The Bear is Beguiled by the Big Apple Bravo

The Third Time Really Is the Charm

In my own personal flying, I watch the weather and take my opportunities when I find them. However, when planning activities for the Williamson Flying Club, it is very challenging to pull club members together with this kind of "just in time" approach. So we put events on the calendar in advance, get people to sign up, work through the logistics of who has empty seats to carry other members, and then cancel if the weather is unfavorable. This process is tiring when there are cancellations, especially multiple cancellations, but that comes with the territory.

In planning for the WFC to fly the New York City skyline, Hurricane Laura unequivocally scuttled the mission on August 29. For August 30, the forecast was better. Just not better enough. I got as far as dragging The Bear out of bed early for a drive to the airport only to cancel again after a thirty minute debate about the forecast with other participating pilots. Once those forecasts dwindled into hindsight, it was clear that we made the right decision.

To my surprise, The Bear's enthusiasm for seeing the NYC skyline from our Warrior never wavered and she was game to do it all over again on Saturday, September 5. We were wise to have waited because September 5 was the perfect day. There was no low ceiling, no high winds, no precipitation, no golfing for President Trump in Bedminster (no golf TFR), and the Yankees were in Baltimore (no stadium TFR). 

There was absolutely nothing standing in our way. We were a "go".

Morning Activity

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
05 Sep 2020	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - MGJ (Montgomery, NY) - N30 (Honesdale, PA) - SDC	4.2	2147.4

The Bear and I readied Warrior 481 for flight in our hangar before taking on a full fuel load. During pre-flight, I discovered that Ray had been busy plugging holes in the Warrior's baffling with RTV. Maybe that would help to keep cylinder head temperatures (CHTs) lower.

I love seeing activity at the airport on the morning of a fly-out. 

Dan and his sister Jess were in One Delta Tango while Matt flew Six Echo Sierra with Ziad and Eman. Barry departed from Greater Rochester International in his Seneca with one of his friends plus members Scott, Kim, and Tom. Brad and Melodie were scheduled to depart after us in "The Cirrus" with instructor Brad S on board to assist with the radio work. Lee accompanied me and The Bear. Overall, we expected five airplanes and sixteen people. Our only constraint was a 12:30 lunch reservation at the Cherry Ridge Airport Restaurant in Honesdale, PA. Frankly, I was amazed that they were willing to accommodate us and their flexibility deserved to be rewarded with an on time arrival.

When a book is this good, any convenient taxiway will do. After all, a mile of taxiway will take you a mile, but a book will take you anywhere!

Hot, Hot, Hot

While climbing away from Sodus, cylinder #2 hit 450°F again despite the much cooler day, timing verified as spot-on, a rebuilt carburetor providing adequate fuel flow, and some extra RTV sealing up tiny gaps in the cooling baffles. None of it made any difference. I pushed the nose down to manage temperatures with a shallower climb and brought the CHT numbers back down to something more reasonable, though still hotter than I would prefer. 

<grumble> Back to the drawing board. </grumble>

Near Monticello, I was struck by an intriguing facility with a circular perimeter. Was it some kind of remote cyclotron research facility? 

Nope, it was a prison. More specifically, it was the NYSDOC Sullivan County Correctional Facility that is clearly on the cutting edge of avant-garde jail architecture. 

I was disappointed with that outcome, reminded of that time I found a pyramid near Muskegon, MI. I researched it in hopes of learning a tale of whimsical creativity only to learn that it was a hazardous waste sarcophagus necessitated by environmental malfeasance from Hooker Chemical, the same dream team of assholes that brought us Love Canal.

Very disappointing. Things that look cool from the air should actually be cool.

June 1, 2005: Hazardous waste sarcophagus in Montague, MI.

Orange You Glad That We Landed?

Conveniently located a few minutes northwest of the Skyline Route point of entry, we chose Orange County Airport (KMGJ) for a brief pit stop. We braved a gaggle of student pilots practicing touch and goes with a six knot tailwind. One of them cut so close in front of me with an unusual pattern entry that I could read his tail number. They may have been flying some fancy Diamond trainers, but I was unimpressed by their airmanship.

Jess, Chris, The Bear, Lee, Eman, Ziad, and Matt, photo by Dan

We took advantage of the brief stop to take our "before" pictures. While Matt and I had flown the route previously, it was the first run through the New York City bravo for everyone else assembled in Orange County.

Dan approached The Bear. "Are you the famous Bear from Chris' blog?" he asked. She did not say much, wearing an expression suggesting that her inner teenager desperately wanted to respond with an eye roll. Fortunately, decorum won out.

