I have recently started a trip that should take me from New York to Europe and back, and if anyone is interested, let me know so I can continue taking screenshots or not. And so I can't stop thinking of story to go along with it.
It was the morning of Feburary 14th, 2004 and snow fell heavily on the Hudson Valley airport of Columbia County. Visiblity was less than twenty miles, and the cieling was about 2,000 feet. It was a horrible day to fly, but I needed to catch a flight to London from La Guardia in New York.
I was running a little late, and didn't think I'd make it to the city two hours away, it would take twice as long in the snow.
A good friend of mine, Jim, ran a charter service around the Apilaitions, New York City, and Long Island. He offerd to fly me down with some other passengers.
Jim did the pre-flight and ran up the Cessna Carivan, and we taxied to runway 3.
When he annoucned his intentions, he roled onto the runway and advanced the throttle. At first the Carivan clawed and struggled against a strong head wind but, quickly broke free after a couple hundered feet and accelerated down the runway.
She easily climbed up to the pattern altitute of 1,200 feet AGL and Jim banked her left towards the Hudson River. Like any other flight, he followed the river down to the city.
Flying down that river brought back fond memories of learing to fly. Memories of doing air work over it, of following the river south and flying final over that brigde:
of flying down it in my P-47N just last year to kick off my flight around the US, and of fishing on Mile Island looking up at the planes in the sky as a boy. I completly forgot of Jim fighting the wind, the purr of the engines, and the chatter of the heavies over the radio.
I didn't snap out of it until we reached Fishkill when the storm calmed down, only to pick back up as passed the Bronx.
New York was covered in snow. Flying over the Westside Highway I could see snowplows franticly trying to keep the roads clear. In the soup I could make out Central Park and the Empire State Building. As we flew farther south and the downtown revealed its self, Ellis Island and Lady Liberty broke through the mist.
As we turned up the East River and alliened ourselves with runway 4 at La Guardia, Jim called the tower and got permission to land.
Jim greased it in for a smooth landing, even in the horrible weather (he had done it many times before and knew what he was doing).
He taxied to parking where we were joined by other snow-cover birds.
I grabbed my stuff from the rear and hurried inside, away from the cold wind, and snow.
I checked my laggage and made my way to the otherside of the airport to the termal to catch my flight.
But, wouldn't you know it, it was delayed until the next day! So I spent the night in a rather uncomfortable chair.
Questions, comments, they are all welcome.
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