#agentjanefox

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[agentjanefox]

The View From Above

Publications: The Express Magazine ‘XO On The Go’ & sagharboronline.com

Online AND In Print: July 2015

Photos and Words by Gianna Volpe

Pilots say the East End’s unique beauty is exponentially magnified when viewed from above. GIANNA VOLPE PHOTO

Any local is apt to say the region’s best kept secret is the East End itself; especially those few who have been fortunate enough to see her from the sky. Though the area’s airspace is known for having controversially heavy air traffic in summer, a far less divisive issue is the roughly 150 active pilots that soar the region at will by keeping their single-engine airplanes year round in hangars between the now-defunct Mattituck, Montauk and East Hampton airports as well as the Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach.

It’s a paltry pool of pilots to be sure, but one peppered with nearly peerless passion. Those who do fly the region regularly – whether for recreation or other reasons – are rarely lacking in real life skylust and the sport seems as addictive as it is an antidote for whatever woes are left behind on the ground below.

“It’s like therapy,” explained Montauk pilot Mike Rusinsky, who said his 1967 Cessna Skyhawk is one of six small planes kept at the privately-owned, public-use airport. “Sometimes when I go up there my friend will ask, ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ and I say it’s because I just needed some time. The sky is the only place where you can just disconnect from everything and not just do what you love, but focus on it because, well, you have to. That’s my sanity – it clears my mind of everything else like a meditation.”

Pilot Peter Boody at Gabreski Airport on Memorial Day GIANNA VOLPE PHOTO

Senior East Hampton Airport attendant and veteran journalist Peter Boody – who counts Flying Magazine among those publications for which he served as editor – said this is a common characteristic among the airborne.

“There is a kind of pilot that – they aren’t crazy; they tend to be good pilots – but they are addicted to the whole feeling of flying; the process of flying; the aesthetic of it; the procedure of it. It gives you a feeling of control and organization and total focus that you need because if you don’t have it you’re going to screw up,” the Sag Harbor resident explained. “I am very focused when I am at work as an editor, but when I don’t have a task in front of me that I really am committed to and understand and love, I tend to be a little ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder]. I tend to daydream; tend to realize, ‘Oh, people are talking and I didn’t listen to the last 30 seconds.’ That doesn’t happen in a plane and I love that feeling.”

“One of the pleasures of flying is that it clears away the noise of life with an activity that is totally absorbing and challenging,” said the former editor of The East Hampton Press and The Shelter Island Reporter.

Like Mr. Boody, Mr. Rusinsky was bitten by the flight bug long before he ever left the ground. Having the proclaimed “Original Pepsi-Cola skywriter from the 1950s” take him on a sight-seeing tour throughout the Bayport area in a 1941 open-cockpit bi-plane for his very first flight was “the equivalent to trying crack,” he said with a laugh.

“I was hooked,” said Mr. Rusinsky. “It’s like music. You see the glaze in guys’ eyes when they talk about music or aviation. We all want to share our experiences to help each other be better and safer at it.”

When it comes to recreational flying, the pilots say safety is – and always should be – a pilot’s top priority, with real flight experience the only way in which to develop needed skills.

Sport, recreational and private class pilot licenses require 20, 30 and 40 hours of respective flight time, which Mr. Rusinsky said is vital in learning to properly operate aircraft.

“It usually takes people about six months to a year to get their license, if they really push; and though you can go down to accelerated training schools and – they say – get one in as little as 30 days, I don’t think you’re a safe pilot after 30 days,” he said. “There’s just not enough experience had there. When you are getting your pilot’s license it’s almost as if we’re the most paranoid people in the world because we train for every eventuality.”

“During almost every flight when I was training, my instructor would have me do a landing while he simulated engine failure,” he added.

But if single-engine airplane flying is indeed a sport, it’s not only a poor choice for those weak in patience, but for those weak in the wallet, according to Mr. Boody.

An aerial view of Greenport Village and Shelter Island taken by the author shows traffic was bustling this Memorial Day. GIANNA VOLPE PHOTO “[Flying] used to be something that you could swing on a middle class salary if you were really into it, had a little plane and were using it for fun; but if you want to use it for serious transportation you need equipment like this $40,000 dollar GPS system,” he said from inside the estimated $350,000 Cessna he sometimes borrows from a friend to fly out of Westhampton’s Gabreski Airport. “[Maintenance] is also very significant and it costs about $700 to fill the fuel tank for maybe five or six hours of flight time.”

Mr. Rusinsky said he overcame this obstacle by purchasing an older version of the Cessna 172 Skyhawk, which he said is the most common type of airplane in the world.

He estimates his airplane is currently worth $35,000, adding the most expensive part of owning a plane has been in renting his hangar at Montauk Airport. Even so, Mr. Rusinsky said owning his airplane is “actually, probably cheaper than owning a boat that you keep in the water all year because my maintenance on the plane – if you add up everything – is only about $3,000 a year.”

Instead of purchasing their own personal plane, some pilots buy into one with partners as manager of Greenport’s Mitchell Park Marina, Jeff Goubeaud, did just this year.

“I’m a one-fifth partner of a 1946 Piper Cub,” Mr. Goubeaud said with pride. “I’m flying it now with my instructor about once a week and it’s awesome; just beautiful. You have to be careful, put your time in and be responsible, but the rewards of flying are well worth it.”

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[agentjanefox]

thefrEElanceReport Episode 3, 1.8.15  <--- that's the link to the show

1.8.15

In this episode: Why you shouldn't microwave day-old pizza, Why Elvis Presley has U2 on his iPhone, Warren McKnight apologizes, Riverhead's Thug Child Gangsta scoops the papers with news of the East End's newest - and youngest - winemaker of Jamesport Vineyards, Brucestradamus waxes romantic about affordable housing, Tony Coates <3 Aldo's Scones and Gene Casey of Gene Casey and the Lonesharks stops by the WRIV studio to talk Elvis for The King's 80th birthday.

For more, see Gianna Volpe's Sag Harbor Express Elvis tribute article featuring Mr. Casey.

Gianna Volpe Photos Gene Casey and the Lonesharks at Hotel Indigo in Riverhead Aldo Maiorana and Dean Babiar at Aldo's in Greenport Warren McKnight outside the Riverhead Farmer's Market

thefrEElanceReport Freelance Journalist Gianna Volpe discusses breaking news on the north and south forks, the latest trends in the rapidly growing culinary scene and brings interesting guests to the microphones. Gianna is an award winning journalist who has written for Times/Review Newspapers, RiverheadLOCAL, the Sag Harbor Express, Dan's Papers and others. Here credentials are outstanding, her contacts numerous. And that makes it radio by appointment.

thefrEElanceReport IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MAXIMUS HEALTH AND FITNESS CENTER AND MICHELANGELO'S OF MATTITUCK.

[thugchildgangsta]

Everyone's a goddamn poet.

-Gianna Volpe, 7.29.11

[thugchildgangsta]

The fucks I give are none and then some. Negative gallons of giving a goddamn.

Jane Fox