AT ABOUT 75 MPH AND 2,000 FEET ABOVE the northern Virginia countryside, the purpose of an old, open-cockpit biplane is immediately obvious. You look down on newly plowed fields and old woods. The Rappahannock River rolls and unrolls beneath you. Much of the American Civil War was fought down there, armies churning up dust clouds or sinking in mud as they marched to and fro, maneuvering to cross the twisty river. Now you can see why rivers matter in war. Earlier that morning at Culpeper Regional Airport, a small general-aviation airport some 70 miles outside the metroplex of Washington, D.C., pilot Andrew King had laid out the flight plan. "I thought maybe we'd hop over to Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg for lunch," he said. King is the owner and restorer of the bright-blue 1928 Travel Air biplane now swooping low over backyard swimming pools, metal barn roofs, and wetlands-glinting in the sunlight. Traffic is light on the interstate hauling commuters to and from the city. The Travel Air can barely keep up with the lane weavers and thundering 18-wheel-ers, but they are earthbound. You are not. When King obliges with a wing-over turn, you find yourself nearly screaming in delight, like a small child thrown into midair by a friendly giant. This is what old airplanes are for. They are for flying.
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