What's Up
by LeRoy Cook
12-16-2024
Suggested Banner: Far Out Aircraft Accident
Now that official winter arrives this weekend, the variable
weather is upon us with front after front passing through. Good days for flying are interspersed with
nasty spells, so we must take advantage of opportunities as they present
themselves. Last Thursday was such a day, seeing lots of planes take to the
air, but by Friday everything had reversed itself.
Visitors dropping in over the past week included a Beech
Baron twin, a pair of Piper Archers and a Cessna Skyhawk, along with the usual
Army Reserve CH-47 helicopter executing a practice VOR-A approach. Locally, Jim
Ferguson flew to Higginsville in his Cessna Skylane, Instructor Delaney Rindal
made a Harrisonville stop while giving instruction and Josh Poe took a Cessna
150 to Lamar on a night mission.
The renovations of the Butler airport’s self-service fuel
system have turned into a full-on overhaul, as it turns out that the interior
of the fuel tank needs recoating. It’ll be some time before it’s back in
service. Tankering in fuel is the order of the day for now.
Aircraft maintenance is becoming a critical need, as older
mechanics retire or move on to more lucrative fields. The shop at Clinton is
dark as Mark Bentch quit to teach college tech courses, and Ted VanMeter at
Pleasanton is no longer working, having taken a position with the FAA at
Wichita. Keeping airplanes in the air as they age requires skilled hands and
regular infusions of money.
NASA announced the results of an out-of-this-world aircraft
accident investigation last week. The Mars explorer helicopter Ingenuity is no
longer flyable, having shed rotor blades in a hard landing in poor surface
visibility, but the craft wasn’t supposed to last only 30 days and it actually
operated nearly three years. Unlike surface landers, the flying eyes of
Ingenuity made 72 flights over the Martian terrain to give lots of data. It will be missed.
We had a report of a low-flying twin-engine survey airplane
in the area last week, equipped with a tail-stinger sensor to detect magnetic
anomaly. Hopefully, its mission was more successful than the Piper Navajo that
crashed on a road at Victoria, Texas on Wednesday. The pilot evidently ran out
of fuel while trying to get back to base, after flying his planned grid route.
At least no severe injuries occurred.
My question for last week asked which famous fighter pilot
crashed on his first solo flight. That would be Manfred Von Richthofen, the
World War I “Red Baron” who went on notch up 80 kills with his Spandau machine
guns after his rough start. For next week, Beech Aircraft started naming its
airplanes after royalty, following the Bonanza. What plane was called the
“Marquis?” You can send your answers to [email protected].