I'm just now getting to posting a writeup.
We departed KBKL around 8:30 am headed for New Haven, CT (KHVN). We ran for 30 miles or so at 7500ft until we got out from under the overcast, then climbed up to 9500ft and rode the 30kt tailwind all the way to New Haven.
Smooth sailing on the way out:
30kt tailwind meant 140kts over the ground:
On the way in we flew over the north part of the Hudson River. From the plane we could see New York City from here, although it doesn't show in the picture.
Approaching KHVN we overflew the Sikorski heliport.
Total flight time on the way there was 3.1 hours. On the ground at HVN we asked the front desk at Robinson Aviation about the best pizza in town. He recommended Master Apizza and gave us the keys to a courtesy car. We got a half Italian Bomb half Crab Meat pizza, which sounds a bit odd but was very very tasty.
We boxed up the remaining half pizza and headed out for our Hudson River run. I gave Matt responsibility for navigation and radios while I flew the plane and looked for traffic. We decided to get the Skyline Route in the Bravo. Matt called them up just north of the Tappan Zee bridge where the told us to expect the Bravo transition, but to call them back at the Alpine Tower as we weren't at their airspace yet. I approached the tower at 1400ft to stay below the Bravo, the held me there for a few miles, then cleared me into the Bravo at 1500, and finally took me up to 2000 for most of the route. Traffic wasn't too bad, probably 5 or 6 other aircraft we saw actually in the exclusion, but it was nice to have Tower helping us out.
Approaching the City:
A horrid picture of me in front of the City:
Downtown:
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island:
We asked for and received approval for a right turn to the West over the Statue of Liberty instead of flying all the way to the VZ Bridge. Here's Ellis Island from after the turn:
This took us right over Newark Liberty International. The tower had us fly directly over the numbers for the 22 runways at 2000 ft.
From there we headed west and stopped at Somerset (KSMQ) for cheap fuel, and made the return trip to Cleveland. In a weather miracle, at 4500 feet the winds were such that we had no headwind and maybe even a bit of a tailwind on the way home. The return trip was 4.8 hours including the ~1.3 hour run down the Hudson. We landed at Burke Lakefront at around 7pm.
A day well spent.
