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These are the times that try pilots’ souls: When it’s either so cold that starting an airplane is a major undertaking, even though clear skies are beckoning, or a warm front brings in clouds and frozen precipitation, closing runways. There were some hardy travelers in and out last week, or at least passing through, and the city snowplow crew did an excellent job of clearing what they could off the runway. The initial ice coating wouldn’t budge, awaiting nature’s touch on the black pavement, but they were able to push the follow-up snow covering off to open the field. A Beech Bonanza F33 came in, and we observed an Army Reserve CH-47 Chinook helicopter beating its way toward home.
The week’s California wildfire situation attracted a bunch of drone pilots, trying to get pictures and video feed, despite airspace closures over the conflagrations. Last Thursday, one of the two Canadair CL-415 amphibious scoop-up and dump airplanes CalFire has leased from the province of Quebec ran into such an errant drone and had to undergo a quick repair to patch a hole in the wing’s leading edge. They were just lucky the airplane made it back to base instead of crashing into the fire. Get your priorities right, people.
Just so you won’t run out of things to worry about, a Gulfstream business jet reportedly ran into what’s described as a "metallic object” off the Florida coast at 27,000 feet, back in December. The G550 was en route from Fort Lauderdale to New York and took the hit into an engine compressor fan, causing it to put down single-engine at Palm Beach. No drone that time.
The U.S. Parachute Association recently announced a new record low number of fatalities for 2024, when there were nine skydiving deaths recorded, the first single-digit year. This is despite growing numbers of skydives made; 2023 set a low mark of 0.27 deaths per 100,000 jumps. Rigorous safety protocols are helping improve what is an inherently dangerous sport. Fifty years ago, the normal fatality rate was over 40 per year, with much less activity.
On a warm June day last summer, a student and instructor were conducting multi-engine training in a Tecnam P2006 light twin-engine plane out in Colorado, near an airport with an elevation of 6700 feet. They shut down one of the Rotax 912 engines for practice, feathering the propeller, but when they restarted it, they were unsuccessful in getting enough thrust to maintain altitude in the thin air. Unable to reach an airport, an attempt to land on highway I-25 was made, but the airplane hit a road sign so the Italian-made twin wound up crashing in a swamp, with serious injuries. The NTSB issued the preliminary report, although it delegated the investigation to the local FAA office. Lessons learned: 100-hp Rotax engines aren’t powerful enough for a twin, don’t try to land on highways, and never do single-engine training unless within close range of an airport.
An Oklahoma City company is developing a “perpetual flight” unmanned aircraft, powered by solar cells and storage batteries so it can stay up essentially forever. It’s as big as a Boeing 747 airliner, but weighs very little, supposedly offering a payload of 800 pounds. They’ve flown it six times last year, reaching an altitude of 33,000 feet. It’s planned to offer 90-day-long surveillance missions at low cost.
The question from last week asked the year the Douglas DC-3 airliner made its first flight. Reader Rodney Rom correctly reported that American Airlines put it into service in 1936. However, it made the initial test flight on December 17, 1935, the 32nd anniversary of Wright Brothers first flight. For next week, our question is "what was the length of Butler airport’s first runway?" You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
