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Taking Free Flights
The past week had some flyable opportunities, before Winter Storm Fern shut everthing down from Friday on. She was a rough lady, swallowing up airports across a big section of the middle U.S. The jet jockeys were the only ones flying, and even they had to get up quickly and dive down for instrument landings to avoid the icing layers. Finding alternate airports in case one’s destination closed for snow was the tricky part.
Among the week’s airplane arrivals at Butler were a Cirrus SR-series on Thursday, an overnighting Piper Cherokee 140, a Beech Bonanza A36 and a Cessna Skylane. The few local participants were Jerold and Steve Koehn in their Cessna Skyhawk and yours truly in the Cessna 172. Mike Newman was down from Harrisonville to do some mechanic work on a plane.
Quite a few announcements showed up in the national inbox during the week. It appears that O’Hare airport in Chicago has regained its crown as the busiest traffic hub, having logged slightly more takeoffs and landings last year than Atlanta, which had taken the title for the past few years, with somewhat over 800,000 movements. Atlanta Hartsfield boarded more passengers than O’Hare, however.
A Delta Airlines passenger suffered the indignity of wet pants while waiting to take off last week. The airliner was being de-iced with glycol solution and some of the green goo forced it way past door seals, which weren’t yet pressurized, dripping onto the hapless fare. They had to return to the gate to let him off for a change. The fluid is relatively harmless, but messy.
Drone pilots beware. The FAA has issued “roving Temporary Flight Restrictions” over what it calls “mobile assets” like convoys or people from U.S. Defense, Homeland Security or Energy agencies. You can’t fly your drone within 3000 feet, or 1000 above, these government movements, or your drone operator’s license will be revoked. It wasn’t made clear how we’re supposed to know who, when or where a TFR is triggered.
Last Tuesday, a former Air Canada flight attendant was arrested for taking free flights on airliners, using fake pilot credentials that allowed him to fly space-available as a commuting crewmember. Some of the time he was given the “jump seat” in the cockpit when the cabin was full. He scammed United, American, Hawaiian and Air Canada for four years until caught in Panama. Yes, he’s being held without bail, as a “flight risk.”
Denmark has retired its air force’s F-16 fighters after 46 years of service, replacing them with the stealthier Lockheed Martin F-35A. The last operational F-16 flight was completed on January 18. Denmark took delivery of its F-35’s in 2023.
Also on Tuesday, Air Force One, a Boeing 747 carrying the President to Davos, Switzerland, had to turn around over the Atlantic and return to change to the back-up airplane, citing a “minor electrical issue.” As far as I’m concerned, no issue is minor when crossing an ocean in the dark.
An NTSB investigation report was released last week about an Air Methods medical helicopter crash in November. Returning to its base at Gallatin, Tennessee, without a patient, the EC-130’s pilot became unresponsive and the non-pilot paramedic attempted to take over and land the aircraft using the pilot’s controls. The resulting rough arrival caused a tip-over and the death of the flight nurse onboard; the pilot and paramedic survived with serious injuries.
No response was received regarding last week’s question about Meteor Crater out in Arizona, a prominent landmark for pilots flying to the southern West Coast. The crater is 4180 feet across, not the 500 feet or so reported in the last issue of Flying Magazine. For next week, what was the “Blue Spruce” route flown by pilots during World War II? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.