What's Up
by LeRoy Cook
10-27-2025
Sand Blasted at 36,000 Feet
Many flying plans were thwarted over last weekend,
although there were periods of rain-free high ceilings that would serve
adequately for local flights. Taking advantage of the good days before Friday
gave some opportunities to log time.
Transient traffic during the past week included the usual
suspects, with no noteworthy aircraft. David Bradley flew over from Boonville
in a Cessna Skyhawk and Josh Poe came down from Miami County in his Cessna 172.
Local movers and shakers were Roy Conley in his Grumman Tr2 and gyrocopter,
Randy and Bettie Miller in the club Skyhawk, and meself in the Aeronca
Champion. Delaney Rindal made some final flights in her Cessna 150s, including
a refueling run to Harrisonville.
Do not neglect to set your clocks back one hour this
Saturday night, and go to bed an hour early to get your night’s worth. It’ll be
nice to rise and shine with daylight again, but be prepared to land by late
afternoon unless you were night-flying current in the last 90 days. I did my
three takeoffs and landings on August 10, so I’m good for another week or so.
There is, of course, no penalty for allowing currency to lapse, so long as you
don’t carry passengers.
I always wondered what would happen if an
airplane ran into one of those little radiosonde packages lifted into the
stratosphere by a weather balloon. The information gathered by the balloons,
launched by the hundreds every day, is vital to forecasting the weather, but
even a few ounces hitting a 500-mph airplane has gotta hurt. When the balloon
pops the package drifts down under a parachute, remaining a hazard. Well, we
learned the effect last week last Thursday when a Denver-to-LA United Airlines
737 took a hit on its windshield frame at 36,000 feet, its sand ballast denting
the structure and shattering the glass into the cockpit. The plane did not
depressurize and diverted successfully to Salt Lake City. Evidently the
balloon’s launch company had lost contact with that particular device and
didn’t know its exact location.
What are some effects of aviation from the government
shutdown? The Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds flight
demonstration teams aren’t doing their scheduled appearances, and most fly-overs
from local air bases at sporting events aren’t happening. And the training
academy for new air traffic controllers at Oklahoma City is shut down. Although
they’ve been asked to work without being paid, some ATC workers are having to
flip burgers at McDonalds to pay the mortgage, leaving control towers partly
unstaffed. Some aviation weather services are not available when getting
preflight briefings.
A Minnesota pilot has had his airplane seized by the Red
Lake Indian Reservation after landing on a road after an engine failure two
weeks ago. It seems that the Tribal Council recently passed an ordinance
banning aircraft flying over their grounds below 20,000 feet, in a squabble
with the Air Force’s training routes, despite Federal preemption of regulating
airspace. The Council will have a pow-wow on November 4th to decide
on what to do with the impounded plane.
The last-week’s question asked why boats and planes have a
red light on their left side and a green one on the right. The correct answer is
to determine right of way for converging vessels; if you see a red light you
must give way, green means you can proceed. If you see both, duck! For next
time, tell us the contribution to aviation made by Mr. Edwin Link. You can send
your answers to [email protected].
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