‘Make memories with the family’
Derek Thompson Jr. has set the bar pretty high for family adventures in their 1976 Cessna Cardinal—flying to experience the 2024 solar eclipse along the path of totality.
Total eclipse of the sun
“This is really our first big family trip in the airplane,” Thompson said of the three-hour, 15-minute flight from St. Mary’s County Regional Airport in southern Maryland to Union County Airport in central Ohio. Thompson, a program manager with Amazon Web Services, just purchased the airplane in January. The 120-hour private pilot flew his wife, Carla, and son, Derek, in April 7 and stayed overnight in a hotel to ensure they would have a parking spot at the airport the day of the eclipse.
Weather-wise, Thompson couldn’t have picked a better location: Ohio presented its finest spring weather with temperatures in the mid-70 degrees Fahrenheit and scattered cirrus clouds.
“We’ll actually be able to see the eclipse from here,” Thompson said, and “make memories with the family. That’s what aviation’s all about, right?”
About a dozen aircraft flew in and the AHA Waffles and Triple P Barbeque food trucks offered breakfast and lunch. Many families with youngsters set up in a grassy area at the airport entrance, playing around the flagpole, blowing bubbles, chasing one another beside a hangar, and stopping every so often for a glance at the sun through their eclipse viewing glasses.
“It’s so small,” one girl exclaimed about 15 minutes before totality. “It looks like a smiley face but a sad face.”
Spectators relaxed on the concrete ramp, in the grass, in camping chairs, and even against airplane wheel pants to watch the eclipse. Gasps such as “Wow!” and “Oh, that’s so cool!” punctuated the stillness of nature around the airport as it grew cooler and darker. Totality lasted nearly three minutes, but the memories will likely last a lifetime. Another total solar eclipse won’t cross the contiguous United States for 20 years.
“I’ve seen partial eclipses and totality was worth the two-and-a-half hours to fly up here and, obviously, to experience that unique situation with my family,” said Steven Rosine, who flew from Roanoke, Virginia, with his two sons. “Totality was something…almost indescribable” he said of seeing the ring of fire and solar flares. What struck him most was the “360-degree sunset all around us. I was completely unprepared to see that.”
These are moments that make pilot math—time, cost, and experiences—work out in favor of memory making every time.
“That was amazing,” Thompson said. “It went dark. All the airport lights came on. The birds stopped singing. It was absolutely amazing…well worth the trip.”
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