What’s Up
by LeRoy
Cook
Better fly when you can, this time of year. The weather systems move fast, and often, sometimes two of them passing through in one day. The moisture and cool temperatures combine to bring fog over a lot of the midwest, particularly upslope to our west in Kansas, given an east wind.
Not
much traffic was observed last week, the influence of holiday obligations and
fluctuating weather. Short daylight hours also discourage lengthy day trips.
Yes, airplanes fly in the dark just like they do in daytime, but there's a
heightened risk and general dislike of night flight. We saw a Cessna Skylane, a
trainer Skyhawk and a hummin' Grumman on the runway. I did one little
maintenance test hop, Christian Tucker completed a Mooney trip and Josh Poe
flew an hour in a Cessna 150, out of the local
fleet.
The
flap over last month's news of an “airliner” taking off from London enroute to
Orlando with missing windows in the cabin bears some added illumination.
Actually, it turns out that illumination was the factor causing the “holey”
fuselage. The Airbus 321, operated by Titan Airways, had been used the previous
day for filming a commercial in the cabin, and some high-powered lights put out
so much heat they warped and shrank the plastic of the windows. The
repositioning trip only carried 11 company people, so the few occupants didn't
notice that two windows were missing, and two others that were damaged, until
the cold and noise at 14,000 feet got their attention, prompting a return to
London. It could be that the windows dropped away during departure.
The
FAA, ever under pressure to accommodate new aviation users, recently granted a
waiver to the unmanned aircraft rules to let one pilot manage up to 30 drones,
totally out of line-of-sight. An Israeli company uses UAVs for inspection
purposes, such as construction and pipeline uses, and says the waiver will
allow them to operate the drones more efficiently. The drones are
pre-programmed to operate on their own, so all the “pilot” has to do is watch
them do their work remotely. Of course, nothing can ever go wrong (click)...go
wrong (click)...go wrong...
Pipelines
and powerlines have to be inspected for damage and threats regularly and the
easiest way to get that done has traditionally been to cruise along the
right-of-way in a low-flying aircraft so human eyeballs can spot trouble. I
have ridden with pipeline pilots, and it's a tough job, although some folks
like its freedom and open schedule.
The
previous question asked about Southwest Airlines’ stock designation. As reader
Butch Leuthart, formerly from Amsterdam, confirmed, it's LUV, perhaps because
they “love their customers”. I always thought it was because their home base
was at Love Field in Dallas, TX. Our brain-teaser for next week asks, why was a
certain airplane fitted with a periscope device? You can send your answers to [email protected].
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