The Bear, Chris, and Lee; photo by Dan

Jess and Dan

Eman, Ziad, and Matt

Text break.

The Magic Words

In 2019, I contacted LaGuardia Tower with the Skyline request while over the Tappan Zee Bridge, roughly six miles north of the Alpine Tower where the Skyline Route formally begins. One might imagine that the controllers would want to be forewarned of inbound traffic rather than juggling last minute requests. Not so on Sunday morning. Matt and Dan both tried calling over the Tappan Zee and were told by LaGuardia Tower, "Call me back when you're closer to the Alpine Tower."

The Tappan Zee came and went. I noticed that the pylons from the old bridge had been removed from the Hudson River since we flew the route in 2019. One by one, we made our radio calls to LaGuardia and received the magic words "cleared into the bravo". Last year, I suspect that the clearance came after I had already poked my nose into the highly regimented airspace. This year, I was definitively north of the Alpine Tower when the clearance came.

From the George Washington Bridge to Lower Manhattan, I was fairly busy managing traffic call-outs from LaGuardia. We were cleared through at 1,500 feet. Dan in One Delta Tango was ahead of us at 2,000 feet and, despite the fact that I kept pulling back on the throttle, we closed the distance with him quickly.

Though The Bear usually wants to be isolated at the audio panel, she was so excited about the experience that she wanted to remain on the intercom to speak with us and hear the chatter from ATC. Her frequent exclamations on the intercom added another dimension of aural chaos to the cockpit, but I was so delighted by her interest that I did not mind. Fortunately, chatter from ATC was not so dense as it was in 2019.

I was so busy that I completely missed passing the Intrepid. The Bear was particularly excited to spot the Vessel in Hudson Yards that we discovered during a trip to New York City in 2019 to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I was struck by the massive green roof of the Javits Center, a Midtown convention center located along the Hudson. Their website boasts that the green roof covers nearly seven acres of area and can absorb seven million gallons of rainfall runoff annually.

The Bear visiting the Vessel in Hudson Yards on August 25, 2019

Abeam the southern tip of Manhattan, we finally caught up to Dan, sliding directly underneath him with 500 feet of clearance.

LaGuardia pushed us to Newark Tower as we neared Lower Manhattan. I requested a route north along the East River with a transition back to the Hudson over Central Park. This was granted immediately. "Just call your turn to the east," finished the controller. This meant that I had discretion to turn whenever I wanted.

Almost nineteen years ago... The skyline has healed, but we will never forget.

Passing behind the Statue of Liberty, I advised Newark that I was turning east. I checked the traffic display and scanned the sky beyond the Warrior's windshield. I saw no conflicting traffic coming north along the Hudson. It was kind of like turning left across a busy road, only the road was a three dimensional volume through densely populated airspace.

By turning when I did, we had a better look at the Statue than during the previous excursion. To be fair, Newark offered us the opportunity to circle and I declined because I wasn't comfortable doing so with other aircraft southbound along the Hudson behind us.

Liberty Island makes for a unique choice of ground reference for a turn around a point maneuver. Ellis Island is in the background.

Both Matt and Dan continued farther south to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (or the "VZ" in local ATC parlance). By turning earlier, we effectively went from "Tail End Charlie" to leading the WFC pack.

Attempts to recreate past wonderful experiences are often a trap. Some of the magic is inevitably lost and the experience is rarely better or even as good the second time around. I had this thought as I recreated my favorite picture from last year and realized that the flight that day might be an exception to that rule.

When the Empire State Building first rose above the New York skyline in 1931, it was the tallest building in the world, a status that it enjoyed until the twin towers of the World Trade Center were constructed in 1970. It is now the seventh tallest building in The City. I imagine that its original designers would be stunned by how it blends in with the rest of the city rather than dominating the skyline as it once did.

Fly-In?

The Manhattan Bridge with Midtown in the distance

Northbound above the East River, we were handed back to a new sector of LaGuardia Tower. "Approved as requested," responded Tower when I asked to transition back to the Hudson northbound across Central Park. When he offered advisories to our final destination, I requested flight following to Cherry Ridge. 

Moments later, Matt signed on from Six Echo Sierra and gave the same spiel.

When Dan came on frequency a few minutes later with an identical request, the controller chuckled. "Are you guys having some kind of fly-in?"

The break from conventional phraseology caught Dan flatfooted. "What?" he queried the controller. Rather than repeat himself, the controller fell back into standard radio protocol by approving Dan's request.

