Fly Day!

Yesterday was such a nice day that I was able to get out flying again. Bruce, having nothing better to do and being a glutton for punishment, came along.

The first twenty minutes or so were "interesting" enough that I didn't get any pictures. We were hitting convective currents that had the aircraft bobbing up and down like a yo-yo or suddenly trying to go perpendicular to the horizon without warning. So because both hands were actually needed to fly the aircraft, no pictures got taken until we got down to Front Royal, VA, where those convective currents made for a seriously sporty landing that had Bruce looking just a bit nervous (as in "pulling the grab handle off of the side of the cockpit") but I still managed to get it on the runway and back off again without leaving any parts behind.

Normally I like this sort of challenge and would have stuck around for a few more shots at it, but I've learned over time to be sensitive to the feelings of my passengers, especially since when they barf, it's in my plane.

Here's a nice shot of the Shenandoah River, with Front Royal in the background.

And here's a close-up of the river, with my plane's shadow visible below...at least I hope that's MY plane's shadow.

And then, since we were in the neighborhood, we dropped by my friends at Mount Weather. Looks like someone is doing some new construction on-site.

Neat berm they've thrown up around it, either for privacy or security. Wonder what's that's all about.

And here's a nifty little secure compound within the overall secure compound that Mt. weather is.
That's a double fence with a clear gravel visibility zone in between them and just one gate on the west side.

And those three box-like objects you see there? Almost certainly massive air-conditioning chillers. Look on the roof of that big four-story building in the foreground and you'll see chillers on that roof. Look how small that building's chillers are compared to those monsters in the secure zone, that, to the casual eye, are on the roof of nothing. Well that should give you an idea of how large the underground spaces beneath this complex are. (The Wikipedia article claims 600,000 square feet.)

Here's another view.

And here's another "compound within a compound" on the east slope.

The building that looks like a church or a firehouse is one of the two main entry portals to the tunnel complex. But there's another one on the west slope that doesn't have that security perimeter around it, so there's got to be something more in this area.

I love watching this place and speculating. Just wait until I get a better camera.

(Hey Mt. Weather guys--this is what happens when your helicopters mess with G.A. pilots who are just flying past in the unrestricted airspace, minding their own business. Some of us get pissed and/or curious and come back again and again and again.)

Next, it was up the Shenandoah River into West Virginia, where this little blue house surrounded by evergreen trees set off both the "cat" and "liberal" detection alarms.

Sixty degrees out, but still a lot of ice on the water of the quarry below.

And here we are over Harpers Ferry, WV, where the Shenandoah River flows into the Potomac River, sixty miles above Washington, DC.

And what's that on the tracks? It looks like Mr. Peabody's coal train, heading back down south for another load.

And across the river to the north, the remains of the Union fortifications built atop Maryland Heights are just visible through the bare trees. Back in the day, they had some mighty big cannon up there that could dominate the town and river junction below, and every last cannon ball, bag of powder and cask of water had to be schlepped 1200 feet up the mountain from the river below. Not exactly a vacation assignment for the troops.

Give it a few weeks, and the leaves will render this all invisible until next winter

Another Harpers Ferry shot, just to point out all of the sediment in the rivers courtesy of last week's rains and snow melt. Normally, the water here would be almost totally clear.

Here's another train crossing the Potomac at Shepherdstown.

If you look close, you'll see that it's twelve locomotives all strung together and no cars. Interesting.

I tried to get a picture of my favorite Thai place downtown but muffed the shot.

Then it was back into the pattern to land.

Here's two of the new little Boeing C-17 transports (left) with the last two Lockheed C-5a transports that will soon be heading out to retirement at Davis Monthan AFB's boneyard.

Short final for Runway 8. Air's smooth as glass now. I hate to land.

The C-5s again. I hated them when they came here but I'll miss them when they're gone.

Time to put the toy back in the toybox with another 2.1 hours on the Hobbs. Until next time.

Finally! Flying weather!

I started the morning with a trip to the leg-making guy. We've got a new one fitted and it should be ready in a week. Give us another week to work the kinks out and I should be back to regular walking again for the first time since mid-December. Yay!

Then I left the leg place and bopped on down to the airport, because the weather was just too nice today.

First thing I saw was this little Light Sport CTSW.

It's like an airplane, only smaller.

Civil Air Patrol was flying today, too. They have a Cessna 182T.

But me, I'm just happy with Beetlebomb, here.

First thing I saw when I got out here was that the plane had been moved in it's tie-down slot. The tail was shifted to the left about two feet courtesy of last week's insanely high winds (Gusts recorded at 55mph at the airport). The tie ropes were either rock-tight or completely slack, depending on which side of the aircraft that they were on. Good thing I'd cinched them down two weeks ago before the weather hit. The other planes on the line appear to have been wind-shifted as well. But everything checked out ok on the pre-flight other than a weak battery (which still started me...eventually) so off we went.

