December 14, 2024 - Fly to Millville with Mugsy
Here I am winging my way east across the Chesapeake Bay, looking north. It's cold this morning. I pre-heated the engine with the Red Dragon since it was in the low 30s. The plan was for Gadget and I to meet Mugsy over Massey and then proceed to Millville for breakfast. Unfortunately, Gadget's engine ran rough during the pre-flight run-up and he couldn't make it. He's been having trouble with the fine-tip sparkplugs he just put in.
Check out that layer to the north. When I drove into Essex this morning, the layer was overhead and was the strangest thing I've ever seen. The layer looked like a rack of ribs.
And there is Millville Airport, New Jersey, with its two long runways. I'm flying the upwind for runway 10.
Millville was busy when I flew in with a at least two other planes in the pattern.
Mugsy and I did a formation takeoff at Millville and heded for Bucks Airport (00N).
The outside air temperature was below freezing, about 30 degrees. This flight was the first time I've ever seen all four of my cylinders with a cylinder-head temperature of less than 300 degrees!
Mugsy approaches Pea Patch Island in the middle of the Delaware River. It is now home to Fort Delaware State Park.
Fort Delaware was built on Pea Patch Island by the United States Army in 1815, near the conclusion of the War of 1812, to protect the harbors of Wilmington and Philadelphia. The fort was burned and rebuilt in the years prior to the American Civil War, and soon after the start of the war the fort was converted to a Prisoner of War camp. Fort Delaware continued to protect the mouth of the Delaware River through World War I and II. Pea Patch Island and Fort Delaware was declared surplus land by the United States Department of Defense in 1945.
The entrance to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.
The Chesapeake & Delaware Canal (C&D Canal) is a 14-mile long, 450-foot-wide and 35-foot-deep ship canal that connects the Delaware River with the Chesapeake Bay.
It opened for business in 1829. In the present era, the C&D Canal is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District.
The canal saves approximately 300 miles on the route between Wilmington or Philadelphia on the Delaware River and Baltimore on Chesapeake Bay, avoiding a course around the Delmarva Peninsula.
Here's a better shot of the PT Boat. I didn't realize how large they were.
A PT Boat was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the war by ineffective torpedoes, limited armament, and comparatively fragile construction that limited some of the variants to coastal waters.
