Medford, Ore. — Two veteran pilots are preparing for a journey across the United States, landing at 49 municipal airports in the lower 48 and Alaska. The goal is to raise awareness about the importance of municipal airports.
FAA-Certified Flight Instructor, Field Morey says, of the 12,000 airports in the United States only about 10% are commercial.
“The smaller reliever airports do exactly what they’re name says. They relieve the commercial airports of traffic. It’s essentially It’s a benefit to the community because it allows aircraft to go into the smaller airports where they’d be hesitant to land because of the bigger planes.” Morey said.
Morey will join with co-pilot and Connecticut attorney Conrad Teitell, landing at what he describes as reliever airports at each capital city in the country. The twist is that they will complete the tour in just two weeks time.
The pilots willl fly in Morey’s 2013 Cessna Corvalis TTx. The fastest fixed gear, single engine airplane.
Parked in a hangar at Medford’s Jet Center, the shiny green and black twin-turbo aircraft (dubbed the Green Hornet), can boast speeds over 250 miles per hour and fly 25,000 feet with a flight range of 1200 miles.
Even with the luxury of today’s technology, Morey describes this tour as a challenge.
“Well this is hurricane season. We can change our course quite easily. We will have to forecast the weather pretty well.” Morey said.
Morey and his co-pilot hope to bring awareness to the importance of these small airstrips and draw new pilots to the airstrip.
A major part of the journey he says, includes getting schools involved. You can track their journey beginning September 16th at the website below.
http://www.ifrwest.com/index.php/the-capital-air-tour
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