April 2, 2006 - Windwood, WV
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I got an early start Sunday morning and headed out to the airport.
The Citabria was ready to go. The forecast looked great.
Perhaps the weather guessers would be right.
I was going to a lunch with the Mid-Atlantic RV fliers at Windwood
Airport Resort in West Virginia. |
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Whoops. I've crossed the Shenandoah Valley and am about ready to
enter the mountains. What's the story on that overcast?
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I noticed on the GPS that I could follow a road most of the way to my
destination. It turns out the road was a brand spanking new
four-lane highway. So new that it wasn't even open for use yet.
But it was like a 20 mile long runway to me. I wonder if it is named
the Robert Byrd Highway; everything else in the state is named after him. |
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The visibility was declining the further I went, and the overcast
getting thicker. .
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| However, I was able to make it to
Grant County Airport in the town of Petersberg, WV. Bruce and I drove
here a couple of years ago for some wave soaring. My destination was
ten miles further to the west. It wasn't on my GPS so I just marked on
top Grant Count and headed 290 for seven minutes. |
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| There wasn't a whole lot of room
between the top of the last ridge and the overcast but I scooted through and
found myself on the top of this high plateau. This photo doesn't do it
justice; it was really pretty. The overcast magically disappeared as
soon as I was on top of the plateau and the sun even came out a little. |
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Still on top of the high plateau, I noticed a ski slope dead ahead! |
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Some skiers waved as I zoomed by. I figured the airport had to be
in the valley ahead.
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Sure enough, there was the airport, right where I thought it would be. |
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Overhead Windwood Resort Airport. The ramp area is in the lower
left hand corner. The restaurant is the building on the right with
the green roof. Turns out that Windwood is an aviation community.
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| The mighty Citabria parked on the
ramp, all by its lonesome self. |
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| I sat in the restaurant and drank
coffee for awhile. Then Joe in a blue RV-8 showed up. A retired
Navy jet pilot, we had lunch together. Here we are headed back to the
ramp. The overcast burned off while we were inside. It turned
out that the other RV drivers diverted to a another airport restaurant
because of the weather. |
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Joe built his RV-8 over a period of five years. |
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Heading away from Windwood.
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Passing in front of the ski resort. Today was their last day of
operation this season. |
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A West Virginia mine.
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| I stopped at Grant County to get
gas. Nice friendly airport. I talked to the airport manager
about the Wave camps held here in the winter. What happens is that
high winds blow over the big ridges around here and create "mountain wave".
The tow plane tows the glider up through the rotor and drops it off in the
wave. I'm told it's like an elevator. The wave just zooms the
glider up as high as 23,000 feet. (They get a special waiver from Air
Traffic Control to operate above 18,000 feet). All the glider pilots
are on oxygen, of course, and have to dress very warmly. It gets cold
up there and gliders don't have heaters. |
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| There was this Kitfox Model I
parked on the ramp so of course I had to go check it out! I talked
with the owner. He loves it. It's not a cross-country plane, but
it is a fantastic low and slow fun STOL plane. |
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On the way home, I flew down the Shenandoah River. There were long
grass fields along the sides of the river most of the way -- good
emergency landing fields. The river was too narrow to get down
really low, though, like you can on the Eastern Shore rivers. |
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I don't play golf anymore now that I'm obsessed with the flying thing,
but I bet this would be a fun course to play.
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I stopped at Jan Scott's field. It was a good soaring day. A
1-26 stayed up for four hours. After talking with Jan, I climbed up
and flew around with the 1-26 for awhile before heading home. |
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This is the Baltimore Ravens training facility.
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| Pimlico, home of the Preakness
horse race. The Baltimore skyline is in the background. Plus the
1500 foot tower which always has your attention, since you have to fly below
1500 feet to stay below the Class B airspace. |
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| Getting closer to Baltimore. |
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| Baltimore, in all its splendor. |
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| All in all, a great aviation day. |
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