Some good flying conditions prevailed during the past week, allowing a lot of trips to take place. It’s still spring, so there’s always the chance of a pop-up shower among the benign outlook. And the thermal updrafts are always out there, even on pretty days. I had a rough ride all the way back from St. Louis on Friday, getting 400-foot altitude deviations up and down.
The Big Iron of the week award
went to a Cessna 441 Conquest II executive turboprop that made a passenger stop
on Friday, its whining Garrett engines announcing its arrival. Also in were a
Piper Turbo Lance II, a Piper Cherokee 180, a Cessna Skyhawk and
a Lycoming-modifiued Cessna T-41A trainer. Local flyers were Jon
Laughlin in his Piper Cherokee 180C, Jerald and Steve Koehn in their Cessna
Skyhawk, Jeremie Platt in his Grumman Tiger and myself in the club Skyhawk.
In news of the world, Boeing St. Louis has flown its
production-version MQ-25 aerial refueling tanker drone, developed for the U.S.
Navy. It’ll be landed and launched at sea from carriers, flown autonomously to
replace the F-18 tankers used at present.
The ups and downs of aviation continue. Spirit Airlines
made it official over the weekend; they are shutting down after 34 years of
low-budget operation, unable to pay their bills. And Waco Aircraft at Battle
Creek, Michigan, builders of the Waco YMF-5 and Great Lakes replica biplanes,
has ceased operation, the 60 employees laid off by the German DIMOR Group that
was the latest owner. Meanwhile, Sonex Aviation is back in business after
taking bankruptcy; an enthusiastic purchaser of the kit airplanes’ tooling and
fixtures promises to fill all orders and supply parts.
Vern Raburn, developer of the Eclipse very-light personal
jet, passed away last week at age 75. A former president of Microsoft, he is
most remembered for burning through a billion dollars of investors money trying
to mass-produce a little twin jet to sell for a million bucks. After
bankruptcy, it finally got built but sold for many times more. Only 260 of the
six-seat jets were built.
The Florida legislature has passed a bill that prohibits
using ADS-B data, now publicly available for most civilian aircraft, from being
used to collect landing fees. Software users have been convincing cities to let
them bill airplane owners who visit their town’s airport and extort money,
which it shares with the municipalities looking for free income. Because it’s
not legal to shut off the FAA-mandated ADS-B equipment, pilots are effectively
caught by the toll-takers. Not any more, said the lawmakers; “skinning the
public is our job.”
Last week, we asked about “toss bombing” nuclear weapons
by B-47 bombers, proposed back in the 1960’s. The idea was to loop the big jet,
release the bomb as it went over the top, and complete the loop to scoot away
from the blast. It was never done for real.
For next time, what kind of airplane was used to spray Agent Orange
defoliant in Vietnam? You can send your answer to koc[email protected].
-END-”
.JPG)
