2022-09-18 Hudson River Fly out
13th Dec 2022
By: Juergen Nies
It was time for our annual Hudson River flight. We did the flight a little earlier this year so my nephew (Nico) who was visiting from Germany was able to join us. I also took my son in law (Will) along in the Pacer since he had never done a Hudson River flight.
Stan Kerns in his Mooney and me (with Will and Nico) took off from Winchester, VA (OKV). John Ely in his RV-7A with Mary Ellen Brown took off from Front Royal, VA (FRR) giving us a head start since he is much faster than me in the Pacer. Stan just throttled back to fly a loose formation with the Pacer.
John Ely timed his speed just right and joined up with us just before we reached the Hudson River Bay South of Verrazano Bridge and settled in trail behind the Pacer with Stan as number three behind the RV-7. We enjoyed a very nice and scenic flight up the river.
John Munroe and Diane (RV-6) had planned to join us at the North end of the corridor at the Tappan Zee Bridge. We had briefed our join up via text message before takeoff and then communicated with each other on COM-2 on the way to Tappan Zee Bridge. John timed his speed perfectly for a join up that would have made the air force and Luftwaffe in a joint strike force exercise proud (if I may say so).
After the join up, I settled in as John Munroe’s wingman with John Ely and Stan behind me to fly the corridor Southbound. After we left the corridor at the South end we pointed the noses of our aircrafts to Sky Manor (N40) for lunch. It was very busy there on this nice Sunday afternoon. The waiting time for the table for our large group was about 40 minutes, but time goes by quickly when you have a lot to talk about and look at each other’s pictures from the flight.
After a nice lunch we all fired up the engines and started tracking home. It was another great annual Hudson River flight. I hope more of you can join next year.
Enjoy the video of our flight: 2022 Hudson River fly-out
Fly safe, Tailwind and enjoy the ride,
Juergen