Islands for the aviation-minded
Long, long unbroken stretches of sandy beach, sites both secluded and busy, historical attractions, and plenty of outdoor sports make North Carolina's Outer Banks a popular destination for many pilots. This narrow strand of barrier islands, sandwiched between the North Carolina mainland and the Atlantic Ocean, runs some 125 nm long, its land distinguished by inspiring sea vistas, vast salt flats, immense sand dunes, serene treescapes, and the pronounced southwestward jog of Cape Hatteras. And the wind, always the wind. The steady onshore breezes and gales — the same winds that brought the Wright brothers to the Outer Banks 100 years ago — are as much a part of the region as fishing or the string of picturesque nineteenth-century lighthouses that run up and down the coast.
Landlubbers must reach the Outer Banks by driving their cars across the four bridges that connect the islands to the mainland. Those wanting to visit Ocracoke Island can take a ferry. But we pilots have it good. Four nontowered airports are sprinkled among the islands. Even in the slowest general aviation airplane, you can go from the northernmost airport to the southernmost in well under an hour.
The "big" airport serving the Outer Banks is Dare County Regional Airport in Manteo, on Roanoke Island. It has Two runways (5/23 and 17/35), and is served by nonprecision instrument approaches, an NDB (MQI, 370 kHz), and a VOR/DME (Wright Brothers [RBX], 111.6 MHz). From Dare County, the best bet is to rent a car and make the short drive across the bridge from Roanoke Island to Bodie Island. That's where you'll find Nags Head, and a slim core of business establishments astride Route 12, surrounded by residential real estate (some>of it staggeringly huge blockhouses filled with rental units — the main industry of the Outer Banks). This built-up strip runs north some 17 miles to Kitty Hawk. Route 12 itself runs the length of the Outer Banks.
One must-see stop for visiting pilots is Kitty Hawk Kites ( www.kittyhawk.com), located on Route 12 in Nags Head, just opposite Jockey's Ridge State Park. You'll know you're there when you see a huge 180-foot-high sand dune on the west side of the road. For $85 Kitty Hawk Kites will give you an introductory lesson in hang gliding, complete with ground school and "supervised solo" air time. If you call yourself a pilot, you've got to give this a try.
The company has trained more than 10,000 hang glider pilots since 1974, and Jockey's Ridge rightfully serves as a sort of East Coast Mecca for hang gliding enthusiasts. Every May there's a hang gliding "fly-in" that's worth a visit. Kitty Hawk Kites also gives tandem-dual instruction at the Currituck County Airport (33 nm northwest of Dare County). There, you and an instructor are towed aloft for instructional flights. $gain, a must-do for adventurous pilots, and the view alone is well worth the $110-plus charge — not to mention the psychokinetic kicks.
From Nags Head, keep heading north on Route 12 and you'll reach the towns of Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk. Farther on are the tony suburbs of Southern Shores, Duck, and Corolla. The Wright Brothers National Memorial is in Kill Devil Hills, and it's here that you'll see a great museum devoted to the brothers' work, reconstructions of their cabins and hangars, and markers describing the locations of the takeoffs and landings of the historic flights of 5ecember 17, 1903. Admission is $5 per car, or $3 per person.
There's a 3,000-foot-long paved airport on the park grounds, too. This is the First Flight Airport, which has limited tiedown space and a 24-hour limit on parking. Stay longer than that and you risk a fine, and no more than two overnight stays are allowed per month. Parking is first come, first served, and the airport's closed from 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise.
All that aside, flying into First Flight Airport is a great way to pay homage to the Wright brothers. It's a short walk from the airport to the museum and the park's signature pylon memorial. Call 252/441-7430 for detailed park information.
Like most vacationers, some of my visits to the Outer Banks involved renting a condominium or house for a week or so. Prices depend on location and season, and can run as high as $2,000 a week for a large oceanfront house. Best bet: Get a group together and split the costs. Lord knows there are enough realtors to help you find a place. Try www.outerbanksrentals.com for starters.
It's important to remember that a good portion of the Outer Banks is designated as either a National Wildlife Refuge or a National Seashore. Almost all of Pea Island — the next island down from Bodie, just across the Oregon Inlet — has refuge status, and that means you can't legally fly less than 2,000 feet agl and must maintain a 2,000-coot horizontal separation from the beach. Even so, the views are breathtaking, and the separation makes for a windy solitude I especially enjoy. On Pea Island it's possible to walk the beach for miles without seeing another human being. One vivid memory has me standing there at dawn, feet in the surf. Just offshore, a school of porpoises thread slowly past.
The Billy Mitchell Airport, another 3,000-footer, is near the westerly jog in the Outer Banks, and serves Frisco, Buxton, Avon, Salvo, Waves, and Rodanthe — small, isolated vacation towns far from the hubbub of Nags Head and buried deep within the National Seashore.
Follow Route 12 south from Frisco, cross Hatteras inlet, and you're on Ocracoke Island ( www.ocracokeisland.com). Ocracoke is a quiet, but growing place where you can stay in a number of nice hotels and bed-and-breakfast establishments. It, too, has a 3,000-foot-long runway — at Ocracoke Island Airport — that has limited parking but is just steps away from the Atlantic shore. Telephone 252/571-4904 for more information.
There's a busy harbor in Ocracoke town, and it's nice to take the walking tour or rent a bicycle and roam the small, table-flat, 15-mile-long island. Ocracoke is known as the place where the notorious pirate Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard) lost both his ship and his head to the British navy in 1718, and some local shops play to this grisly tale. There's also a small plot of soil donated by the United States to Great Britain. It's a cemetery with the remains of four British sailors who died aboard a ship torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1942. There are many, many other shipwrecks along the entire Outer Banks.
