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                             06 Family Reunion

                                  

                                   By Don Miller

                                   Columnist                  

 

 

My better half has included me in her annual family reunion for several years now. This year we had planned to fly the Cessna 172 to Wings Field on July 6th and be picked up by her brother who lives five miles from there. As most of you will know Wings Field was the original home of AOPA. In recent

years challenges to keeping the airport open were coming from developers.   AOPA came to the rescue along with hundreds of local pilots who depend on it for access to the north central area of Philadelphia and Valley Forge where General George Washington defended our attempts to govern separated from Great Britain.

 

As the date drew nearer we received word that her brother David had passed away on the 4th of July! The good news was that all three of the out of town siblings already had travel plans. The bad news was our get together would be quite different from our original expectations. The flight planning and journey would be the same, yet have a different feel to it. Fortunately Anna’s family had arranged for the memorial service to be on July 10.

 

We had prepared and filed an IFR flight plan to W99 (Petersburg, WV) and then to LOM (Wings Field). AirNav listed W99 as having a $13.80 savings on this journey compared to EKN (Elkins, WV) at $4.62 savings. Further pilot comments about W99 were glowing. Thus on July 6, 2006 we took off from Downtown Island Airport IFR in the blue sky. The forecast of scattered and warm held true all the way to northern West Virginia where we landed after 2 hours and 57 minutes of flying on their smooth 5000-foot runway. This is an area we saw for the first time on this flight. Northern WV is very pretty with lots of rivers, mountains and small towns. Upon landing we began to experience the hospitality noted by former visitors. As I taxied to the fuel farm one of the FBO staff ran out to greet me and offer assistance!

 

When I declined he connected the ground wire anyway and offered suggestions for use of the fuel dispensing controls. The lowest cost aviation fuel in Virginia ($3.54) was a breeze to deliver to my three tanks and not as much as the breath-taking Wings price of $4.20 self serve plus landing fee. The best part of this stop was stop to be discovered. Everyone in the FBO greeted us and directed us to the refreshment area.  Larry Stahl and his wife operate this business as if everyone who stops by is a long lost relative. The honor system refreshments includes freshly made sandwiches in the refrigerator (See attached photos). After eating a couple of homemade world-class tuna salad sandwiches, we departed for PA.  With high mountains all around I had to climb to 4,000 feet to talk to center and open my final leg IFR flight plan. The weather was scattered clouds between 3,000 and 8,000 feet on this flight. Washington Center provided the expected changes in flight plan, however the distance was not 5 to 10 nm more than mine. When I put a straight edge on the chart later I could see that they routed us 2 to 3 nm further from Camp David than my original plan would have and closer to the Washington ADZ by that much!  I filed MRB VOR to LNS VOR and direct. They assigned MRB to KEMAR to VINNY to LNS to V210 to BUNTS direct.

 

My brother-in-law was a volunteer fire-policeman for 30 plus years and the funeral was dominated by their input and ceremonial additions. This was my first time to see such an elaborate outpouring of affection and military-like protocol. We counted 75 fire-police volunteers and 50 fire engines, ladder trucks and fire support vehicles outside the funeral home. They supplied two honor guards for four hours with 15 minute changing of the guard ceremonies. As we entered the cemetery there were two ladder trucks with ladders meeting above the driveway and an American flag hanging beneath. After the minister concluded his remarks there was a live bugler who played taps.

 

July 10 was a day that all of the family members needed to begin the transition back to normal life and that resulted in a decision to go to Longwood Gardens south of Philadelphia. If you are ever in that area I recommend a day at Longwood. The Peirce-du Pont House dates from 1730 and is the oldest building at Longwood Gardens. It was the family homestead of the Peirce family until 1905 and then became the weekend residence of Pierre du Pont from 1906 until his death in 1954. Pierre purchased 400 acres in 1906 to save a unique forest from the saw. Later he brought ideas from Italy and France to begin a 50-year project of creating this magnificent place.

 

As with all trips a time arrives to begin the journey home.  We decided to make a stop  in Ashville, NC to have dinner with our son and daughter-in-law.  Although the forecast suggested IFR and I filed a plan, the morning of July 11 dawned clear over the entire first leg to W99 from Wings. I elected to request flight following after we were an hour into the flight, which turned out to be totally uneventful! ATC made handoffs without comment as we passed from controller to controller. At Petersburg the last leg to AVL looked to be broken to scattered and thus required IFR. This was (pic) a nice smooth flight for two hours followed by one hour of turbulence and infrequently broken clouds. The Ashville ATIS shared IFR RWY 34 was the only option with scattered at 1200 feet. The 2165’ elevation runway is surrounded by 4064’ west and 4534’ east and 4600’ north mountains.  The controller gave us at least ten heading changes and 5 elevation changes in aligning us for runway 34 ILS. Garmin came to the rescue providing a friendly reminder that the seemingly crazy new instruction stream from ATC made perfect sense. We landed among bolts of lightning and a driving rain.   My son and his wife were there to greet us and take us to dinner with them at the wonderful Black Forest restaurant not too far from the airport.   After dinner, the weather had moved on and our 45 minute trip from AVL to DKX was uneventful.

 

Upon reflection, we can’t think of a better way to have made this trip.  One of Anna’s sisters flew commercial from Denver, CO and had war stories of flights being rescheduled, planes not able to fly and having to be replaced, etc.  The other sister drove from Cincinnati to Philadelphia….need we say more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Want to read more from Don Miller?  Check out of his other columns.

Got a comment, question or suggestion for future article? eMail Don.

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