First target: Shepherdstown.

Once I get me back in action, I'll be down there doing a fair bit of running, cycling and kayaking on the Potomac and the C&O Canal towpath over on the Maryland side.

Bakerton Quarry, just waiting for Aaron to come down so we can do some diving and check out the caves.

And Harpers Ferry from the west, looking down a swollen Potomac River after all the recent rains.

With the leaves all down, I've got a window for some photos that are otherwise impossible to get--the old Civil War stone fort atop Maryland Heights.

Visible below the ridge line here is the trail--an old wagon road originally--leading from the river to the fort up top.

The fort sits at 1,400 feet, about 1,000 feet above the river and surrounding terrain. It's a hell of a hike on a decent day, made all the more fun when you realize that the soldiers who built and manned the fortification had to schlep everything up there--food, water, building stones, cannon shot and Parrot rifles that weighed ten tons and threw hundred-pound shot down at people below.

It is such a workout to climb up that, following the Union victory at Antietam, President Abraham Lincoln was going to review the troops at this fort but he gave up on the climb about a third of the way up, turned around and left.

When the fort was in operation, the entire top third of this mountain had been deforested to clear fields of observation and fire for the guns. Now it's all grown back and in a couple of weeks, the leaves will be so thick that you won't be able to see any of it from the air. I'll be torture-walking two dogs up there soon enough.

Here's Harpers Ferry again.

You can't really make it out in this shot, but there's someone on that back porch making obscene gestures.

Next, it was Winchester, Virginia for a few practice landings, sharing the pattern with a Citabria and a Piper Cub.

The Cub did good, but that Citabria was making some scary-wicked short landings right on those stripes, cutting it closer than I would have considering how the grass immediately off that pavement is a steep incline.

After a few circuits there, I crossed the Blue Ridge and paid a visit on Upperville, "the airport that isn't really there".

It's a 5,000+ foot strip, but it has no hangars, no aircraft on the field, and a bunch of less-than-friendly "RESTRICTED" markings all over it.

For facilities, all it has is parking for a few cars and a couple of small buildings near a small parking pad.

It looks like it's set up for people to drive out, get on some mystery plane, and return later after a trip to who-knows-where.

I didn't stop here.

This is "rich people land", though, so stuff like this might not be out of sorts. In fact, here's a nearby residence. And yes, it's one house.

I need that sort of money. But then I would not have a house like that. I'd buy warbirds then use them to take over some small resort island which I would make into my own sovereign nation. Maybe Mackinac Island. It's already got a runway...and a fort.

From Upperville, my flight track took me back over my friends at Mt. Weather.

It's really more interesting from this side. Note this area in particular--a secure compound within the secure compound. That gray "track" you see around it is double-row security fence.

And in the middle of that compound, there's this neat little building next to the helipad that could be a church or a fire house most anywhere else...but I'm willing to bet that it's not, and that that tower above it serves purposes other than bell-ringing.

It's landscaped very nicely but if you look close, you can just tell that it's merged into the hillside behind it. What do you bet that it's one of the disguised portals leading into the hardened shelter site below? This is, after all, the place where our leaders in Washington are to be evacuated to to survive any catastrophe that they cause. Supposedly it can house several hundred people for months.

And look, on the west side of the complex, an identical set-up: another little "firehouse" up against the hillside, surrounded by double-row security fencing.

Bye guys!

Lest ye be worried, I'm not disclosing anything that's already not in the public domain. This place is rather well documented and no longer "secret" like it was back in the 1960's. (Even FEMA has a web page about it.) Still, since they like to harass pilots flying over by sending spotlight-wielding helicopters to chase them off, I figure that there's got to be something down there worth looking at.

Having had that five minutes of fun, I flew back toward home, passing over one of my other favorite spots--the place where the government contractors train to do the stuff that we don't want to use our soldiers for.

Looks like they've got some more up-armored HMMV's down there. Bet those SUVs down there weigh a bit more than factory-standard, too.

Looks like the rumors I've heard about them building some new training mock-ups are true, but I won't post those pictures yet because there may be some op-sec issues involved there. Plus, these folks never sicced a helicopter on me so we're ok.

A bit more playtime, and then it was back to the home field for a few more practice landings. I wasn't going to shoot any more, but since the winds were coming from the east for a change, it opened up Runway 8 and I don't get enough practice on that one, so I did a few touch-and-gos, alternating left and right traffic patterns.

Score for the day: 2.1 hours of fun that covered three states. What great therapy to shake off those winter blahs.