What's Up by Leroy Cook: It's Show Season

 

The week bounced between shirt-sleeve warm and jacket cool, interspersed with rain showers, so pilots had to be adaptable. Ofttimes, fifty miles made a difference in the flying weather, so not every forecast worked out. Weather prognosticators tend to err on the side of dire, in case someone’s plans might be spoiled, so the weather is generally better than the TAF readout shows.

 

Traffic here-bouts depended on the day, but a few in-and-outs were spotted, chiefly single-engine trainer types like the Piper Archer and Cessna Skyhawk. Saturday, a Cirrus SR-22 and a Piper Cherokee Six executed touch and goes, and a Piper Saratoga stayed for a few hours. Dennis Walrath was over from Clinton in his Beech Bonanza V35 and Jay McClintock evacuated from Harrisonville with his Piper Tomahawk. Local participants included Les Gorden and grandson Patrick flying his Beech Bonanza F35, Travis Briscoe firing up his Bonanza N35, and Samantha Bruns practicing in the Cessna 150.

 

This Saturday, being the last weekend, marks the time for the Butler Fliars Club to assemble for a breakfast fly-out, so all interested Fliars should be on the Butler airport ramp at 0730 hours for liftoff. We hope for favorable weather.

 

Special circumstances affected the much-ballyhooed potential collision between two airliners at Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National airport last Thursday. A taking-off Airbus and a taxiing Boeing occupied the main runway at the same time, both cleared to do so by different air traffic controllers, one handling ground movement and the other local flight operations. Lack of coordination seemed to be the problem, but fortunately nothing happened because the pilots involved took quick action. The problem is, Reagan airport is too congested, encouraging such hurried mix-ups. Dulles International was supposed to replace the old National field, but its handy location is favored by Congresspersons zipping in and out of town, using it like their private airport.

 

It’s time to start making note of the summer fly-in schedule. The EAA’s restored 1928 Ford TriMotor pioneer airliner is going to be in Springfield May 23^rd through the 26^th, so if you want to book a vintage flight, go to the EAA.org website. It’ll also be at Lee;s Summit June 20 to 23. The St. Louis airshow, held at Spirit airport, is scheduled for June 8 and 9, and Daris Magoffin tells me that the biennial Wings Over Whiteman show, featuring the USAF Thunderbirds, is going to be July 13 and 14.

 

The brain teaser from last week asked why the old DC-3 airliner’s throttle knobs were in the center of the power quadrant, between the propeller and mixture controls, instead of on the left like smaller airplanes of today. It was so the copilot had equal access, a style copied by Walter Beech in his twins. For next week, tell us the communications radio frequency often referred to as “fingers.” You can send your answers to [email protected].