What's Up? By LeRoy Cook

 What’s Up by LeRoy Cook

 Suggested banner: Calling All Investors

 

As official summer wound to a close on Saturday, the work week offered some great flying opportunities. By the weekend, storms rolled in to thwart travel plans. Desperate as we are for moisture, it seemed a fair trade. We sat in the hangar, listening to the rain pound on the 55-year-old metal roof (and drip through the holes in places) with gratitude.

 

Some traffic came and went, when weather allowed. The usual assortment of training Skyhawks and Archers flew by, a Piper Cherokee visited, and a Cessna Skylane stopped in. Out of the local hangars, Chris Hall flew one of his ex-Skydive Cessna 182s up to Grain Valley, Eric Eastland worked on his Cessna Skyhawk, Les Gorden's Piper Twin Comanche was out and one of the Cessna 150s ventured forth.

 

This being the last Saturday of the month, it is once again time for the Fliars Club to attempt a breakfast flyout. If fortune smiles, we'll assemble at 0730 hours on the Butler ramp and see what opportunities present.

 

Much press was ballyhooed last week about a half-billion dollar investment being made in a Michigan plant to build electric “air taxis” to shuttle folks around over cities. Scaled up from drone technology, these six-rotor devices will carry four passengers from vertiport to vertiport within their 30-minute range. It remains to be seen how firm the actual market is going to be for these things.

 

Sky dreams are always popping up, it seems. Some 36 years ago, an outfit called SkyTrader was romancing the city of Harrisonville for backing to erect a plant on the new Lawrence Smith airport to build twin-engine cargo planes, supposedly a sure bet. They went on to sell stock in Clay Center, Kansas and at the Richards-Gebaur airport in Kansas City, before finally taking bankruptcy in 1989. The attraction of shiny new flying objects never ceases to fascinate.

 

Cirrus Design Corporation, headquartered in Duluth, MN but owned by Aviation Industry Corp. in Communist China, just unveiled a new “mini-Cirrus” SR10 training aircraft, which actually received a type certificate from our cooperative FAA last November. The SR10 seats three with an observer seat in back, weighs 2150 pounds and is powered by a humming little 135-hp Rotax 915 engine. Cirrus has no plans at present to sell the SR10 in the U.S., reserving it for the always-to-be-burgeoning civil aviation market in the PRC.

 

The international sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine bagged another Rusky airplane, when an Airbus A320 airliner had to be landed in an open field in Siberia after a hydraulics failure. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported. Parts are difficult to obtain under the sanctions and crews are reportedly having to fly aircraft with unresolved discrepancies. Initial plans are to repair the 'Bus and fly it off the tundra. Keep your seatbelt fastened.

 

Our last question of the week asked from what language the word “parachute” originated. It was derived from the French, as “to prevent a fall.” For next time, we need to know the difference between 'DZ” (drizzle) and “BR” (mist) in weather reports. You can send your answers to [email protected].