March 19, 2025 - Fly to Central Jersey Airport to check out New Jersey's Best Pizza
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Destination: Central Jersey Regional Airport (47N). Purpose of Flight: to try DeLucia's Brick Oven Pizza, alledgely New Jersey's best. Pilots: Chuck, Brian, Me. Weather: excellent.
We head north from Essex Skypark, and are about to cross the Susquehanna River at the top of the Chesapeake Bay.
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We have just passed Philly on the right, and are about to cross the Schuylkill River.
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| Looking northwest at the Schuylkill River. Pottstown Heritage Field is just to the right of those nuclear plant cooling towers. |
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Following WWII and into the Cold War, Willow Grove was an operational and training base for reserve aviation activities, including a reserve P-3 squadron.
The base closed on September 15, 2011. The surplus land with the runways was turned over to Horsham Township for redevelopment. The runways are all closed but there is an open helipad.
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| Approaching the Delaware River. Somewhere in the upper right hand corner, on the other side of the river, is Trenton. George Washington and his Continental Army crossed the river and surprised the Hessian mercenaries at Trenton. |
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| Looking down at the Delaware River. |
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| And there is Central Jersey Regional airport, an airport I have never landed before. We are on an upwind for runway 7. |
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Still on upwind, New York City can be seen at center in the distance.
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| On the ramp at Central Jersey. |
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The FBO building was small but was a happening place. A lot of training takes place at this airport, evidently.
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| We Ubered to DeLucia's Brick Oven Pizza which was about five miles from the airport. |
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| DeLucia's is open Tuesday - Friday from 11:30-1:30, and then from 4 to 8. We arrived around 11:15 and there were 10-15 people already waiting in line. Because of the way they prepare their pies, they can run out, so we made sure we were here when they opened. |
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| Here's the gouge. |
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You order at the window. They do a lot of takeout orders, but they do have indoor seating as well.
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We get our pies! Left to right: Briant, Augie, Chuck. Augie flew with Brian, and is working on his private pilot ticket. Brian is his instructor.
Well, DeLucia's pizza was very good. The thin crust had a pleasant charcoal flavor. It may well be the best in New Jersey; I don't know. But I must say I still think our own Pizza John's in Essex is the best pizza I've ever had.
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Outside DeLucia's waiting for our Uber.
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| ZZZ |
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| Our rides parked on the ramp at Central Jersey. |
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Chuck took home some leftovers DeLucia's pizza.
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We taxiied across the field to the self-service pump. Surprisingly, Central Jersey sold avgas price at $5.15, very low for the Mid-Atlantic area. We all filled up.
Another surprising thing: the avgas pump was self-service. But you can't pump your own gas in New Jersey; an attendant has to do it. What's the deal with that? As always, it's about the money: link.
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Not much hangar space here at Central Jersey but lots of airplanes parked outside.
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An unpainted RV-9A sits outside. This plane became airworthy the same year mine did -- 2009 -- but has had multiple owners.
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| A well-worn Grumman American AA-5 Traveler. |
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| We followed the same route home as we had come. Here we are crossing the Susquehanna River again. |
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| We got a transition through Martin State Airport Class D airspace so I took a few pictures north of Martin State. As you can see, there is a lot of water in this area. |
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Martin State airport comes into view at right.
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Martin State Airport has a museum called the Glenn L Martin Maryland Aviation Museum. I've only been there once, I'm sorry to say. Separate from the museum building, at the south end of the airport is the museum's static display area, seen down below.
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| A close-up of the static display collection. |
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Chuck makes a pass to make sure there are no deer on the runway.
Mission accomplished!
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