.JPG)
When Will They Ever Learn?
Our winter weather whiplash continued over the past week, with broad temperature swings and cloud ceilings varying from less than 1000 feet to severe-clear. If we wanted to see a White Christmas, it was necessary to plan a flight to a northern state. Which is why they make multi-grade oil for our air-cooled engines; it’s possible to encounter a 50-degree shift in airport temperatures by flying a few hours.
Transient aircraft seen last week were a Civil Air Patrol Cessna Skylane, out for proficiency training, a brace of Piper Archers, and a Piper Seminole on the RNAV 18 approach. The Missouri Conservation Department’s Kodiak turboprop was back in on Monday. From the Butler hangars, Delany Rindal put on her Flight Instructor’s hat to give some dual in a Cessna 150, and I made a couple of refueling runs to Harrisonville.
The recent furor over night-time drone sightings out on the east coast leaves us a bit amused, because public officials are trying to look official in response to constituents’ complaints from yet another opposing corner. In the previous year, Congress and the FAA have turned handsprings to accommodate demands of a new wildly promoted “urban air mobility” industry wanting to fly around with aerial Ubers and package delivery drones. No sooner than our FAA announced a new set of specialized UAM rules in response to our lobbied legislators, who were being goaded by big-money investors throwing millions at start-up flying-car companies, then they were deluged by public demands for action over low-flying objects overhead. Maybe Joe Six-Pack isn’t quite as ready for flying pizza delivery or pilotless taxis as everyone thought.
Its been a bad fall for fuel exhaustion accidents. At Victoria, Texas, a Piper Navajo was allowed to run out of gas after a five hour mission, coming apart on a highway, then a pilot in a Cessna 340 tried to fly five hours from Montana to Muskogee, Oklahoma and came up short, ignominiously hitting a “gate guardian” T-33 display airplane on the airport. And then two so-called pilots in a Pipistrel Virus trainer at Cross City, Florida used up all their fuel, having to resort to their full-airplane parachute system. When will people ever learn: Airplanes fly on air, they don’t run on it.
This coming Saturday, the 28th, will be time for the monthly assembly of the Fliars Club, when the hardy meet at 7:30 a.m. to fly in search of breakfast. All dependent on suitable weather, of course.
Our weekly question from last time asked what Beechcraft plane was known as the “Marquis.” It was a Baron fitted with turboprop engines, a personally-flown airplane supposed to fit below the King Air. Now, for next time, what are “T-Route” numbered airways, shown on sectional aeronautical charts? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com
