November 25, 2023 - Wright Brothers Memorial
Kitty Hawk, NC
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Sister Susan and her husband Tony were visiting this week for Thanksgiving. Tony has been flying with me at least twice. Last year I took him through the Hudson River corridor to see New York City. The weather looked promising for flying Saturday so I asked him if he had ever been to Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers National Memorial. He hadn't. So Saturday morning we piled into the RV-7, crossed the Bay, and headed south down the Delmarva peninsula.
We were heading south, but it's late Fall, and the sun was in our eyes on the way down. That, plus the fact that I've made this trip many times, meant I didn't take many pictures on the way down. But we did have a nice tailwind. Winds were mild in Maryland but as I headed south they picked up.
South of Virginia Beach, cruising down the beach. Look how rough the surf is. It was blowing pretty good down here.
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Over First Flight Airport (KFFA). The Visitors Center is in th emiddle of the picture. Surprisingly for this time of year, quite a few cars are in the parking lot.
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Looking down at the Wright Brothers monument.
Not too many people were flying today; we had the skies to ourselves.
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Tony just after landing at First Flight Airport.
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| The obligatory photo of the plane with the Monument in the background. |
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We walked over to the Visitors Center which was renovated a few years ago. They really did a nice job. The exhibits, photos and placards really capture the Wright Brothers amazing story, and highlights their main achievements: discovering how to control a plane in the air, how they built a wind tunnel to determine how much lift different wing shapes would produce, how they figured out the size and shape of the propellers they would need to develop the required thrust, how they taught themselves how to fly using a glider. And much more ...
This is one of my favorite lines, which applies to life in general, not just flying an airplane.
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| A good example of one of the informative placards. |
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Just by luck, we finished touring the visitor center just as a Park Ranger was about to start a presentation on the Wright Brothers. It was excellent. Even though I've been here many times, and read multiple books on the subject, I still learned a few things. For example, they painted the engine black so their competitors could not easily see how it was designed. The engine itself is a great story. That engine crankcase at botton is the actual one from the 1903 Flyer.
The 1903 Flyer in the background is a replica, of course. The real thing is in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. The Ranger moved the left trailing wingtip down to demonstrate how that caused the right trailing wingtip to move up, as well as the rudder to move to the right, which would make the Flyer make a coordinated right turn.
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The wind was blowing pretty good here, and it was cold. Not unlike the conditions on December 17, 1903.
Tony stands next to the rock marker where the Wright Brothers started their four flights that day. The smaller rocks in the distance indicate the length of each of the four flights. The fourth flight .... wow.
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Walking from the Visitors Center to the monument.
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| Looking down at the flying area, hangars and Visitors Center from the monument. |
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| Inscribed in capital letters along the base of the memorial tower is the phrase "In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright conceived by genius achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith." |
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| Our ride home. |
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Just after takeoff, heading for home. The view is much better now that the sun is behind us. Look how rough the ocean is.
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| Passing by the Dam Neck Naval Base BOQ which faces the beach. I stayed there for six weeks back in 1988 while attending Staff Watch Officer school. Lynnette and the kids came down a couple of times on the weekend. Good memories. |
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Usually I just go over Oceana Naval Air Station's Class D airspace. But the overcast layer at 2,000 feet had moved north and I couldn't climb that high. So I called the tower and asked for a transition. I had been monitoring the tower frequence and it was silent. Not surprising on a Saturday and it being Thanksgiving weekend and all. Still, I wasn't sure if the Navy's largest fighter base on the east coast would allow a civilian airplane to fly anywhere near it. But the controller not only granted approved the transition, but told me the restricted areas were cold and there was no one flying in the area. We flew along the beach and didn't fly directly over the airport.
Here's a shot of Oceana Naval Air Station as I fly by. Lots of F-18 Super Hornets at this base. Maybe some F-35Cs?
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| Now looking down at Virginia Beach. |
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| We crossed over the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and soon Virginia's barrier islands are ahead of us. You know what that means! Tony took some excellent video of us flying low over the beaches. |
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Heading home in the late afternoon. Airline pilots were keeping us updated on the Michigan-Ohio State game via Guard. Lynnette had packed us a lunch so I enjoyed eating a turkey sandwich for our in-flight food service.
Fun day.
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