Big Stink In Washington
March switched back and forth, lamb to lion to back to lamb, keeping pilots on their toes last week. On the days when skies cleared and the wind laid, quite a bit of traffic was seen. War news kept everyone jittery, but stateside activity has to continue to keep things moving. Losing an old KC-135 refueling tanker plane’s crew in a midair collision over Iraq was a sad blow, a needless waste of resources.
Traffic observed included a Beech Debonair, a Cessna Skyhawk and a Piper Arrow. Also, Mike Golden was over from New Century, KS in his Cessna Turbo Centurion and Tom Bowles flew in from Kansas City Downtown with his Cessna Turbo Skylane RG. Locally, Layne Anderson made a couple of sorties in his Darter Commander, one of our Cessna Skyhawks went up and the old 1946 Aeronca got some exercise.
In national and world news, airline passengers at the Washington, DC airports were stuck in their terminals last Friday evening, when noxious odors were detected in the Potomac approach control facility, which handles traffic for Dulles, National and Baltimore. The origin was undisclosed, but things got moving again after a few hours. This stinks, on top of the TSA screeners having to work without pay due to the blockage of Homeland Security funding in Congress.
The first of a burgeoning category of eVTOL “flying taxis,” the JOBY Aviation electric six-rotor four-passenger carrier for short-range urban travel, has entered FAA conformation testing. Based in Marina, California, JOBY is not building drones, but piloted (for now) aircraft to perform up-and-over commuting. We’ll see how the market reacts; costs and competitiveness have yet to be established.
The city of Superior, Colorado, a town near Denver,, has brought suit against businesses at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport over alleged noise and lead pollution falling from skies filled with flight training aircraft. The suit was dismissed by district and appeal courts, who both determined that only Federal government can regulate noise, not municipalities. The lead pollution has yet to be established. These cases can have industry-wide ramifications, by setting precedent.
Long-time automatic pilot maker S-TEC prime product, the 3100 autopilot, has been sold off to Innovative Aerosystems. In a market largedly defined by Garmin’s G500 and G600 autopilots, the S-TEC unit provides a needed alternative to ripping out everything to install a Brand G upgrade. The 3100 can work with earlier S-TEC autopilot servos and communicates with Aspen glass panels. Competition is a good thing.
A report out of the Middle East says a pro-Iran terrorist group in Iraq has offered a $1 million bounty for a USAF pilot who was supposedly shot down over its territory. They only pay for the severed head of the American, not his intact body; let’s hope there’s no takers.
In our previous weekly quiz, we wanted to know why a Cirrus airplane wouldn’t fit in the old original hangars at Butler airport, built in 1948. It’s because the modern Cirrus tail is too wide for the cinder-block T-hangar’s tail slot. For next time, our question is, “Did Piper Aircraft Co. ever build a jet?” You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
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