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Unsuccessful Hitchhiking
Some springtime weather fronts interfered with flying plans last week, a normal consequence of the Easter season, but there were opportunities to get airborne for the patient aviator. We did have to battle some gusty winds, often misaligned with the available runway direction; builds character, as my old instructor used to say.
Transient traffic included an RV-6 homebuilt, a Piper Dakota and a Cirrus SR-series. Not much was seen stirring from the local hangars, owing to the unsettled weather conditions.
A St. Charles, MO flight school has shut down operations, leaving students who put up advance payment for lessons holding the bag. This happens all too frequently, when the money on deposit gets spent and can’t be refunded. We always advised students to put the funds in secure escrow, not in the hands of the operator, even if promised a big discount for up-front payment.
On the international aviation scene, we lost another F-15E fighter jet in the mideast war last week, this time over Iran, unlike the three shot down by Kuwaiti friendly fire last month. So far, one of the two crewmen has been extracted, with an Iranian bounty placed on the head of the second.
In what’s being billed as a near-replay of last-year’s tragic collision between an Army Black Hawk and a commuter airline at Washington, DC, a United 737 and a California Army Guard UH-60 recently passed within 525 feet vertically and 1422 feet laterally during landing at Anaheim's John Wayne airport. However, this time it was daylight, both crews reported the other aircraft in sight and there was only a minor loss of required separation. If the TCAS monitor in the jet’s cockpit hadn't gone off, directing a pull-up, it wouldn’t have been on the news.
Looks as if the Palm Beach, FL, International airport is going to be renamed The Donald J. Trump international airport, by State legislation. Fooling around with “official” airport names adds no end of confusion, as when Kansas City renamed Downtown as The Charles B. Wheeler airport some years back, while former mayor Charlie Wheeler was also still alive. At least the ICAO designation, PBI, won’t change.
And then there’s the guy down in Daytona Beach, FL, who left his AA meeting and drove out to the Daytona’s International airport, crashed his Ford Mustang through the chainlink fence, cut some donuts on the ramp and then ran out to a taxiing Cessna Skyhawk, tugging on the door to try to flee from the cops. He found the over-center doorlatch locked, of course, and was taken into custody, loaded up on cocaine, marijuana and booze. He may need more than 12 Steps to get out this.
In our last question-of-the-week, we asked the identity of the retiring Congressman who is currently chair of the House Transportation committee. That would be Sam Graves, of Missouri’s 6th District, based in Tarkio. After 26 years, he's going back home to fly his fleet of airplanes. For next week, can you tell us what airplane was sold in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog back in the 1940s? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
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