Flying Over Metro Athens, GA
A few years ago, my brother-in-law received a birthday gift to fly over Athens, GA in a single-engine prop plane. The plane had a total of 4 seats – and I was invited to come along.
We took off from Athens Ben Epps Airport. Here’s some of the pictures.
We stayed right around 10,000 feet or less for the entire flight. I was amazed at the perspective. On a commercial flight, you’ll rapidly ascend to over 30,000 feet where you lose a lot of the details on the ground.
But at this height, if was much easier to see and focus on individual landmarks rather than general patterns. I can totally see why aviation is such a popular hobby despite the cost and danger.
We started the flight with West Athens.
We headed back towards East Athens and flew over the east campus area of UGA.
After that, we turned towards Downtown and headed east to Oglethorpe County.
Then we banked low over my in-laws’ property. It was interesting to see the tree farms and land features that you cannot see from the road.
We turned North and flew over northwest Oglethorpe and Winterville. I was thrown by the amount of tree cover even on pasture land.
We went back to do a pass by the airport, where there’s a huge granite quarry.
As it turns out – there are lots of granite quarries all over east Athens and Oglethorpe County. I’ve seen some evidence from the road, but had never realized just how many there are.
We landed after only about 30 minutes – though the flight felt much longer. It’s amazing to experience just how far you can travel at 120mph with no intersections and direct travel paths.