by Alison Hobbs
"Would you like me to fly you to New York for your Birthday?" Chris asked, one day last winter. He also happened to mention this idea at the flying club, so in the end, it wasn't just the two of us that went.
first leg
On Friday April 27th, Rockcliffe Unicom gave VAX taxi clearance all the way to the threshold of Runway 27, and at 0915 we were rolling, with Jessica Downton as our enthusiastic passenger. Laurie, revving up XBU, was bringing Elva, along with Vladimir and Stepan Bärtl. The other ten participants were to leave the following day.
Flying IFR, we were soon at 6000ft over Manotick with the 'copters and the Boomerangs. "Direct Watertown" across the US border, we overflew scattered, fluffy clouds. XBU followed through a hole and overtook. The views got hazier until we were almost in "solid IMC" caused by a mild cold front. On our descent into Syracuse, we emerged with rain on our windshield, Chris exclaiming delightedly, "I can see the Rabbit!" that led him down the glide slope. The taxiway layout at Syracuse was complex; ground control helped us towards customs.
Whom should we bump into in the customs shed but Marlene Jacob, a one-time instructor at the RFC, now with two pilot-colleagues and a passenger plane?
Apparently they drop by every week.
continuing on
At Piedmont Hawthorne Air Services FBO we waited for the front to pass by, helping ourselves to free coffee and popcorn.
Over the hills beyond Georgetown VOR the radio work became ever more complicated. ATC was vectoring us towards Rager, then towards Kingston, but only for a couple of minutes on that heading before we were rerouted to Huguenot, then Coate. Chris was flying the plane, reading the charts, noting the directions, keying the route into the GPS and tuning the VORs all at once, besides which it was getting turbulent under the cloud streets. I was "helping" by trying to read the maps too and dropping them all over the cockpit. Jessica said she liked to sit back watching chaos happen.
We entered New Jersey airspace somewhere around Port Jervis. We could see the skyscrapers ahead in the distant haze, at least Jessica and I could; Chris was too busy finding Caldwell airport and making sure it wasn't Morristown, seven miles away. (As he told people later, "Caldwell's not in New York, it's in New Jersey. This means that if you buy the New York airport plates then you have to ring the shop again to order the New Jersey ones as well...") He could hardly get a word in, on the radio, but we heard Laurie entering the circuit then we too were down amidst a whole flock of aircraft with US registrations.
first impressions
Caldwell Air Services told us where to find lunch, secured our bags and advised us to dispense with cabs and book a minivan instead. We ate at the 94th Bombardier Group's theme restaurant on the field. Parked on the dandelions was a WW II red cross field-ambulance and in the "Latrines" they were broadcasting Roosevelt's funeral.
With directions to the hotel, we were away down Passaic Avenue in the 15-seater. Everywhere, flowering trees and pale, new leaves. We checked in, dumped our luggage, and five minutes later, were out again to catch the evening bus, so eager were we to see New York before the others! Community Coach 77 rattled along very jerkily, but only cost us $5 per person and the driver let Stepan go free.
We sat for an hour and a half in crawling traffic, eventually crossing Jersey City, where all the shop signs were in Spanish. The Manhattan skyline with the Empire State Building and Chrysler building flickered tantalisingly clear through gaps in the skyscrapers west of the Hudson and the lights began to shine in a clear sky with crescent moon.
New York
There are about 18 million people in the New York metropolis. None of us had been in among them before. The Lincoln Tunnel took us straight into Port Authority bus terminal. Our gate was number 306 which we'll never forget because we all wrote it down. Not that we lost sight of each other.
In an hour and a half we merely walked a few blocks through the theatre district, found Times Square, gazed at the light-show amidst the honking traffic and then sauntered back via a souvenir shop. Jessica said she could already fly home satisfied.
The bus station is a little city in itself which, however, provides little in the way of supper after 8:30, but the floors were spotlessly clean, and if you drop a corner of your muffin on the floor a cleaning lady immediately sweeps around your feet to remove the crumbs. Classical music played softly over the loudspeakers. I was impressed.
