Dan's Papers - July 3, 2009 - GLIDING BEAUTIFULLY OUT TO THE HAMPTONS

A guy named Mike Giordano called me a couple of months ago. He'd read the story I wrote in Dan's Papers this winter about having dirigibles taking people out to the Hamptons from Manhattan at pretty low prices and he thought that the air service he provides between these two locations was quite similar to the experience that might be found aboard a dirigible. He invited me to take a ride with him.

The service costs about 10 times that of the Hampton Jitney, which is how I am used to getting out here. But it costs far less than hiring a helicopter and, as you float along, you get an experience that I later told him reminded me of a vacation - a 40-minute vacation to get from the 23rd Street seaplane dock off the FDR in Manhattan to the serenity of East Hampton.

The beginning and the end of this is that we left aboard this seaplane just before sunset, and it was still just before sunset when we got here. Surprise!

The middle of this story is the joy of it. First of all, to get out where the seaplanes pull up in the East River at 23rd Street - there is only one dock - we pushed our way through about 200 people inside the wharf about to get underway for an evening's party aboard one of the big party boats that are docked inside this marina. When we first went into this area - following signs that read SEAPLANE DOCK - we were right in the middle of it, everybody chattering happily away while holding drinks, and my first thought, having not been here before was, surely not all these people are going to be on our seaplane. And of course they weren't.

At the appointed time, 6:30 p.m., this Cessna 2088 Caravan I seaplane pulled up to the end of the dock, and a guy named Doug Beers got out and advised us and several others that he would be our pilot. Beers has spent 20 years flying between fishing stations in Alaska. Now he is working for V1, flying from Manhattan to the Hamptons and elsewhere in the summer and down in West Palm in the winter. We climbed aboard and took a seat. The spacious windows provide a panoramic view of the world outside.

Beers taxied us out into the East River, past checkerboard yellow ferryboats, a sailboat, a jet ski and a few other interesting sea-going vessels. Ten blocks up from the 23rd Street dock is the 34th Street helicopter heliport and while we taxied along in the river, the black helicopters noisily took off at sharp angles from the heliport for points unknown.

Beers, piloting our plane through the water, looked around, and when his path was clear, gunned the engine so that we plowed and then skimmed along, then lifted up to rise just over the Manhattan Bridge, where, with DUMBO in Brooklyn below us, we circled around with the Statue of Liberty off to one side in front of the sunset and headed out north over Long Island City, the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building off to our left, and the Citibank building of Long Island City looming up to our right. We banked and passed over the eight lanes of traffic at the Queens entrance to the Midtown Tunnel - ha, ha, everybody - then flew over LaGuardia Airport, with Citifield just adjacent, and then over the Whitestone and the Throgs Neck Bridge. At this point we were in the air for just under 10 minutes.

Beers steered us quietly along at 2,000 feet over all the treasures of the North Shore of Long Island. At 17 minutes, we glided over the mansions of Glen Head and Manhasset at a stately 120 miles an hour, enjoying the view of the horse farms and castles below.

Chris and I chatted for a bit, noting the sailboat regattas in the Sound off to our north and the various coves and inlets, and just 12 minutes later we were over the former Grumman base in Calverton, now known as Calverton Enterprise Park. At 30 minutes out we were passing over the potato fields of the North Fork - Chris commented that it looked like a patchwork quilt - and in five more minutes we were gliding in over Mecox Bay, preparing for a landing in the beautiful glittering rural landscape that is the Hamptons. We touched down at East Hampton Airport at 40 minutes and 52 seconds. We sat behind Beers, and the time in the air is a digital readout on the dashboard, easy to see. We were 52 seconds late.

Walking in from the seaplane to the terminal across the tarmac, we came upon the littlest helicopter I have ever seen. It was about 10-feet long and five-feet high, had one seat, and the owner was having a tanker 10 times his helicopter's size bring a hose over so he could fill it up with about 25 gallons of gas. It looked like not much more than a motorcycle with a propeller on the top.

Shadows were long now, but it was still just before sunset and we were in this so very special mood. We talked to the owner, a guy from Connecticut, who was happy to tell us about it.

"I built it from a kit. It goes 90 miles an hour. I have a range of about 100 miles. I love it."

"How high up does it go?"

"One of the other guys who built one of these took it up to 10,000 feet, but I only go up to 3,000. I mean, what's the point."

A workman on the tarmac with a golf cart offered us a ride around a giant black helicopter, all business, that had propellers spinning all ready to take off.

We're talking mini vacation here, is what I thought. We took a cab home, now coming down Main Street in East Hampton just moments, it seemed to me, after we were in Manhattan on the FDR Drive. And, sitting on my deck overlooking the sunset here, I wrote this.

All our cares had fallen away up there. Down below were all these hopes and dreams and successes and disappointments and we were just gliding over it all. I loved it.

Mike Giordano's VI service flies from Manhattan or East Hampton to just about anywhere you might want to go within a range of 200 miles.

It's not all business taking a seaplane. We had great fun and we recommend it.

For reservations call V1 Private Jets Seaplane at 212-856-6251. Cost is $495 per seat each way.