It was a perfect summer day here in Boston, dry and warm but not hot. The morning and early afternoon were devoted to flying to Chatham, Massachusetts (Cape Cod) for breakfast at the little airport restaurant. Thanks to some friend air traffic controllers at Logan, we flew right over the Charles River Basin and downtown at 1000′ before heading down Rt. 3 towards the Cape. We landed on Runway 29 at Hanscom right behind an F-18 that was taking off.
Midafternoon was time for a bicycle ride in Lincoln, Massachusetts. Everyone in Lincoln is extremely agreeable, perhaps because the town is so spread out. About half of the land is in conservation and left as woods, ponds, and trails. The rest is houses for rich white people on at least 1 or 2 acres of land (Lincoln has no public housing and basically no low- or moderate-income housing; if you want to be poor you need to move to Cambridge or some other town that likes to house poor people). Even the main roads are rather unhurried, woodsy, and perfect for road cyclists. The most upsetting event in the life of a Lincolnite is airplane noise from Hanscom. Residents show up at the airport to picket the handful of 30-seat turboprop commuter flights that are scheduled each day. Front yards sprout “No FedEx at Hanscom” signs. None of this really addresses the main issues: (1) if people didn’t like airplane noise why did they move right next to an active air force base? (2) most of the noisy operations at Hanscom are Gulfstream-style jets flying around rich people very much like the folks who live in Lincoln, not the 10 turboprop flights per day ferrying the rabble and low-grade middle manager wage slaves down to NYC.
After the bike ride, headed back to the airport. The girl at the front desk was talking about movies. Joanna didn’t like About Schmidt because it was so dark and depressing (ouch! my cousin Harry Gittes produced it). She cried during Titanic but only because her “ass hurt so much from sitting for 3 hours”. Then Joris showed up to teach my fourth helicopter lesson. This time I managed to hold a hover for about 3 minutes, handling all three controls. We also practiced three takeoffs, patterns, and landings. On the approaches, which are much steeper than in an airplane, it occurred to me that it is vaguely terrifying to be hurtling toward the ground in a machine. I’m glad that I did 500+ hours of fixed wing time before starting to learn rotary wing.
unbelievable that lincoln has NO middle income or low income housing. do all the maids have to commute??? i totally agree with yr pov. why did all those people who hate airplane noise move close to an air base??? what are the lincoln demographics? how does it compare to weston? cohasset? hingham?
dover? somerville!!!!