Birthday Jaunt

We just got back from Husband's birthday day trip (his birthday is later in the week, but today was irresistible) up to KGED (Georgetown, DE). It was a really nice trip! He did 3 hours of sight-seeing, and I got 3 hours of flight time.

We left JGG by 31 around 10 am, turned west for the noise abatement. I called Leesburg Radio and opened our VFR flight plan, then headed northeast for Mobjack Bay and the narrowest passage across the lower Chesapeake Bay. We got to our target bay-crossing altitude of 7500' a few minutes before running out of land, and up there it was a little chilly even though on the ground it was already in the upper 60s. The air was nice and smooth, and the bay was already thoroughly dotted with boats.

It was a gorgeous, nearly cloudless day with good but not "severe clear" visibility. Once we crossed the bay, I took us down to our cruise altitude of 5500' and pointed us NNE. We'd be overflying Accomack County (MFV, I think), traffic for which is frequently heard all the way down at JGG. We flew along the eastern seashore, Chincoteague and Assateague. We flew just west of Wallops Island, a military field (maybe AF?), and could see the buildings of Ocean City, MD, off at the very edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a super trip, the kind of really good and easy trip that perfectly exemplifies why I learned to fly. Husband is putting up some video he took en route and also of my landing at GED (below). When we landed and were directed to transient parking, three ground crew members came out to help us push back and with chocks, and within moments the fuel truck was there to top us off; great service here.


Landing here for me was pretty neat. It's the first time since finishing training that I've gone to an unfamiliar airport, or gone on an unfamiliar cross-country flight (as PIC). I did the usual preflight prep, checking weather, using RTFP for course plotting and filing the flight plan, checking for TFRs, etc. I had picked out several airports along the way and printed out their kneeboard pages from the AOPA database, including GED's, of course. But actually going to that airport with so little research was neat. The only other time I've really gone to "new" airports was during training, and as a student I was anal (who, me?!?!?!!!) about knowing every available detail about the airport and surrounding area so there would be no surprises. I knew I had everything I needed for the destination, we'd have two GPSs and the sectional, so we were good to go without having to spend two hours planning and analyzing the trip! Approaching the airport, Husband helped me plan our descent from 5500' to pattern altitude of 1050', I executed that and got into the traffic flow with ease. Training apparently worked as it was supposed to have worked, because there were none of the comfortable visual cues of homebase, just the runway to use as a guide for the pattern and everything went just right.

Sussex County Airport (GED) has a nice little restaurant called the Flight Deck. They've got a good-looking menu, and we were both delightfully satisfied with our meals; a ($100) cheeseburger and onion rings for Husband, and broiled flounder with coleslaw and sweet potato casserole for me.

After a nice lunch, we paid for our fuel and headed out to the Delaware Aviation Museum, which is right there on the grounds. Out in the grass between the taxiway and the runway they have a collection of deteriorating Migs. I thought the noses had a neat design.

We then went through the museum, guided by a nice lady name Charlie. It's not a big place, but there are lots of neat artifacts. Apparently, all of the stuff there was collected by Larry, a B-24 (or 25?) pilot who lives in the area. Here are two of the exhibits in there. On the right, those are recon cameras; thank goodness for the tiny digital technologies we have nowadays!

Just before finishing up with the tour, the medevac helicopter pilot who was on waiting duty came in and said a Corsair was in the pattern. We went out to see it land, and it was followed by a P-40. Those things are huge! The wing design of the Corsair is really neat, too.

Departing the airport was easy. We had come in on 22 and departed 4. We turned out to the west, dodged some restricted airspace, stayed well east and south of the DC ADIZ, and picked our way back home. The air was a lot choppier as we came home, and I abandoned our 4500' first choice for cruise and went up to 6500' where it was generally much smoother. I had some of that weird unsettling feeling in the turbulence, which was nothing as far as turbulence goes, but stuck it out (I just annoyed husband with some of the whining...); luckily most of the return trip was smooth! Just some thermals as we move into warm weather...

We landed back at JGG, safe and sound, on 31 around 4 pm. We swapped places so Husband could get a trip around the pattern in before we shut down for the day.

What a nice day! :)


I'm up to 67.1 total hours now. And both takeoffs and both landings were one-handed.