Well, here we are on Long Island, New York after a wonderful 6-hour flight from Chicago. So, we get settled in, have a great dinner and begin making plans to fly our good friends Ed and Jill to Montauk Point for lunch. Montauk Point, the end of Long Island and, thanks to Montauk captain Frank Mundus’ catching of a 4,550-pound white shark in 1964, the inspiration for the novel Jaws. This will just be a quick 25-minute flight (as opposed to what we’re used to, 2+ hours in a car in bumper-to-bumper Hampton’s traffic) and a good chance for all of us to see the Long Island where we spent the first 45 years of our lives.
The weather wasn’t great with a few low-level clouds, gusty winds and gray skies but what the heck; Ed and Jill are troopers, aren’t they? So, off we go. Our route takes us along the South shore past some of the homes of the celebrities. How’d you like to live here?
Notice the tall hedges so no one can look in. Hah, didn’t stop us.
Before you know it, we’re at Montauk. Here’s Gosman’s dock. This is where the deep-sea fishing boats leave and where you can pay some astronomical money for Montauk souvenirs
Here we are approaching Montauk Point airport. This is a pretty underwhelming airport. Calling it an asphalt runway is being generous. It is about half asphalt and about half sand and beach grass poking through. It is however provided with a shack the size of a Porta Potty that houses a genial looking enough guy who holds out his hand for the $10 “landing fee” for which he points out which way to walk to get to the restaurants.
After a great lunch (fish, what else) we took off for the return trip. Of course we had to fly around Montauk Point lighthouse.
Montauk Point light, the end of Long Island, last stop before England. The Second United States Congress under President George Washington commissioned the Montauk Point lighthouse in 1792. It was worth a close-up.
A few minutes later and we’re back at Islip Macarthur airport. Where our friends hugged each other and posed for this picture (right after getting out and kissing the ground).
Our second day of the Long Island trip and the reason for coming in the first place was my brother Tom’s Half Century birthday! The next day, we were all sitting around recuperating from the party when the talk came around to our sightseeing flight of two days before. Both Tom and his father-in-law sounded pretty excited so I suggested, “Hey, why don’t we drive to the airport and go for a ride.” (Ain’t this just the beauty of having your own plane?)
Well, we took off and headed along the North shore. Before long, we reached the site of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station (SNPS). Well, at least that’s what it once was.
Back in 1973, the Long Island Lighting Company (Lilco), Long Island’s utility, decided to build a nuclear power plant to generate cheap electrical power. A whole cacophony of issues doomed this plant. Foremost among these was that Lilco decided to manage the project themselves (with absolutely no experience). Add to that the changing Federal requirements and the Three Mile Island incident and the coincident release of the movie, “The China Syndrome” in 1979 and this project dragged on through 1984. This gave the many environmental activists on Long Island time to organize and protest and organize and protest they did. The media caught on to all of the gloom and doom scenarios being tossed around in spite of the facts that not a single person has ever been killed by a nuclear power plant accident in the United States but annually over 24,000 people have their demise hastened by coal. To make a long and dramatic story shorter, the SNPS was decommissioned without every generating a single commercially sold watt of power, leaving Long Island residents with a 6 billion dollar bill (in 1989 dollars) which even today forms the basis for some of the most expensive electrical power sold in the US.
When we reached the fork of Long Island, we turned South and crossed the Island to the South shore. There we passed Fire Island lighthouse
and then finally Jones Beach tower.
Jones Beach (along with Northern and Southern State Parkways, running East and West along Long Island) was designed and constructed in the 1920’s by master engineer and builder Robert Moses.
Finally, we contacted those friendly ATC folks at Islip Macarthur, began our approach and were back home.
My brother and his father in law both thanked me for the ride (right after getting out and kissing the taxiway (must be a NY thing).
Stay tuned for our Boston trip.
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