Another String Attached to AIP Money
With the benevolent blue skies prevailing over the midwest
last weekend, aviation was definitely encouraged. Aerial application was going
full stream over the still-sodden farm fields and numerous practice instrument
approaches were being made to the closed Butler airport, including one business
jet checking out a new avionics installation.
Butler Airport was reopened to traffic last weekend, with
new LED lighting and other improvements. The cost of operating the new system
will be much cheaper and the lights are brighter. Jeff Gorden went flying in
the family Beech Bonanza E35 and Chris Hall got one of his Cessna 182s out for
a test run. A Cessna Skyhawk and a Skylane RG were in on Saturday. I flew the
club Skyhawk out of its temporary base at Nevada, with a side trip to Prairie
City, and then we performed a flight review for a friend at Harrisonville,
using one of Sky 4’s rental Cessna 150s. On both missions, the advisory
frequencies were filled with good-weather radio chatter.
As if the overly-extended crew aboard the USS Harry S
Truman aircraft in the Persian Gulf didn’t have enough bad karma going on,
reported on in last week’s column, the ship lost another F/A 18 Hornet on May 4th,
when the go-around procedure from a bad landing didn’t work. The bird went into
the sea but the crew ejected and was picked up by the rescue chopper.
Bad luck and good luck for the Italian Air Force’s Freece
Tricolori jet demonstration team. On May 6, the 10-ship formation was flying a
show at a Mediterranean island when three of the Aermacchi MB-339’s nudged into
each other. The pilots regained control sufficiently to get their planes safely
on the ground but with serious damage; one guy broke his leg.
When the FAA doles out money from the Airport Improvement
Program (a.k.a.“trust fund”, although there’s no actual fund and very little
trust) using tax money collected from pilots and passengers, it attaches
strings to the funds that it can use to yank back the 90% grant it gave. Those
grant assurances are to ensure the airport stays open for 20 years and treats
all users fairly. There are now 40 stipulations to be kept, the latest being
that the airport sponsor can’t ban the sale of leaded avgas until an approved
substitute is available, which is still forthcoming.
Our question from last week was about the origin of the name
“Ercoupe” given to the little 1940 sport plane that was built up through the
1950s. It was from the first company producing it, the Engineering and Research
Company, or ERCO. For next week, tell us how the Butler runway lights are able
to shine at the same brightness despite their location over a two-mile loop of
wiring. You can send your answers to [email protected].
.JPG)
