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Eighteen intrepid aviators in five planes from East Hill down the Hudson River Corridor on January 17th, over Manhattan and up to Poughkeepsie for lunch! What an amazing day, both for the unusually cooperative weather and the way it all just worked out so beautifully. Here is an assembly of different viewpoints in all the collected media people donated. Our last NYC flight in 2002 is still available here. |
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| Tappan Zee Bridge at the edge of Bravo Airspace | Three very cold aviators up at KPOU | The new and old Yankee Stadium(s) |
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| Your Pilots: Doug Cross and Eric Esty (Greg) | Statue of Liberty by Greg Garrett | Varrazano Narrows...looking out to sea (Greg) |
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Flying down the ice-choked Hudson River at 2,000 |
Lady Liberty, beautiful as ever (flight in the TFR!) |
Tough pilots change their own tires (-12C)! |
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Mooney 747CF: Tom Weber, David St. G, Tom Farlow, David Solomon |  |
Skyhawk N97266: Mike Thompson, Art Snyder, Greg Garrett |
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Skyhawk N66230: Doug Cross, Eric Estey, Mario Tomei, Joanne Taormina |  |
Light Sport 357JD: Ryan Quigley, Brent Chidsey |
Arrangements for this trip were made the week before with NY Tracon for our planes to transit the Bravo airspace at 2,500ft on discrete transponder codes three miles in trail (they are expecting us this time). Ithaca Tower graciously put all the planes in the system with discrete transponder codes and "flight following." We had reservations for 18 people at Lilliana's in Poughkeepsie at 13:00 (menus available at the club). We had a meeting with pizza at 6pm on Thursday the week to coordinate our procedures and expectations. We provided new TCA charts for every pilot and discused the routing and traffic separation strategies.
So it turned out to be a beautiful day, though very cold, and everyone hustled to get us ready. The Mooney lifted off precisely at 9:30 with a code from Ithaca Tower. Though New York ARTCC got the message and knew the plan, upon transfer to LaGuardia Tower for Class B clearance there was apparently no transfer of this knowledge...we were told "no" and given holds north of the Tappan Zee Bridge. In NYC "no" is the beginning of all negotiations it seems and with the name of the person coordinating and some further negotiation, we were given the OK to go down the river at 2,000ft in the Bravo.
Suggestions for flying this flight: This site seems to have some good information. I recommend the YouTube tour to get an idea what you will experience. A Class Bravo clearance is a good idea for separation and safety. Also, at 2,500 you will see a lot more (Central Park and east side) VATSIM has an interesting web site. This group has interactive on line wimulations involving pilots and controllers logged on to play.