Can you fly during Covid-19? For me, the answer is YES. But with a few precautions…
First, I realize that I am extremely lucky to even have the ability to make a judgement call on this. Some of my friends in Germany, don’t even have the option. But for me, I was more concerned about ensuring what I did was legal, safe, and moral during these challenging times.
So here is my rationale:
- My plane is a solo use plane. What I mean is that nobody other than me flies it or even has access to the hangar where it is parked.
- I can get from my home to the hangar without interacting with a single human being. (That is social distancing at it’s finest.)
- As far as fuel, I am resorting to self service fuel @ a near by airport (Sky Acres-44N) … Or if I do get full service fuel at KPOU, I ensure that I am more than 6 Feet away from the line guy. I don’t even touch the gas cap after he is done. Instead, I simply watch him closely to ensure that he closes the fuel cap properly.
- For the time being, I am not taking any passengers (other than my wife).
- Since there is nowhere that is truly safe to travel to right now, all of my flights are local flights. So I am practicing stick and rudder skills, instrument approaches and of course fine tuning my aerial photography skills!
In my humble opinion, these precautions make it sufficiently safe for me (and society).
So this weekend, I flew down the Hudson Corridor around New York City and had the idea to try a touch and go @ JFK. It didn’t quite work out the way I wanted…
You can see what happened in the video below:
Cheers,
== T.J.==