Day 2 was a rather simple day of flying… But it did include 3 new states, unusual ATC interactions, and best of all some awesome sites.
The day began in Raleigh, with another good weather forecast. I filed IFR RDU > LVL > WWD (Wildwood, NJ) Very simple routing that avoided the Washington DC Special Flight Rules Area. There were a few cool sites shortly after takeoff:
Some patchy fog in Raleigh during takeoff
Between VA and MD
Webster Naval Base
Then it was time for lunch in Wildwood, NJ (Woohoo state # 26!!!) Now the ATC excitement begins, I filed an IFR flight plan with what should have been a “preferred” route. But when I contacted Atlantic City Clearance Delivery, they gave a wild clearance with over 10 fixes and even merging into Victor airways. The only good news was that the routing was over JFK, which led to some great views of Newark and New York City.
Statue of Liberty through the haze 🙁
NYC from 7000 Ft near JFK
Directly overflying JFK
So after navigating the crazy routing and airways, I tried to do something tricky with ATC. I asked them if I could do a full stop landing in Westerly, RI, keep my squawk code and immediately take off to Norwood, MA. While ATC was being very cooperative, they asked me “If I knew the Norwood airport was closed?”
I thought “Yikes” … Better check into it on the ground before showing up. So after I landed at Westerly, I called the FBO @ Norwood to find out what was going on. Turns out that they were doing construction on one of the other runways and the airport would reopen with a single runway in operation @ 5PM. Since I was 30 minutes flight away, I decided to get back in the air and do some sightseeing. Found a couple of cool airports, which are shown below:
Fishers Island, NY … Looks like an aircraft carrier to me 🙂
Montauk Airport (the very end of Long Island)
After a few good pics (~ 430), I activated an IFR flight plan and headed direct to Norwood. The timing worked out perfectly, I landed @ 5:03 PM at Norwood, right as they opened!!
Cheers,
== T.J.==