By passing Roosevelt Island before turning west across Central Park, we completely avoided the Trump Tower TFR. A westerly wind was sufficient to create an abrupt updraft from the line of buildings along the eastern edge of Central Park. The Bear, Lee, and I were all bounced momentarily out of our seats, causing all three of us to exclaim in surprise.

Mountain flying concepts still apply, regardless of whether the formations below are granite or concrete and steel.

"Hey, it's Yankee Stadium!" I said, snapping a blindly-zoomed photo through the starboard corner of the windscreen and somehow capturing something blog-worthy.

"So?" queried The Bear.

I shrugged. "I don't really care, I grew up with the Tigers. But it is kind of a landmark, right?"

With the crossing of the George Washington Bridge, the workload dropped again.

ForeFlight GPS data around Manhattan exported to GoogleEarth

But Don't Call Me Late To Dinner Lunch!

With CHT issues plaguing the Warrior, I avoided unnecessary climbs. We climbed only to 3,000 feet and stayed there for the forty minute flight to Cherry Ridge in Pennsylvania, rocking in turbulence created by thermals and the terrain. We crossed the terrain just north of of the  Greenwood Lake Airport and found the air to be characteristically rough.

We encountered a small snarl of aircraft landing at Cherry Ridge that included Barry’s Seneca carrying  another contingent of WFC members. We stayed above the fray and descended for the pattern once the other aircraft were on the ground.

Ziad and Matt manually position Six Echo Sierra into a parking spot

All WFC aircraft landed within a ten minute window roughly fifteen minutes prior to our 12:30 reservation. It was a well-executed arrival and all five pilots did a great job of getting their planes to Cherry Ridge on time.

Brad S and Melodie both had to cancel that morning, so Brad arrived with a friend after a late start that prevented him from making the run through the New York bravo. That makes two years in a row that he has been denied flying the Skyline Route.

Back on the ground, The Bear set about texting her pictures of The City to family members.

She was not above making faces at me as I captured some candid photographs of the club milling about on the ramp.

After fueling up, Barry taxied his aircraft to parking and discovered the hard way that the east edge of the parking ramp at Cherry Ridge is on a slope. The Seneca began to roll backward while Barry was climbing out of it. Several of us ran to the twin to stop it from rolling off the pavement.

Cherry Ridge reserved tables for us on the deck. As Barry surveyed the ramp, he complimented us on our choice of lunch venue. "This is a nice place. I've never been here before." I was surprised. Since COVID-19 hit, it has been the only viable airport diner for breakfast within reasonable reach of Sodus. At this point, I am beginning to feel like a regular.

I sent a text to Ray describing the high CHTs I observed and received a one word response from the famously laconic airplane doctor: "Crap." That summed it up.

Kim and Scott finding their seats at Cherry Ridge

As we ate our lunch, I received a text message from Kristy. "It's raining here." There was no precipitation forecast for Rochester, but a significant downpour rolled through as we dined under sunny Pennsylvania skies.

Brad's passenger's face went ashen. She'd left her convertible at the Williamson-Sodus Airport with the top down. We tried to assure her that maybe the rain wasn't that severe. 

"Standing water in the car," reported Brad the next day. Brad had gone to work on it with a shop vac, saving the day by spinning the incident into a spa day for the car rather than an unfortunate accident.

We caught the folks who did not stop at Orange County for a picture: Brad's friend (this is embarrassing, I've met her twice and still can't remember her name), Brad, Barry, Tom, Kim, Scott, and Barry's friend (whom I was not introduced to, so I don't feel so bad about not knowing his name).

A Warrior wing makes for a good social distancing device, giving my passengers a break before needing to mask up again in the cockpit. While waiting for me, The Bear went back to reading and Lee hung around looking cool. Because we paused to take on fuel, we were the last aircraft to leave Cherry Ridge.

Cloudburst

Though the worst of it had already moved through, shafts of showery precipitation lurked between us and the Williamson Sodus Airport. 

I-90 disappears into the rain

We remained VFR, gradually catching up to Dan in One Delta Tango as we threaded between two areas of showers. Our passage near the rain marked the smoothest flying of the day since we left Orange County that morning.

"Cherokee Four Eight One, areas of light to moderate precipitation ahead. Your other friends made it through to Sodus without any problem. Maintain visual separation with the other Cherokee you're overtaking, frequency change approved, squawk VFR, have a great day," Syracuse signed off.

Once past the rain, the world opened back up again and we made an uneventful landing on a very wet runway.

Parked at our hangar, I removed my headset and looked back at The Bear. "Worth the trip?" I asked her.

"Totally!" she responded enthusiastically. This is exactly what every parent-aviator wants to hear.