Up north, on Roanoke Island, other attractions pay homage to a better-known historical misfortune. From 1585 to 1587, English settlers dropped anchor and set up camp near today's Fort Raleigh National Park. It was the first western settlement in the New World. By 1590, when the next English ships returned to Roanoke Island, the colonists had vanished. The only clue was the word "Croatoan" carved on a post. The Lost Colony, an outdoor play held nightly in Manteo from early June through late August, dramatizes this mystery and is another must-see.
While in Manteo you might consider cruising the Outer Banks in an open-cockpit Waco UPF-7, like the one being given away as the 2002-2003 AOPA Centennial of Flight Sweepstakes airplane. If this sounds like your cup of tea, check out Kitty Hawk Aero Tours ( www.kittyhawkaerotours.bizland.com), now operating out of the Dare County Regional Airport but due to return to its original base of operations at First Flight sometime this spring.
Of course, nothing beats flying your own airplane over the Outer Banks, but be sure to check the latest sectional charts and notams — as well as flight service — for fresh information on the many restricted and military operations areas (MOAs) over the Pamlico Sound and elsewhere. Flying direct from Dare County to Ocracoke, you'll find, is a bad idea. Four restricted areas are along the route; one goes from the surface to 18,000 feet.
One time, hauled out on a beach in Nags Head, I saw two northbound F-14s streak by — noiseless at first, then with the thundering wake of high-speed flight. They couldn't have been more than 1,000 feet agl and were headed, no doubt, back to the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I figured they'd be there in three minutes. Moral: Look for dots.
Years ago, one of my first cross-country flights as a newly minted pilot was to Ocracoke. Aboard was my young family. We stopped for gas at Dare County, then took off across Pamlico Sound and flew down Pea Island. Eager eyes scanned the beaches below. My then-four-year-old became progressively more worked up. "Land! Land!" he kept saying. Not "Land!" as in "Land ho!" but "Land!" as in "Land the plane! Let the vacation begin!"
I can't fly over the Outer Banks without hearing that long-ago voice from the backseat, and contracting the anticipatory joy that comes with flying to a beach destination.
It reminds me of that flight, of course, but it also reminds me of those first touchdowns at Billy Mitchell, Ocracoke, Dare County, and First Flight. And why I took up flying in the first place.
Let the vacation begin!
E-mail the author at [email protected].
AOPA Boosts First Flight
Modern facilities at First Flight Airport
Whether you're attending the festivities surrounding the centennial of flight or just plain visiting, pilots flying to the Outer Banks will notice some big improvements to First Flight Airport — courtesy of AOPA members everywhere. Your association has financed the first true airport facilities there. They'll make your flying in and out of First Flight safer and more comfortable.
Remember the old facilities at First Flight? Of course you don't: There weren't any! (Unless you count the Porta-Johns, the small sign-in booth, and the open-air stand used by Kitty Hawk Aero Tours.)
The AOPA-sponsored facilities comprise an enclosed heated and air-conditioned building with a flight-planning room and a room set aside for air tour operators. The flight-planning room will have telephones and two computer terminals for obtaining weather and other preflight planning information. An on-site AWOS installation is another part of the project, and information from the AWOS will be available in the planning room. Modern toilet and washroom facilities are also part of the deal.
First Flight's 3,000-foot-long Runway 2/20 sits in a bowllike depression and is flanked by trees. Runway 20 uses a right traffic pattern, but Runway 2 is used more often. Traffic pattern altitude is 813 feet msl. The CTAF frequency is 122.9 MHz, and there's a windsock on the west side of the runway, about 1,000 feet from the threshold of Runway 2.
It's a VFR-only airport, and there are only a dozen or so tiedown spaces. So if the weather is down or the ramp is full (as it's sure to be during the days around the centennial observations) you'll have to fly across Pamlico Sound and land at Manteo's Dare County Regional Airport.
A word of caution about flying into First Flight. Windy conditions can cause turbulence, and gusts and wind shifts can make for a demanding approach and landing. Best to polish up your crosswind landing technique before visiting. Also, many airport publications warn of hang glider and powered hang glider operations near the airport. This would mostly be focused around the hang gliding site at Jockey's Ridge State Park, about two miles south of the airport. The hang gliders seldom go higher than 1,000 feet, stay near Jockey's Ridge, and their colorful wings make them easy to spot, but as with any traffic it's always a good idea to keep your eyes peeled.
Check out the new First Flight Airport the next time you fly in — and see your membership dollars at work in the new building, the only new permanent structure built for the centennial celebrations. — TAH
AOPA's Airport Directory
KILL DEVIL HILLS — First Flight (FFA). Location: 1 mi. W of city. Coordinates: N36-01.09; W075-40.28. Mag var: 9W. Navaids: RBX 111.6 020 6. Telephone: 252/473-2111. Hours: not atnd. Elevation: 13. Pattern altitudes: 813 MSL all aircraft. Runways: 2-20 3,000 x 60, asphalt; right tfc ry 20, road ry 2; trees ry 20. Obstructions: unmarked pwrlines apch area ry 2; tower & tank 1/2 mi N or ry 20 thld; deer in vcnty. FSS: Raleigh 122.2, 122.65. Com freq: CTAF 122.9. Charts: Washington; L22, L27. Taxis: Beach 441-2500; Dough's 473-3865; Outer Banks & limo svc 261-3133; Roy's & van svc 473-2726, 473-3207. Restaurants: Fast food 2 mi. Lodging: Beach Haven 4 mi 261-4785; Kill Devil Hill 1/4 mi. Local attractions: Outer Banks/beaches; Wright Brothers Museum within walking distance. Notes: Arpt clsd to all ops 1/2 hr aft SS to SR, ultralights.
