So I get a good nights sleep after flying over to see my parents for Easter. I landed intentionally Friday night right at sunset as a measure to avoid the nasty 30 knot winds that have been blowing all day. Saturday is supposed to be dismal: the delightful description that the weather channel pushes is "Wintery Mix." I wake up Saturday morning and the weather isn't at all what was forecast: no wind, no rain and decent temps. My dad tells me that the JFK Aircraft Carrier is going to be making it's way up the Delaware river to its final resting place at the Philly Naval yard.
I'm a little bummed my dad didn't wake me up earlier. By the time we make it to the carrier it was already north of the Delaware memorial bridge. It would have been really cool to get some shots of it passing under the bridge. The bridges that are further north get entangled with Philly international's airspace. Either way it seemed like with good weather and a perfectly good airplane this was a must do event.
20 minutes out of Ocean City, NJ airport we are over the river and circling the carrier. There are a few boats wandering around it but no other aircraft. After about 5 minutes of pictures we are joined by a Coast Guard dauphin and cheerfully he is not there to tell us to go away. I'm talking to Wilmington tower anyway and they told me where the carrier was to begin with so I'm pretty sure that I'm operating withing the limits of the law. Before I took off I made a quick call to make sure there weren't any flight restrictions. We got a bit of video too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrgCAgv6-5I
It was really tempting to become the last pilot to land on the JFK... but I figured if I wanted to keep my license that might not be in my best interest... It is sad to see such a monstrous part of our Navy rusting away.
