March 10-11, 2007 - Norfolk Cross-Country
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The weather forecast called for good weather this weekend, so I flew the
Citabria down to the Norfolk, Virginia area to join Lynnette and Maggie
who were down there for a Field Hockey tournament.
Saturday was that rare day in which the forecast was better than the
actual. There was a low overcast and fog in the morning so I
couldn't go flying until it burned off around 10:30 AM. Then I had
to fight a pretty stiff crosswind directly from the south all the way
down. At times my groundspeed was below 80 mph.
There was nothing really interesting to photograph until I flew over
the Yorktown battlefield of Revolutionary War fame. You can see the
outlines of the earthen bulwarks. The British had their backs
against the York river while the Americans surrounded them. The
French fleet controlled the sea. |
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Further on, I passed Newport News on my left. This is where the
U.S. Navy has it's aircraft carriers built. The arrow points to
what will be the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush, CVN-77. Although it's
complete enough to float, there's probably still lots of stuff to do.
Sort of like my RV-7 where although the airframe is largely built, I
still have tons to do on it. That's the James River, by the way.
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A better look at the carrier. |
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Continuing south, I could see the city of Norfolk on the left.
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| I landed at Chesapeake Regional
airport (KCPK) where the Citabria stayed overnight. |
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| The next day, I took off in late
afternoon. Just to the west of Chesapeake Regional is the Great Dismal
Swamp. Looked more like a vast, unbroken sea of trees to me. |
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Not hard to distinguish where the swamp begins. |
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I passed up the west side of the James River. That's the
"dead fleet" floating there. Similar to the mothball fleet out in
Suisan Bay, California.
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This marshland is just south of Jamestown. It's of no historical
import, but I thought it looked pretty. |
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I believe the triangular area at the center bottom of the picture is
where the original Jamestown fort was and that they are conducting an
archeological dig there. In case you don't know,
Jamestown
was the first permanent English settlement in North America. It
was established on May 14, 1607 -- almost 400 years ago. |
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| The three wooden sailing ships are
replicas of the Susan Constant, The Discovery and The Godspeed. A
replica fort is partially covered by the Citabrias wing strut. |
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| I landed at nearby Williamsburg -
Jamestown Airport (KJGG). There's a nice little on-field restaurant
named Charley's in that building. The last time I landed here, it was
in the Corbin Baby Ace, flying from Miami to Baltimore. |
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I had suffered through a strong headwind yesterday so I was looking
forward to a tailwind today. Can you believe the wind shifted 180
degrees? Now it was coming straight from the north. I only
made 85 mph all the way home. Life just isn't fair! I will say
though, the visibility was outstanding: 40 miles or more I would
estimate. Also, the temperature was quite pleasant. Someone had
told me that Tom Clancy, famous author of The Hunt for Red October among
others, lived on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay and that his
house was easy to spot because it had a tank in the front yard!
So I decided to look for it as I was basically following the west cost
of the bay. Sure enough, I looked down and there was the tank! |
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The house does overlook the Bay, although the water is pretty dark and
nasty looking.
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Annapolis really looked pretty from the air, with the sun over my back
shoulder lighting everything up. |
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The scenic town of Annapolis and the U.S. Naval Academy.
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| I didn't get any building done this
weekend but I sure did get some quality flying in. |
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