Weekend Flying Destinations

On Friday, Dianne and I flew to the greater Portsmouth airport for lunch at the Skyline restaurant on the field. For Cincinnati folks, it's not a chili parlor. That's just the name of the restaurant. It's just a simple, old sit down spot in the terminal building. It's about a 45 minute flight and it was a beautiful, warm day. Dianne took a picture of me in front of the Tiger with the cell phone -- I forgot the big camera. On the way we flew over the Kenwood mall and the Eastgate mall areas and both were packed with cars. I was glad we were in the air and not looking for parking and dealing with the holiday shoppers.

The airport has a captured Iraqi personnel carrier on the field as a veterans memorial. You can read more about it (sort of) in this picture of the stone near the apc. You can see Dianne (just barely) behind the Iraqi personnel carrier.

On Sunday, I flew south to Middlesboro, KY. It was another beautiful day to fly. The winds were light and the few clouds in the Cincinnati area were very high. I think this is the first airport I've ever flown to that doesn't have an instrument approach. The reason for that is the Middlesboro airport is located in a roughly bowl shaped valley in the low Appalachian mountains near the Tennessee border. Some of the mountains are about 2000 feet above the airport and are only a few miles away. You have to make a steep, non-standard approach to land at the airport. It was the first time I've flown into an airport in the mountains. It was good experience since the winds were light. You can see some of the mountains in the background of this picture of the Tiger on the ramp at Middlesboro.

The reason I flew there is the airport is the home to the Lost Squadron museum. The museum was established to display the Glacier Girl -- a P-38 the group recovered from the icecap in Greenland. Read more about the history and the recovery story at their website. They removed the plane in pieces through a tunnel in the ice, brought it back here, and restored it to flying condition. Unfortunately, the plane wasn't at the museum today! The Glacier Girl made a trip to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas for the air show and is spending the winter in California. That was disappointing. She should be back for a couple weeks in May or June before recreating the flight to England that it never completed in 1942. Even though I didn't see the lightning, it was a nice trip to Middlesboro. Your can see the set of pictures I took at the field and in the museum.