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Many good flying opportunities presented themselves last week, Pilots who missed those nice days probably are living with regret, given that January isn’t prone to being a welcoming month for aviation. The advisory frequencies were filled with chatter as traffic patterns were busy with fun flyers exercising their wings. About the only visibility restriction was a smoke layer in the lower 3000 feet of the atmosphere, generated by brush and grass fires burning off debris.
Hereabouts, we had a Piper Warrior or two come by, a rare Vashon Ranger trainer dropped in, a Cessna Stationair made a landing and a 1967 Cessna 172 visited. The pilot of a Beech Sierra expressed his thanks for a “nice little airport,” when he landed Saturday with a minor maintenance issue. He borrowed a car to get repair supplies and used the waiting room before proceeding on.
Local flyers taking wing last week were Jim and Dan Ferguson in the family Cessna Skylane, Jeremie Platt in his Grumman Tiger, Roy Conley and daughter in the Grumman Tr2, Lance Dirks in the club Skyhawk and Brandt Hall in a Piper TriPacer. Gerald Bauer and I flew the 172 to Higginsville and back.
On the national scene, a Latam Airlines Boeing 767 landing at Atlanta International airport Tuesday evening on a flight from Lima, Peru, had all eight maingear tires blow out, shutting down that runway for a while until the big widebody could be removed. All passengers and crew had to evacuate via the emergency slides.
During the Caracas, Venezuela extraction last week, one of the pilots of the CH-47 Chinook helicopters carrying Army Delta Force commandos was wounded in the leg three times by ground fire, but managed to fly back to the USS Iwo Jima base ship. A total of 80 commandos were involved in the nighttime strike, with seven casualties.
Boeing’s order book was enlarged by an order from Alaska Airlines last week, with the carrier signing up for 105 737-Max 10 and 5 787 Dreamliners, to be delivered over the next 10 years. Even with increased production rates, the need for replacement airliners is exceeding factory capacity. Boeing also received an order from Israel for 50 F-15 Eagle fighter jets, which will be built at the St. Louis division.
Confusion remains about foreign-made drones being allowed to be imported. In December, the Federal Communications Commission issued restrictions on foreign (mostly Chinese) drones due to national security concerns with the communication gear used in them. But last week it was determined that public sector users of drones couldn’t get by without continuing deliveries, so we’ll have to let them in until 2027. Somebody should have seen this coming.
The question of the week was about FAA NOTAMs, specifically how many categories of notices there are; airports, navaids, VIP, national secuirity, etc. It turns out that there’s 13 different types of NOTAMS, most of which are never read by anybody. For next time, tell us where the largest building in the world, measured by volume, is located. Hint, it has to do with aviation. You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
