Orange County NY

Dean, Joe and I went to Orange County NY (KMGJ) on Friday for lunch. It's very easy to find as it's just west of Stewart (KSWF)'s airspace. The airport is a great little airport. It has two runways, both adequately sized for most GA aircraft. It's nicely situated in a farm area next to a hill. It has a "Super Unicom" that i've never seen before. If you click the mic three times you get airport advisories. If you click the mic four times, you get a radio check as the computer transmits "transmission received" over the frequency.

Aside from the airport grounds itself, there's some other great things about the area as well - namely food. On the field is Rick's Runway Cafe which has just been redone. The inside is very clean and very well decorated. The menu is great and the food is certainly on par. Joe and I had a decent sized sandwich and fries and a drink for less than $10. Dean had a big salad for about $4.00.

I recommended it to Andy and ended up going there yesterday with him for breakfast. The weather in the morning was forecast to be CAVOK after 10am but before then, there was a layer of clouds and fog from 600ft up to about 1,500ft so we had to depart IFR. As soon as we got above the clouds, we cancelled IFR and continued the trip VFR. I had a very good egg sandwich. He had chocolate chip pancakes that were very large and looked great.

The airport has a certain personality that's very likable. It's busy but ironically things seem slow paced. We saw a couple of Chinese fighter planes from WWII and watched a couple of Navy guys flying in in a pair of YAKs doing breaks on the way in.

I'm definitly keeping this airport on my list of places to visit for a quick trip.