April 28, 2012 - Virginia Festival of Flight Fly-In

My parents were visiting and my Dad wanted to fly in the RV so I thought the Virginia Festival of Flight fly-in at Suffolk, VA (KSFQ) would be good.  It's a scenic hour flight from Essex Skypark. 

Suffolk is a good place to have a big fly in -- lots of open space.   On the other hand, with so much space, they need a lot of planes to fill it up.  Which they didn't get.  I think the forecast kept a lot of pilots away, though, and it didn't seem like there were that many planes. 

 
Flying down the Eastern Shore, we enjoyed good weather until hitting Cape Charles at the tip of the DelMarVa peninsula.   Then we encountered bands of overcast layers around 4000 feet that obscured our view of Norfolk.    We followed the arrival procedure -- sort of like a mini-Oshkosh -- and landed.  The fly-in was extremely well organized.  We must have gone through ten different ground handlers on our way to a parking spot. 
 
My Dad and I standing next to the fly-in star attraction -- the plane that started it all -- Van's RV-1.   Rather than try to duplicate what has already been done far better than I ever could, here is a link to a great writeup on the history of the RV-1, its significance, and what it is like to fly it by AOPA's Dave Hirschman:  Link
 
My Dad checking out the spartan cockpit.
 
Pretty basic.
 
The empennage reminds me of our old Corben Baby Ace.
 
They had tthe RVs parked together on the grass.  A nice touch, I thought.
 
More RV's including the unpainted RV-9 which belongs to the famous Vlad.   I think Vlad has flown his RV 350 hours in the ten months he has had it.  That's a lot of flying.  For most people, 100 hours in a year is a lot.
 
I met Glen S. at Campbell Field a few weeks ago but this is the first time I've seen his newly painted RV-8.  It is painted in the colors of a U.S. Navy TBD Devastator torpedo bomb squadron pre-World War II.
 
Very nice. 
 
This Harmon Rocket has a fancy paint scheme.
 

My Dad and I were riding the ground shuttle around the airport.  We went by a big hangar that was open and inside was an ME-262 jet! 

 

There were lots of neat things in this hangar. 

The hangar belongs to the "Fighter Factory" which is the restoration and maintenance facility of the Military Aviation Museum located at Virginia Beach Airport. I have never been to the Military Aviation Museum and clearly I need to go see it. They have quite a collection of both WWI and WWII warbirds.

 
 I have seen Me-262s in a number of museums, but this one flies.   This is one of five jets that were built from scratch in an effort known as the Me-262 Project .
 
Although the engine nacelles are exact replicas of the real things, instead of containing the original Jumo 004 engine with its service life of 12 hours, this Me-262 has two modern -- reliable -- General Electric J85 which only fills about 1/3 of the nacelle.
 
At left is a Polykarpov Po-2 Soviet biplane.  It is the second most produced aircraft, and the most produced biplane, in the history of aviation.  You read that right.  More than 40,000 were built between 1928 and 1952.  It was used for ground attack, aerial reconnaissance, psychological warfare and liaison.   German army troops on the Eastern Front named it the "sewing machine".  Probably with a few adjectives thrown in.
 
In the center is a MiG-3. In the back is an American A-26 medium bomber.
 
A Messerschmidt Bf-108 Taifun which was a German personnel transport and liaison aircraft during WWII. 
 
The business end of the German Jet.   Four 30mm cannons -- heavy firepower to bring down the American bombers.
 
 
A T-6 in U.S. Navy WWII markings fired up its big radial engine outside. 
 
You can see there was a lot of empty space.
 
P21
 
A nice looking Piper Colt.
 
As you know, one of my favorites:  the Cessna 195 with the big radial engine.
 
Nice looking RV with risque nose-art.
 
One of Burt Rutan's designs: a Long-EZ.
 
They had an area where you could camp by your airplane. 
 
There was another area for the radio-control flyers.   Most of the planes nowdays seem to be electric-powered which is a lot quieter than the gas-powered of days of old.
 
The RV-1 parked next to Chip Lock's -- Vans Aircraft Company East Coast rep -- RV-10.
 
The Fly-In had a "Parade of Flight" which I signed up for.  Twelve planes in groups of three made 4 laps around the pattern.  I signed up and flew with the other two RV's pictured here.   I liked the idea, but the runway was far away from the main area and pattern was on the opposite side so I doubt if the spectators could really see the planes very well.   The airport was closed by Notam during the hour that we flew around. 
 
A Pietenpol Air Camper and Kitfox 7 flew in another group.
 
The workmanship on the Pietenpol was outstanding.  I wouldn't mind flying this plane low over the Eastern Shore.
 
A Kitfox Model 7.  What a difference from the Kitfox II that I had. 
 
The Pietenpol taxiis out.
 

There was weather coming in from the northwest, so after the Parade of Flight my Dad and I hopped in the RV and headed for home.  I had intended to fly up the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay but because of the weather, I had to go home the way we had come down, up the Eastern Shore.  I found out it rained fairly hard soon after we had left. 

Here we are flying over the beaches of the Barrier Islands, which is always fun.

 
Interesting swamps to the west of the beaches. 
 

It must be pretty lonely for whoever lives out on this island. 

We stopped at Cambridge for a late lunch on the way home and then returned to base at Essex Skypark. 

 
 
Previous
Home
Next