New friend and new Velocity builder Steve Cabiroy invited me to participate in a Young Eagles event he was organizing at Middle Penninsula/ West Point Airport in Virginia. Young Eagles is a program run by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) which runs the Oshkosh Air venture show which is the highlight of my year, so I immediately said yes.
Young Eagles purpose is to give young people their first experience of flight. The time, fuel and aircraft are donated by participating pilots. I think it is a great program.
The flight down there planned out to 160 miles and 54 minutes from my airport near Philadelphia. Steve asked me to be there by 9:00, so I headed over to the airport at 8:15, fueled up, preflighted and opened my flight plan. I was wheels up at exactly 8:00.
Conditions were perfect with clear, still air and terrific visibility as I headed south. My only concern was making sure I stayed clear of all the restricted airspace around Washington. I had my Ipad on Foreflight, maps up on my main screens and used flight following.
The picture above is from my crossing over the Chesapeake at 4,500 feet and 180 knots.
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Here are some more nice shots on the way down. It was just beautiful.
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My hosts, the Cabiroys, as Jack Sheehan joins us in his Velocity XL Race 55.
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As I said, Steve is just starting his XL kit, so he wisely crawls all over mine taking pictures to use as a reference in the build. It is a great idea to do this to every Velocity you can find, so you can find out what you like and incorporate it in your build.
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It is a very well run event. 60 kids show up and 10 planes. They sign up inside, are escorted with their parents out to the assigned planes and then get a demo flight. After they fly, they get a log book signed by the pilot and a certificate.
I took two groups up and they all really had a good time.
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As I was eating lunch, my wife called from home to warn me that there was a solid deck of low clouds, high wind and rain. Great.
I thanked Steve and fueled up for the flight home, looking forward to a challenging flight.
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Here are some shots from the way home. It was challenging as expected.
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| Deck of clouds north of the Patuxent River. Bye sunshine. |
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| Headed out over the water at 3,000 feet in light rain. |
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| Look at the right screen to see how I had to wind between restricted airspace. |
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| Nice view of Bay Bridge, Maryland |
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| Down to 2,800 feet to stay clear of clouds. |
I got in some chop and had to reduce my speed to 160 knots. No more pictures since I was working hard to stay straight and level with one hand on the overhead to avoid banging my head (again).
The ceiling gradually rose as I got closer to home and I made a nice landing in a stiff crosswind, a little over an hour after I departed.
Another great day of flying. It's funny to be back in Pennsylvania after spending the whole morning all the way down south in Virginia. The Velocity makes it easy.
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