What's Up
by LeRoy Cook
8-19-2024
Suggested Banner: Age Catches Up With Us
Thunderstorms threatened, but never attacked the local
aerodrome last week, so the tied-down refugees on the ramp escaped injury. This
would have been a good time to have built some T-hangars to rent out, because
even when all our neighboring airports are operational we get weekly inquiries
about storage space. The close-by closures just make it worse.
Other than waiting out storms en route, quite a bit of
flying took place over the past seven days. A nice Cirrus SR22 flew in from St.
Louis, a Civil Air Patrol Cessna 182 stopped by, a Piper Warrior and a Tecnam
P-Mentor were in and a lumbering Army Reserve CH-47 heavy-lift helicopter
whopp-whopped over. Dr. Ed Christophersen flew down from New Century in his
Piper Archer.
From the local-based bunch, Todd Proach made an Angel Flight
mercy trip to Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minnesota in his Beech Bonanza A36, Roy
Conley was up in a Piper TriPacer, Doug Hartzler’s Cirrus SR-22G2 was out and
both the SkyDive KC King Air C90 jump plane and BCS AirTractor sprayplane flew
multiple missions.
Age catches up with even the newer airplanes in our fleet. A
report came out last week of a throttle lever on a 25-year-old Cirrus that
broke off when the pilot shoved it open to take off. So, there’ll be an
inspection required on all Cirri throttles. I just had aileron hinges replaced
on my Cessna 150; I gotta admit they have 8000-plus hours on them, and they are
nearly 50 years old. And we had a 70-year old gas tank spring a leak in a
Taylorcraft last week; old age is just a fact of life.
Every so often, I get asked “How come that plane is so LOUD?
It must have a big motor.” Much of the time, the noise is coming off the
propeller. Long prop blades turn at near-supersonic speeds when at maximum rpm,
generating heavy decibels during takeoff. If the pilot slows the propeller
speed down, it’ll quiet things down a bit.
The debate continues to rage over Unleaded 100-octane
aviation gasoline; everybody wants to see it magically be introduced to replace
the nasty old leaded gas, but the devil’s in the details. It’s hard to
formulate a replacement fuel that’s not even worse for the environment, let
alone affordable, and when GAMI (General Aviation Modifications Inc.) spent
millions doing it, the non-midwestern crowd cried “not invented here” and said
GAMI-Gas was no good. And then airplane and engine manufacturers didn’t want to
warrantee their products if operated on something other than the original
known-quantity avgas. All because 100LL has a tiny bit of hazardous substance
that’s has been used without harm for 50 years.
Our brain-teaser from last week asked the name of the founder of Lockheed Aircraft company. He was born
Allan Loughhead, but he changed the spelling to something easier to pronounce
in 1934. For next week, we’ll toss out a simple question; what does a gallon of
jet fuel weigh? No, it ain’t six pounds, like gasoline. You can send your
answers to [email protected].
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