May 22, 2010 - Virginia Festival of Flight, Suffolk, VA

There were three fly-in's to choose from on this Saturday in prime-time Flying season:  the Virginia Festival of Flight in Suffolk, Virginia, an RV fly-in at Bloomsburg, PA, and the nearby 42nc annual Horn Point fly-in.  I choose the Virginia fly-in because I thought it would have the most planes.   

I took my friend Dave F.  We flew down the Eastern Shore, then bopped over the Norfolk controlled airspace, then followed the Fly-in arrival procedures.  The flight took a little over an hour.   Here's an aerial shot of the Fly-In.  GA parking was on runway 7.  The show planes were on the runway from left to right. 

 
 Here I am in front of the RV at Suffolk. 
 
There were two parking areas:  General Aviation (GA) or showplanes.  Since my plane isn't ready to be shown, we were in the GA area shown below.  The fly-in was extremely well organized.  We must have passed through 5 ground handlers with the orange wands. 
 
There were vendor booths, food booths, display booths, forum booths, you name it booths.
 
This is the showplane area.  There were about 20 or so showplanes. 
 
Chip Lock and his RV-12 were there with the, yes, you guessed it, the Vans Aircraft Company booth.
 
 A SuperCat.  This plane was a Fly-in Award winner for a homebuilt (from plans).  Built in 1994, it is a miniture of the famous Ag-Cat cropduster. 
 
1929 Fleet biplane with a 125hp Kinner radial engine.  Cruising speed 85 mph. 
 
Bowers Flybaby 1-A, a 1960's design.  This plane was built over a period of eight years, first flying in August 2008.  This Flybaby was also a Fly-in award winner for Homebuilt (plans). 
 
A Standard Cabin Series Waco -- 1936 YKS-6.  Only 65 were built.  Engine is a 225 hp Jacobs L-4 (7 cylinder radial).
 
A nice-looking Skybolt, which is an Experimental aerobatic biplane.
 
Nice little Taylorcraft.   If I was getting into aviation, and didn't have much money, I'd buy one of these and fly it under Light Sport. 
 
The sleek Lancair.
 
I love the Lancair's panel.  What I love about it is that you can get to the back of it easily. 
 
Single place Kolb ultralight. 
 
I don't know what this guy was doing with his paraglider chute, but it fit in with the whole aviation thing. 
 
They had an area set aside for the radio-controlled flyers who had brought quite a variety of aircraft as you can see.
 
This big Extra was flying as we walked by.  The pilot was a real expert.  He had the Extra literally hovering vertically.  The amazing thing was that the Extra was electric-powered,  I wouldn't have thought the electric motor could put out the kind of power necessary to hover. 
 
 
It was interesting to see this plane without its fabric covering.  I'm sure it was even more interesting to those people who don't know much about planes.  "What, that's all it is?" 
 
This battle-worn RV-4 has clearly been flying for many years. 
 
I liked the paint job on this Aircoupe. 
 
Dave marveling at the size of the tires on this RANS S-7S.
 
I explained to Dave that if you had a lot of money, this was the plane you wanted: the luxurious Cirrus.
 
Interesting paint job.
 
 
Last week I said I saw the bet Sonex I had ever seen.  Well, this one is even better!  Look at that polished metal shine! 
 
I like the paint job on this RV-8A. 
 
We only stayed at the Fly-in a couple of hours.  There just weren't that many planes there, maybe 100.  It was a shame because they had obviously worked very hard to set-up the fly-in.  I was expecting 300 to 500; they could have handled that many, no problem. 
 
Cumulous clouds were popping as we transited home.  We took the inland route this time which took us over Jamestown, site of the first English colony in North America in 1607. 
 
Once we passed Patuxent River Naval Air Station, we cut across the bay to the eastern shore.  It had turned into a pretty day. 
 
We flew over the Horn Point fly-in near Cambridge, Maryland around 3PM but it looked like most of the planes had already left. 
 
 
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