG) to see if anyone was home.  The trip home was fairly calm until we were abeam of Easton, MD (KESN). We encountered a NASTY downdraft. Before I knew it, we were pitched down 45 degrees and experiencing about 0G's. Everything in the cockpit was floating in air. The engine briefly lost oil pressure. It took me a minute to flick off the auto pilot and regain control. Needless to say, that woke us up! The rest of the trip home was bumpy. Here we are on final to Fallston to drop Dave off.  We went to a friend of Dave's for a great barbeque dinner. I wanted to make it home before sunset, so we left dinner early and I prepared to take off back to KDMW.  Dave was gracious enough to buy me a 6-pack of beer for consumption later on in the evening. I felt bad that he had never tried this variety of beer, so I left him one. 
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Last Modified: August 13, 2023 |