Hudson River VFR Corridor Flyout

Bruce Irving writes: "Yesterday's flight to the Hudson River VFR Corridor was awesome! The weather was great and NYC never looked so good. I flew down with Alex Kittenplan in his Tiger. Really a great time. Very clear and not as much NYC area traffic as we expected. I took very few photos southbound as we wanted both pilots to watch for traffic and I made the radio calls. Northbound we felt we knew a little better what to look for so I took a few more pictures. We ended up diverting to Columbia County NY (1B1) where we stopped for late breakfast/lunch (about noon - the planned POU restaurant was closed).

You can find the complete set of photos in the WAPA Photo Gallery "Most of the photos are from 900 feet except Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, NY, I think we were up to about 1200' The group photo was taken at Columbia County NY (1B1)"

Steve Fogarty gave a final briefing at 0800 and handed out marked up copies of Hudson checkpoints and NY TAC chart excerpts, very helpful. Departures started around 0830 with the C150 given a few minutes head start. We planned to keep in touch and for Steve to lead the widely-spaced group into the corridor, but this was not to be (for future reference: let's get everybody's tail number BEFORE takeoff!). There was some electrical problem with his C170, so Steve ended up flying with Cliff and Priscilla in their Bonanza, and the C150 ended up leading the parade down the corridor. I think everyone had prepared pretty well and there were no problems.

The weather was crystal clear in the NYC area as well, and it was easy to spot all the check points. The city was an amazing sight (many amazing sights, really), and traffic was lighter than we expected.

We saw a few helicopters and heard a few other VFR flights announcing positions. The air was generally smooth on the Jersey side (southbound), a little bumpy on the northbound along Manhattan. I mostly watched for traffic and made radio calls as Alex flew us south, taking just a couple of pictures, but on the way north, with light traffic, I took a few more closeups of Manhattan while continuing to help look for traffic.

We then flew to Duchess County (POU) as planned, arriving around noon to find the restaurant closed. After some quick discussion of alternates, we settled on Columbia County (1B1), about 25 miles north.

It was lunch time for most of us at a pretty good restaurant at the adjacent golf course. We were pretty hungry. Lots of joking around and good conversation. Then we flew back to our respective home bases.

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-- GeorgeClark - 29 Apr 2005