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Sand Blasted at 36,000 Feet
Many flying plans were thwarted over last weekend, although there were periods of rain-free high ceilings that would serve adequately for local flights. Taking advantage of the good days before Friday gave some opportunities to log time.
Transient traffic during the past week included the usual suspects, with no noteworthy aircraft. David Bradley flew over from Boonville in a Cessna Skyhawk and Josh Poe came down from Miami County in his Cessna 172. Local movers and shakers were Roy Conley in his Grumman Tr2 and gyrocopter, Randy and Bettie Miller in the club Skyhawk, and meself in the Aeronca Champion. Delaney Rindal made some final flights in her Cessna 150s, including a refueling run to Harrisonville.
Do not neglect to set your clocks back one hour this Saturday night, and go to bed an hour early to get your night’s worth. It’ll be nice to rise and shine with daylight again, but be prepared to land by late afternoon unless you were night-flying current in the last 90 days. I did my three takeoffs and landings on August 10, so I’m good for another week or so. There is, of course, no penalty for allowing currency to lapse, so long as you don’t carry passengers.
I always wondered what would happen if an airplane ran into one of those little radiosonde packages lifted into the stratosphere by a weather balloon. The information gathered by the balloons, launched by the hundreds every day, is vital to forecasting the weather, but even a few ounces hitting a 500-mph airplane has gotta hurt. When the balloon pops the package drifts down under a parachute, remaining a hazard. Well, we learned the effect last week last Thursday when a Denver-to-LA United Airlines 737 took a hit on its windshield frame at 36,000 feet, its sand ballast denting the structure and shattering the glass into the cockpit. The plane did not depressurize and diverted successfully to Salt Lake City. Evidently the balloon’s launch company had lost contact with that particular device and didn’t know its exact location.
What are some effects of aviation from the government shutdown? The Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds flight demonstration teams aren’t doing their scheduled appearances, and most fly-overs from local air bases at sporting events aren’t happening. And the training academy for new air traffic controllers at Oklahoma City is shut down. Although they’ve been asked to work without being paid, some ATC workers are having to flip burgers at McDonalds to pay the mortgage, leaving control towers partly unstaffed. Some aviation weather services are not available when getting preflight briefings.
A Minnesota pilot has had his airplane seized by the Red Lake Indian Reservation after landing on a road after an engine failure two weeks ago. It seems that the Tribal Council recently passed an ordinance banning aircraft flying over their grounds below 20,000 feet, in a squabble with the Air Force’s training routes, despite Federal preemption of regulating airspace. The Council will have a pow-wow on November 4th to decide on what to do with the impounded plane.
The last-week’s question asked why boats and planes have a red light on their left side and a green one on the right. The correct answer is to determine right of way for converging vessels; if you see a red light you must give way, green means you can proceed. If you see both, duck! For next time, tell us the contribution to aviation made by Mr. Edwin Link. You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
