After the excitement of flying in Europe, I got back to more routine East Coast trips, including a couple local flights to enjoy the brilliant foliage changes occurring in October throughout the region. In mid-October, I meandered up the Housatonic River Valley in western CT and MA to view the colorful mountains as they changed hues. Mt. Greylock, in northwestern MA in particular was brightly clothed in blazes of oranges, yellows and even some reds and browns as I did a circuit around the mountaintop, wagging my wings at all the leaf-peepers at the top.
I had a quick business trip to Toronto and Montreal to meet with some clients. In traveling between cities, I had the chance to fly out of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, situated on an island just off downtown Toronto. The airport is named for Billy Bishop, Canada’s World War 1 flying ace and later Air Marshall during World War 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bishop_Toronto_City_Airport There’s a statue of Bishop I came across in the terminal. One of these days, I’ll get a chance to take my own plane up there!
At the end of October, I helped Dan out with the second half of a kitten rescue flight for Pilots N Paws (https://www.pilotsnpaws.org). Dan and his family brought bunch of kittens and their mamas up from North Carolina. As they flew north with their rescues, Intook off from Bridgeport and got clearance over the top of JFK on a beautiful crisply clear day, with a couple airliners flying below me as they arrived and departed from JFK. Then I made my was to the Colt’s Neck VOR in northeastern NJ before taking a heading to bring me to Dan’s home airport, Old Bridge. I made a nice landing on the narrow strip and shut down to wait a little while for Dan to arrive with the kittens.
We got to chat for a few minutes cathcing up while we transferred the travel cages of kittens and cats between airplanes and making sure we had all of the paperwork sorted for each cat—as I was making two drops, I ended up taking pictures of their folders with their crates to ensure I dropped off the right kittens with the right people! Dan also warned that one of the mama cats had meowed nearly constantly during the northbound trip.
Sure enough, shortly after I fired up, I could hear a repeated meow coming from behind me, even with the engine going and my active noise cancelling headset working! It reminded me of the hours and hours Dan, Liz and I had spent over the years chasing Emergency Location Transmitters from airplanes and boats! For those that have never had the “pleasure” here’s a sound clip (http://www.7-6aircav.com/elt1.wav) On a typical mission, we would spend hours driving or flying listening to static and waiting for the first little hint of the ELT signal to be heard. Then we would home in on the signal’s strength to find the (almost always accidentally set off) offending emergency beacon on a specific boat or airplane (or occasionally a car or shed or UPS truck—-ahh, the fun stories we could tell you!).
Upon departing Old Bridge, I stayed a little west outside of the NYC Class B airpace before cutting northeast towards my first destination, Pittsfield, MA in the Berkshires. It was a nice smooth trip of about an hour, so I was able to listen to some music and occasionally have one of the kittens in the crate next to me poke a paw through the opening and swat at me or give me a gentle scratch.
It had been a number of years since I flew into Pittsfield. It was formerly a towered airport, but now an uncontrolled field with a good sized mountain immediately adjacent to its northern side, amd easy enough to find, even in the darkening dusk. I flew the pattern as the lights on the runway and taxiways came up and made a good landing before taxing in to the terminal to find Jennia, who runs a local adoption service, waiting for her load of cats!
After a quick leg stretch, it was time for the next leg, a short 20 minute hop south to Danbury, CT for the second dropoff. While I’ve done pactice instrument approaches into Danbury, I had never actually landed there. The airport is a little bit of a tricky one, situated in essentially a bowl with big hills all around it. To add to the challenge, I was going to be landing at full night...such fun!
Ultimately, it turned out to be not a problem. The winds were light out of the west so the tower set me up with a left base to Runway 26, which comes right over Route 7 on a hill overlooking the airport and then you sort of dive for the runway! But with the Danbury Fair Mall off to the right side, there’s plenty of ambient light to ensure you’ve got good visual clues. I made the quick dropoff of the last kittens and was soon back at to Bridgeport.
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