Southbound Down The Hudson River On The Jersey Side From The G.W.B. To The Statue Of Liberty.

Barry M14

Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2014
Messages
89
Location
Hampden, Ma.
Aircraft
American Ranger AR1
Total Flight Time
1,500 +
This was taken on my last trip down river. The weather was perfect and as you can see I seem to have the Corridor all to myself. It all made for such a Great flight I thought I post it hoping you might enjoy seeing it too.
 
Very nice Barry! Thanks for posting.

What time of day was it since I didn’t see many boats either. Must be Sunday morning and everyone is at church? :)

Can you post some video of crow island flyin this year? How about Simsbury show? Any videos of the beaches at Martha Vineyard or Block Island?
 
I went to the Simsbury show today. Rob Lutz (Gyro Revolution) gave your old gyro exhibition, Dave. He was whizzing around a 915 Cavalon.
One of the food trucks had the best poutine I've had south of the (Canadian) border.
 
Very cool. Barry, I hope you kept one eye out for Sullie Sullenberger playing float plane with another airliner in that neighborhood!

I read that the Rockefellers bought a bunch of Palisades acreage on the west side of the river, north of the GW bridge, so that their museum, the Cloisters, would have woodsy background. It's lovely that they did that.
 
No pics of the Cavalon, sorry.
I did get some cool video of a Kaman K-1200, but it's too big to post here directly. It's amazingly quiet!
I learned a little lesson about helicopter wake turbulence as I was landing there... and that was just from an R-44! (had an interesting discussion with Rob Lutz about that just afterward). Luckily, no harm done.

Some history of the Palisades parks: https://www.palisadesparks.org/the-history-of-the-palisades-interstate-park-system

Last summer I flew along the Hudson river, northbound, from Sandy Hook, NJ (actually starting at Ocean City, NJ) to just north of Hudson, NY (landing NY1). Probably not what Vance might consider good ADM, but well worth it in terms of experience and spectacular scenery.
 
Marlboro use to have helicopter flight instruction and I would land my Cub on the 1000’ grass part of the runway. Given the tall trees at the beginning of the runway really had to land 1/3 the way down, but the helicopters would usually hover on the other side. However had this one time where they didn’t move over far enough and the air that hit the runway pushed up my wing to make it an exciting landing. They push a lot of air down to the ground and causes a lot of up turbulence. What did your gyro do on landing with the helicopter turbulence?

There isn’t a whole lot of places to land when flying along the Hudson corridor anyway. For me, flying from Boston to Lockhaven PA there are parts with many miles of trees with no place to ditch if engine went out. I prefer water over tree tops. But not always possible, Here in Colorado and Wyoming there is endless places to land on sand, but no one for miles or cell service to get help. I bought a sat emergency text device, but didn’t enable the service yet. Ops…
 
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The helicopter had just landed runway 3, on the grass just W of the approach end. There was a fairly strong wind from the NW. I had not noticed much turbulence during 50-mile trip, but I started encountering some on final (the helo had made right traffic, I had been on left). I thought it would ease up a bit once I got below tree level, but it only seemed to get worse. I had to stay active on both pedals as I kept getting pushed one way then the other. I managed to keep it lined up pretty well with the centerline, but then, when I was within about a foot of touching down, suddenly I found myself three feet in the air, and before I could react with any throttle, I suddenly came down those three feet and hit pretty hard. Fortunately I stayed well aligned, so it just resulted in once good bounce, and I kept rolling down to the taxiway turnoff hoping not too many spectators saw it! I took a long look at my landing gear after I got parked.
In retrospect, I could have extended my downwind just a bit for more spacing, although there was a formation of three planes just turning crosswind, about to do some demonstrations. Mainly, though, I should have stayed well above where the helo parked, and just landed long... there was plenty of runway in front of me. But I had only been thinking about ordinary turbulence, not helicopter-rotor turbulence. It's a lesson I won't soon forget!

Yep, if you fly along the river there are lots of spots where the water would be the best option. Within the NYC corridor itself, it's about your only option.
I agree with you about flying over trees, especially parts of Western Mass. Sometime you have to do it, but I don't much like it. I look for open areas, however small, alongside, or nestled within the forested areas, and head toward those, even if it means going significantly out of my way.

If I were you, I would definitely enable that satellite texter. It's cheap insurance if you fly where there are no other coms.
 
Wow, so the downdraft of the helicopter that was on the side of the runway reduced your decent on landing. I would not have thought the gyro would be impacted, but it will easily lift a wing on a Cub. Good for gyro pilots to know so thanks for sharing.

The other thing to watch for is downdraft of helicopter while it is taxing to the fuel pump. It can spin planes around that are not tied down. Some helo pilots don’t seem to watch for this.
 
Aside from the downward "rotor wash", Rob Lutz said helicopter rotors create a lot of swirling vortexes.
It was actually an updraft that first caught me, followed immediately by a downdraft – so I'd say things were swirling pretty good.
 
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Aside from the downward "rotor wash", Rob Lutz said helicopter rotors create a lot of swirling vortexes.
It was actually an updraft that first caught me, followed imediately by a downdraft – so I'd say things were swirling pretty good.
Tyger,
Thanks for sharing this experience operating near helicopters. We have helicopters operating near our taxi way during the summer and we usually hold off landing or taxiing near them until they have departed or shut down to avoid the rotor wash effects, especially when our gyro rotors are slowing down. We deliberately touch down a good bit away from the helicopters if their rotors are spinning. John H.
 
These sharing of experiences concerning rotors of swirling winds from helicopter rotorblades in motion might someday save other's lives or damage to their machines. Thank you for doing so!
 
Unfortunately not from a gyro, but city views and steep approaches. I have flown into London City and the approach requires a 1000'/min rate of descent on the glide.

This however does give rather a nice view of London, where I live, and some of the sights as one lands in the city itself.

 
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