Only making a short detour into a local late-night bookstore on the ten minute walk to the Travelodge along the grass verge of the road (nobody goes anywhere on foot in the US) from our bus stop, we turned in, with reminders to beware of the thinness of the walls.
Alison's birthday
I woke on my birthday to a perfect April morning. "Aren't I lucky?" I thought, even though the do'-nuts, coffee and juice provided were not exactly perfection, being several days old. Elva and Laurie came down to report that Don and Carol Buchan, having cleared customs at Albany, were on their way. Also on their way from Rockcliffe were Robert and Francine Lams, Al and Leona Bowes with Jan as their passenger, and 'CFI' Simon, carrying Frank and Jeanette in a Cherokee 140.
Chris and I missed their arrival as Elva and Laurie generously offered to meet them in the van and persuaded us to make the most of our morning by setting off ahead of the crowd, as Vladimir and Stepan had done at 8am. We caught the 10 o'clock bus. (The others didn't catch one until 3pm, so only had time for an elevator ride up the Empire State Building.)
"Walk alertly!" said the sign on the bus, and we stepped into the Big Apple again, down 43rd St, crossing Broadway at Times Square, and into the Avenue of the Americas. Hyacinths, tulips and cherry trees were in bloom everywhere. Entering Central Park we walked through it for a good mile, birds singing, and the multi-ethnic New Yorkers in a good mood, jogging or cycling along, strolling down the paths, climbing on the sculptures, or music making, sunbathing, reading on the grass, rowing, fishing. A whole bunch of men in baseball caps were playing with (sorry, racing!) their radio-controlled yachts on a pond.
Alison goes missing
When we arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I apparently behaved like a small child in a large toyshop. My intentions had been to put strict limits on what I'd attempt to see--just the Vermeers and the Rembrandts.
But we couldn't miss the Blake etchings, nor the famous Titians, Murillos and El Grecos. Some of the faces in the paintings are quite overwhelming.
Chris guided me round the outside of the museum in a daze--we were now at 84th Street, our northern limit. In the meantime, Vladimir and Stepan had explored in the other direction down to 4th Street to Washington Square, where people were playing outdoor chess.
I put my feet up on a bench and ate an ice-cream. Then we entered The Ramble by Turtle Pond, past a castle with a turret, past some baseball, then through the Strawberry Fields to the western edge of the park. We never saw the in-line skating rink--two of the skaters were Frank and Jeanette who'd brought their skates in the Cherokee for that very purpose.
By way of 70th St. past the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue we reached the Lincoln Centre. I'd suggested we meet at the black marble fountain in the plaza there, where the Met. Opera, Beaumont Theatre, NY State Theatre, Avery Fisher Hall and Juliard School of Music are situated. We settled down to wait. Sure enough, here came the RFC people, fresh (not really!) from their subway ride. With fifteen of us just assembled, a small aircraft started doing aerobatics above the opera house, leaving a trail of smoke--in the form of a heart, or Big Apple, possibly.
John Lennon and the Aegean
Carol herded us off in the direction of supper. She'd had the foresight to ask local inhabitants for advice ("I always do this," she says. "It works!") who'd recommended an Aegean place nearby. They could fit us in at two adjoining tables if we gave them half an hour, so at Francine's request we walked around the block to The Spot Where John Lennon Was Assassinated (on 72nd St.), and back via the park.
The Aegean gave us a good meal and a good view of Columbus Avenue. All of a sudden, the waitress brought me a dessert that I had not ordered--a slice of chocolate mousse cake with a candle--and the gathering burst into song. I blushed, but was most touched by my friends' plotting this and being willing to make an exhibition of themselves in the middle of New York. Thank you, everyone.
We kept together for the longish walk back to the bus station down Broadway after dark. An audience poured out from one of the Broadway shows to the accompaniment of dancing drummers in their costumes and passers by joined in with the dancing. Cabs honked, limos glided past, and an ambulance rushed by with its siren going. Jessica bumped into someone she knew from Ottawa.
