This past weekend, my wife and I flew out to Winchester Regional Airport (KOKV) in Winchester, VA. We decided to take advantage of a nice early spring day to enjoy a short flight and have lunch in historic Old Town Winchester. I have flown into KOKV many times. It was actually a stop on my long solo cross country flight when I was getting my helicopter PPL. I had never taken the time to visit the city until this past weekend.
My wife and I set out in the Club’s Piper Cherokee, N75382, on a beautiful and sunny day. We exited the SFRA via the FLUKY gate and headed toward the Casanova VOR and then on to KOKV. It was a little bumpy from the surface through 3,000 feet, but we quickly got on top of that and leveled off at 4,500 ft over the mountains. From the radio traffic, it sounded busy at Winchester. There were light winds coming from the south so we flew over the airport and entered the downwind for runway 14.
Once we landed it was a quick stroll into the airport building to grab the keys for the courtesy car and we were off to Old Town Winchester. Since it was a gorgeous day, the town had some good foot traffic. The Old Town section of Winchester reminds me of the Fußgängerzone (pedestrian streets) located in most German towns and cities where people can freely walk down the streets shopping and eating without the fear of getting run over by cars. It’s a nice step back in time with old buildings, a handful of nice restaurants, and oddly, quite a few vintage toy and video game shops (at least 3 that we counted).
After strolling the pedestrian zone of Old Town Winchester and enjoying a nice lunch at Village Square Restaurant, we decided that it was time to head back to the airport. Old Town Winchester is only about a 10-15 minute drive from OKV. We parked our courtesy car back in its spot, dropped the keys off with the nice people attending the airport and we were back our our airplane. We filed our flight plan back into the SFRA for about 30 minutes after our departure and took off.
We had a pleasant flight back and as usual, on our arrival into KHEF, it was around 6pm and everyone was headed back so you had to stay up on your radio comms and keep your head on a pivot for traffic. It was a great day for flying and Winchester was the perfect location for a quick flight and an enjoyable afternoon with my wife and favorite co-pilot!
