RV Fly-In
Richmond, Kentucky
February 28, 2004
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Bruce and I flew the Citabria from Baltimore, Maryland to Richmond, Kentucky
for an RV fly-in. The flight is 450 miles as the crow flies. We made one
stop, roughly halfway, at Frankman, West Virginia where the aviation gas
is cheap and the diner serves a good breakfast. The weather could not
have been better. Visibility was probably 40-50 miles. There were over
100 airplanes at the fly-in including 70+ RVs.
Citabria at dawn, ready for the long flight.
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Baltimore off the left wing. Blue skies, visibility unrestricted,
smooth air. Man, it don't get any better than this!
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| We cross our first big Appalachian
ridge. This is unexplored territory for me; I've never gone this far west
before in a light aircraft. |
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| Over Deep Creek Lake, in western
Maryland, in the snowy Appalachians. We did a weeklong summer vacation here
a year and a half ago. We rented a house near the right end of that bridge
down there. Now the entire lake is frozen. We could see ice fishermen down
on the ice as well as snowmobile tracks. |
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| Frankman Airport, West Virginia,
down below to the left of the river. Nice little airport. |
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| The Ohio River. Truly a big highway
through the continent. Wide, smooth, very navigable. We saw a number of
very big barges being pushed up and down the river. |
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Richmond, Kentucky (I39). You can see all the RVs on the ramp and lined
up on each side of the taxiway.
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| A beautiful RV-8. The picture doesn't
do it justice, but this RV had a magnificent dark green flake paint job
with the gold lightning bolt down the side. Very nice. I talked to one RV
owner who had flown his bird for the first time two weeks ago, after spending
eight years building it! |
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| What's this Citabria doing at an
RV fly-in? Well, at least it's a good-looking Citabria! |
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| Heading back home the next day. This
picture is looking north into southern Ohio. Nothing but mounds looking
from 5,500 feet. |
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| People live in the little valleys
between the mounds. This is a typical scene, one or two houses nestled in
the valley. A long way from anywhere. |
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| Back to Frankman Airport for another
good breakfast and a fill-up. We had a 20 mph tailwind going home which
gave us a groundspeed of around 120 mph. All the sleek RVs went home the
day before - easy to do when you cruise at 200mph! |
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