What's Up by LeRoy Cook

 

Storm Warning

Friday afternoon’s thunderstorms, brushing by mostly to the north of Butler, showed some impressive cumulus mammatus formation under the overhanging cloud. Mammatus refers to the bulging pockets of cloud pushing down, like a cow’s udder, indicative of extreme turbulence within the cloud. Nobody was flying around that line of storms, of course.

Few transient movements were seen last week, probably suppressed by the heat. A Cessna Skyhawk came by, a Piper Archer made approaches and a Mooney stopped in. Dr. Ed Christophersen flew down from New Century in his Piper Archer. The local traffic included the AirTractor agplane, out spraying fungicide early and late, Captain Les Gorden flying his North American T-28C Trojan in formation with another T-28 from St. Louis, and Jon Laughlin, retrieving his Piper Cherokee 180C from the shop. CFI Eric Eastland gave dual in the Cessna Skyhawk.

After 20 years or more of service, the entrance door for the airport waiting room will need a replacement pane of plate glass, as it showed up last week with a shattered lower part. It was probably a stone hit, thrown by a careless pilot running up his engine at the fuel pumps. Debris lying around airport pavement should be picked up to keep propellers and property from suffering nicks and damage, known as “FOD” for “foreign object damage”.

“Ever hit a bird?” is a common question I get from non-flyers, expecting it to be a normal part of flying. Actually, bird strikes are rare, even though we see a feathered flyer zip past every once in a while. Cars on the road kill many more birds than do planes. Most of the time, birds hear and see airplanes as a predator and will fold their wings and drop to evade our clutches. I do pull up or bank away, if the strike seems eminent. If it’s a big bird, like a goose or buzzard, they can break through a windshield or bash in a wing. In any case, we do what we can to avoid collisions.

Certified flight instructor Christian Tucker had a busy day last Thursday, with one of his students passing his Private checkride, a 17-year-old student making his first solo flight and another one flying a solo cross-country. Christian continues to rack of up experience as he helps young pilots achieve their goals.

CFI Jay McClintock, in practice at Harrisonville airport, had to retrieve his Piper Tomahawk trainer from Topeka Saturday, after a hapless student braked too heavily and blew out both main tires, from burning holes in the tread. It’s always hard to get service done on a weekend, even if the airport has a repair shop, but Jay obtained some replacement tires and tubes and got the bird flying again.

Our week’s question wanted to know how to tell if an airplane had a turbocharged engine, versus normal aspiration. In general, count the exhaust stacks; a turboed plane will have a big single exhaust outlet below the turbocharger, while a non-boosted engine will have two stacks, one for each bank of cylinders on left and right sides. For next time, why are plastic airplanes, made with composite materials in a mold, most often painted white? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.