.JPG)
Finding a time when it’s safe to fly is difficult when winter tightens its grip. The fronts moved slowly and moisture trapped in the lower atmosphere reducing ceilings to near zero. Harrisonville’s nearby weather station has evidently had a broken visibility meter for a month or more, but everyone else has been reporting under 3 miles at least part of the time. There were some training flights coming through on Friday and other clear days, despite the wind, but traffic here was sparce.
One bit of good news is that 100-octane lightly-leaded aviation gasoline is once again flowing at Butler airport. The pump was fired up on Friday after a year of various snafus, and it only awaits the state’s weights-and-measures inspection to gain full approval. Now to get some good weather to burn the stuff.
But wait, there’s more… Last week, we reported on the continuing troubles with the totally-automated flight controls on Airbus A320 airliners, when an American Airlines Airbus bound from Cancun to Newark encountered a sharp drop last month, injuring 15 passengers. The FAA and other regulators issued a directive to reprogram Airbus computers, blaming solar flare activity for the jerkiness. Now a British radiation specialist reports in Space.com that solar radiation was normal that day, and instead he blames the event on cosmic rays from an exploding star. Whatever the cause, we doubt that the Oh-so-high-tech Airbuses will ever be refitted with old-fashioned manual pulley-and-cable controls.
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s getting to be a shortage of aircraft mechanics, even with a steep rise in shop rates. Service technicians can make twice as much working on trucks as airplanes, with less liability; the average hourly bench rate for aircraft electronics shops is $134 an hour, $149 in California. A lot of big-city aircraft shops won’t even work on piston-powered airplanes, preferring to specialize in turbine-powered business aircraft, where they can charge more. Plan on buying your mechanic a nice Christmas present to keep him happy.
It’s not just the Navy’s jet fighters that are falling out of the sky these days. The famous U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds lost one of their F-16C showplanes last Wednesday, when the pilot had to eject over San Bernadino, California. No one on the ground was hurt, but the pilot was injured in the punch-out event. No details of probable cause were immediately available.
Sometimes old-fashioned bent tin makes for better aircraft parts that ultra-modern plastic pieces. A Cozy homebuilt over in England recently had a self-made 3-D printed carburetor air intake elbow soften up and collapse in the engine room, causing an off-airport landing. While homebuilt experimental airplanes allow a lot of freedom in construction, common sense dictates making sure all the parts are suitable for intended use.
The question from last week concerned the size of machine gun ammunition fired by British WW-II fighter planes. The Brits stuck with the old 303 Enfield rounds, while American planes fired 50-caliber Browning machine guns. Looking back even farther, most history buffs know the Boeing B-17 bomber was the first plane to require a checklist to operate. Can you tell us why the list was developed? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
