What's Up
by LeRoy Cook
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June 22, 2026I
Suggested Banner: Bearing Up and Carrying On
It was a somber, subdued week at the Butler airport, after
the terrible tragedy of the previous weekend. There was a three-day FAA-imposed
closing of airspace up to 3000 feet that expired Wednesday evening, after which
normal operations resumed. NTSB investigations concluded after Tuesday so road
access could resume. Any findings will be announced only after the agency
finishes its work, which can take a year or more. Meanwhile, the twelve
families of the deceased and everyone affected deserve continued prayers and
support.
As far as transient traffic was concerned, the mostly open
flying weather saw quite a few visitors coming and going, including a Cirrus
SR-22 from St. Louis, a Cessna Skylane from Ft. Collins, Colorado and a nice
homebuilt Van’s RV-7 from Mt. Vernon. A Piper Archer and a Cessna 172 were also
in. Locally, the BCS AirTractor sprayplane was back hard at work, Jeremie Platt
had his Grumman Tiger out and Gerald Bauer was up in the Cessna Skyhawk.
World-wide, there was news last
week out of Nigeria, where a 1988 Challenger 601 business jet landed on a
newly-built unopened concrete roadway, rather than the nearby airport, for
undisclosed reasons. Then it was turned around after a three-hour stay and took
off for repositioning; Nigerian officials are not happy over the stunt. The
pilot was 70 years old, overage by Nigerian rules. The airplane is registered
to a Salt Lake City ownership.
Stateside, the Air Force is not happy over the latest
round of TFR busts in New Jersey, where our President frequents one of his golf
courses. Pilots are supposed to keep track of his comings and goings and avoid
the intermittent no-fly zone, but as can happen, some people don’t get the word
and F-16s and Black Hawks have to be scrambled to identify the intruder. It
happened 15 times in the first half of June.
Also, the FAA is getting serious about drone incursions
over World Cup locations, which are supposed to be covered by no-drone notices.
Homeland Security has logged 145 violations in the first week of the games.
Confiscation and interdiction measures are being taken, and as soon as the
perpetrators can be located, heavy fines and license revocations are levied.
The cheap and easily-flown Chinese drones are often in the hands of operators
who don’t care about rules and security, just grabbing videos and gaining
notoriety.
The F-35 fighter jet program is in trouble. The Government
Accountability Office found that of the 800 F-35’s that have been delivered,
only 25-percent are fully flyable at any given time. The highly complex
Lightning II is fragile and parts are in short supply, as are people to work on
the planes. This aircraft was supposed to serve all branches of our military
and allies air forces as well, but it hasn’t worked out so well. The USAF’s
eventual solution may be the General Atomics’ FQ-42A unmanned fighter/bomber
and Anduril’s FQ-44A, of which they plan to buy 1000 units.
From last week’s column, we wanted to know if there any
instrument approach procedures for seaplane bases. Yes, there’s one at Ridgely
Lake in Minnesota. For next week, do you know why there’s a aviation-related
monument out in the Kansas Flint Hills with the date March 31, 1931 on it? You can
send your answers to [email protected].
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