Jay,

The Valentine's Day Flight is a great way to introduce couples to
aviation. Just hope that this 'tradition' spread to many FBOs and
Flight schools.

Last Sunday, we had a great Valentine's Day flight, first from KPOU
to N82 (across the Hudson River in NY) to meet some friends. From
there, we flew our Cardinal and they flew their Skyhawk to 1B1 to fuel
up before heading up to KHIE, Mt. Washington Regional Airport. We did
not mind having to slow down to 95kts to keep pace with the Skyhawk.
The slow pace allowed us to enjoy the view of slow moving barges
cutting paths into the intricate ice patterns on the Hudson River. We
were somewhat concerned of potential turbulence but at 5500', the air
was smooth and the visibility was pretty much unlimited. Spreading
below us were snow-covered hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, reservoirs
and farmland. We tried to take some pictures of the Skyhawk against
beautiful mountains, but our simple P&S Nikon 3200 did not have great
zoom and Rick wanted me to keep a great 'safe' distance.

We first visited KHIE in October 2003 attending our first Cardinal
Flyers fly-in. It was our first long x-country trip flying over 6500'.
It felt like we were in heaven with perfectly calm air, unlimited
visibility, hovering about the broken cloud layers over mountaintops in
full fall color display. This second trip in the winter showed a
completely changed landscape but no less enchanting with snow-capped
mountain peaks, white lakes, rivers, ski trails, golden hills and warm
dark patches of farmland. Here is the link to pictures of this trip.

http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=hgsw2kn...&x=0&y=-5vu2up


We heard a voice from unicom asking to confirm that a Cardinal was
landing at KHIE. Knowing the host of our last fly-in, Bruce Hutchings,
was based on the field; I jokingly asked whether the unicom mistook us
for Bruce. It turned out that it was Bruce himself. He had just
finished plowing the rest of the parking area and was just about to go
home.

We learned that due to financial difficulty, the county-owned
airport had to let go of the Airport Manager. Bruce volunteered to
serve as the new manager taking care of plowing the snow, mowing the
grass, offering warm, friendly welcome to visitors whenever he was
around. Bruce's real life job was in carpentry business. He proudly
showed us the album documenting the entire construction history of the
Timber-frame airport terminal from the time the yellow pine trees were
logged from Northern New Hampshire woods, stored in a pond, cut in a
mill, raised into the beautiful A frame etc.. The operating income
for the airport came mainly from hangar rents of about 25 planes and
fuel sale. If it weren't for dedicated volunteers like Bruce, these
small airports would have disappeared at a much faster rate.

Anything that we can do to spread our love of aviation, to get more
people to involve will help to sustain GA, to keep great little
airports like KHIE to remain open for generations of flyers. Jay,
thank you for continuing to offer this great Valentine's Day Flight
tradition. Keep up your great work.

Hai Longworth