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Helicopter Taken Out By Drone
After skirting around us all week, thunderstorms rolled in for the weekend, thwarting some flights. We had been enjoying smooth early-morning air, and even atop the haze in the afternoon it was tolerable. But a lingering front finally moved down to our area Friday evening.
We heard a report of a C-130 Hercules transport flying over, accompanied by a pair of Marine Osprey powered-lift assault aircraft. The tilt-rotor Osprey converts from helicopter mode to fixed-wing for cross-country flight, and it is capable of mid-air refueling from equipped C-130s. Among the week’s airport visitors were Tom and Patty Bowles, who flew down from Kansas City in their Cessna Skylane RG. A Cessna Caravan 208B turboprop showed up for the weekend to haul skydivers for SkyDive KC.
Local flyers were Delaney Rindal in one of her Cessna 150s, me in the club’s Cessna Skyhawk and Roy Conley in his Grumman Tr2. Gerald and Sally Bauer took the 172 to Miami County Saturday morning. The BCS AirTractors had a busy week doing aerial application.
The investigation into the terrible after-takeoff accident of Air India flight 271 a few months ago has revealed a strange turn. From what they’ve found, it appears that both fuel-shutoff controls were in the “off” position, which explains the sudden loss of power. The mystery remains; why were they turned off?
One of the rescue helicopters working to find victims of the flash-flood disaster in the Hill Country of Texas was taken out of service last week after it ran into a drone flying illegally. There was the usual FAA flight restriction in place, so no aircraft, including drones were supposed to be in the area. But eager drone operators frequently want to get a picture and go where they’re not supposed to be. Our heart goes out to the grieving folks of Kerr County; I’ve spent considerable time in Kerrville visiting the Mooney Aircraft factory. Good people down there.
Congress has approved the appointment of Bryan Bedford, former CEO of Republic Airlines, as the new FAA Administrator, even though he’s only a private pilot. His administrative credentials seem to be impressive, and he wouldn’t be flying in his headman position. Republic always said he was a commercial pilot, but it turns out he only had taken the written.
Last time, we asked how many runway threshold stripes were painted on the ends of Butler airport’s pavement. After all, we fly over them all the time. But nobody told us there were six strips, two sets of three flanking the centerstripe. That’s standard for 75-foot wide runways; 100-footers get eight. For next week, we’d like to know why some radial engines on early airplanes were called “rotary” engines. You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.