Waiting for the bus, we told each other how exhausted we were. We fell into bed at 10 past 1, much too tired to worry about thin bedroom walls!
preparations for return
On Sunday, hotel breakfast was not an option, especially with at least four gourmets in the group, who wouldn't even look at the do'-nuts. Half the people went off to load the luggage in the aircraft; the others waited, and by mid-morning we were all on our way to Morristown--though not all wearing seatbelts, despite the two police officers with us and the warning beeper.
Seventeen people can be fitted into a 15-seater van but some had to look out of the windows and advise our driver (Laurie) on lane-changes, as he couldn't see a thing through his rear view mirror except for those present at the back. He said it was an amazing sight but not very helpful. We immediately set off in the wrong direction and had to do a U-turn, the shortest and therefore best visit Don had paid to a shopping mall in years.
Al took on the navigating and after the false start ("That old GPS needs up-dating!") we found Morristown, ten or so miles away, full of churches and more flowering trees, with a village green and one-way street layout. We drove round three times and finally found a parking spot next to the Sheriff's headquarters, assuming this would be safe enough. Stopped the van, opened the door and everyone climbed out. Passers-by stopped in their tracks to see how many more people would emerge.
Though most places closed on Sunday mornings, we came across a "greasy spoon" diner that was open, just as well, because our next meal was not to be had until 9pm. Then we ambled around window shopping, and in and out of a bookshop. Five pilots' wives thought about extending our trip by another night, before remembering our obligation to take passengers home.
how can 5 pilots get lost?
Setting off again, Laurie pointed out that with five pilots, a cartographer and a Geography graduate on board we were bound to get lost, but at 1330 we were at the airfield. Winds 3 knots, sky clear, take off runway 22. The six aircraft were headed in three different directions: Al, Robert and Don in their faster 'planes were filing Ottawa direct, Simon was taking Frank and Jeannette over the scenic route via Lake Placid. (They landed for a break in the mountains, giving them all a thrill.) Laurie and Chris were routing us via Utica on the Mohawk River.
So up into the cacophony of radio calls and bouncy warm air. At least visibility was excellent this time. Through the back window I spotted XBU about to overtake and out of the right-hand windows we could see as far as the big Adirondacks, Mts. Dix and Marcey. At 4500ft (give or take a hundred feet for bumps) our ground speed was none too fast, but we climbed and actually picked up a few knots.
Chris was flying VFR this time, with marginally less work than when IFR; we still used the VORs at Sax and De Lancey as reference points. Jessica flew right seat. West of the higher hills, the air smoothed out.
This would be a superb flight in autumn over the blue lakes and rivers; there was no colour on the forested hillsides as yet.
Oneida (Utica) ATIS warned us of "deer and turkey in the vicinity of the runway"--Vladimir needed to have the message repeated several times before he could believe he'd heard it right. Disappointingly, we didn't spot any.
The av-gas bowser came along with a BP logo so we got talking about England.
The driver said his ancestors came from Wiltshire, one of them a Civil War Hero. While Stepan cooked us some more FBO popcorn it was decided to drop into Kingston for customs. So relaxed were we all, and yawning, before our one hour hop across the border, that Chris forgot to file his international flight plan with the FSS at Buffalo and had to remedy this in the air. He was exempted from reading out contact 'phone numbers. Wheeler Sacks broadcast to Laurie that his buddy was about 10 miles ahead now. Flying above the beautiful Lake Ontario islands and transparent water we reached Kingston, where, with little delay for customs, we took off again on our last leg, to Rockcliffe.
home
Laurie came in first and radioed a warning about the crosswind. Jessica made a dash for the clubhouse phone so that she could tell her friends and relations about the fun she'd had. Simon landed shortly afterwards, with another pair of satisfied passengers. All that remained then was to plan the next trip, to Washington.
