Horseshoe Curve to the field where AOPA was born
About 150 nautical miles from the Alleghenies to the Delaware. KAOO Altoona-Blair County sits minutes from Horseshoe Curve, one of the great human-built features you can see from a small plane: a 220-degree wraparound opened in February 1854, dug by 450 workers with picks and shovels, lifting the railroad 122 feet around the face of the mountain at the same 1.8 percent grade freight still climbs today on Norfolk Southern's main line. Union soldiers guarded it in the Civil War, and in June 1942 Nazi saboteurs landed by U-boat with the Curve on their target list; the plot collapsed before any target was touched. An observation park has faced the tracks since 1879, with a funicular running April through October. East to KLOM Wings Field, where members of the Philadelphia Aviation Country Club founded AOPA in May 1939; the association still calls this field its birthplace, and landing here is a small pilgrimage. KPNE Northeast Philadelphia closes the run, the metro's big GA reliever, minutes from the city.