Our friends and former neighbors, Joe and Carol, moved down to Charlotte, North Carolina a couple years ago. We have used the plane to fly down to visit them.
They called us on a Friday night in December to announce that they had just settled on a beachfront condo in Cape Fear. They told my wife we needed to come down to see it and visit with them.
Well, we have a plane. We told them we would be there by 9:30 the next morning. The above picture shows our route on my Ipad. Conveniently, a direct route just misses the Washington D. C. restricted airspace as well as all the other restrictions.
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The sun rising behind us makes a long shadow of the plane as we take off from Runway 29 at Chester County Airport near Philadelphia at 7:00.
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Here are some shots as we cruise southbound in the early morning light.
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| Winglet view to the west |
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| ...and to the east |
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| Island in the Chesapeake Bay |
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| Crossing the river |
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| Bay Bridge, Maryland |
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| View of the screens. 177 knots indicated. |
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| Winglet reflection |
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| Beautiful clouds and fog in the valleys |
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| Fog lit by the rising sun |
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| Fog over the Potomac |
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Nancy was all bundled up at first. As the sun rose the cabin got nice and warm- which made her...very...sleepy. This allowed me to get my favorite sleeping wife selfie.
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In a little over two hours, Cape Fear came into view. We canceled flight following and started our approach. Here's a video of the landing.
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We taxied up to a tie down next to the skydive school's orange jump plane. It turns out that Joe and Carol's house is only 10 minutes from the airport. Very convenient. They were waiting there to pick us up.
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| Taxiing to the ramp next to the jump plane |
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| I'm a happy pilot |
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Joe and Carol's new place is very nice and right on the beach. It was freezing at home, but it is shirtsleeve weather here. We decide to take a walk on the beach. Here are a few pictures.
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| Joe and Carol at their nice new place |
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| The beach access |
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| Joe and I stroll behind the girls |
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| Joe and Carol in front of their place |
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| Nancy and I |
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| It is nice and warm here. A big change after only a 2 hour flight. |
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| Carol, Joe and Nancy |
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| Me with Joe and Nancy |
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| Pretty shot of sea oats |
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Best of all, their place is just a short walk from a really great beachfront restaurant. As long as we were walking in that direction....might as well stop in for a drink.
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| Artsy black and white of the pier |
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| Nancy and Carol |
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| Ahhh, great place with a great view. |
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| The fridge only has the essentials, so time to go out shopping |
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| Helping make critical decisions at Lowe's |
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| Joe and I meet Santa |
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After shopping, we headed out to dinner at another nice restaurant. We had a really good time catching up and the food was outstanding.
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| Joe and Carol |
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| Group selfie |
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Sunday morning we went out to breakfast and headed back to the plane for the trip home. The weather here was great, but there was some marginal weather along the route. The plan was to simply go over the bad stuff, which was forecast to clear by the time we reached the Chesapeake.
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| Back at the plane |
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| Selfie with Nancy |
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| Climbing over the clouds |
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| VFR on top |
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| Clearing as forecast |
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| Shot of our route home |
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| And all the other screens |
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We had a nice flight home and were back by lunch time.
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| The Chesapeake Bay |
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| Downwind leg for landing |
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| Final for home |
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| Turning onto the ramp |
We had a great visit. With the speed of the Velocity, we were able to easily make an 800 mile round trip to visit friends on a weekend. Love my plane. This is exactly what I dreamed of when I was building it.
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