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What Is That Thing?
Until the weekend, the past week’s flying weather was near perfect, prompting a lot of traffic and encouraging airplanes being pulled out to go fly. Summertime flying has finally showed up; puffy white clouds floating in blue sky, shirtsleeve attire and wide open air vents.
In addition to daily B-2 bomber overflights, considerable transient movements were seen. A Piper Archer, a Piper Cherokee, and a St. Louis-based Piper Saratoga were in, as were a Cessna 172 and a Cirrus SR22. From the local sheds, Roy Conley flew his Grumman Tr2, I exercised the 1946 Aeronca, the Koehn Cessna Skyhawk made multiple sorties and the Club 172 got drug to the wash rack for scrubbing. The BCS AirTractor agplane flew from dawn to dusk almost daily, servicing farms over the area.
The unusual turboprop-powered single now parked on the Butler ramp drew curious looks last week. It’s a Pacific Aerospace XL750 jump plane, serving as SkyDive KC’s load hauler in the absence of their Cessna Caravan. The PAC 750 holds 9 jumpers or more, climbs quickly with 750 hp up front, and has a distinctive purpose-driven shape. Built in New Zealand, it was developed from the Fletcher Aircraft FU-24 designed in California by John Thorp in the 1950s. The Fletcher was specifically made to spread fertilizer over hilly sheep pastures, with a single pilot seat up front and a big hopper in the back. Over the years, it grew heavier and bigger, swapping a Lycoming piston engine for the Pratt & Whitney turboprop. Now it’s been adapted for parachuting.
In national news, an outfit called Hermeus is flying an unmanned fighter/bomber prototype that looks somewhat like a delta-wing F-16. The little drone combat vehicle has hit Mach 1.21 over New Mexico in testing and is supposed to demonstrate deploying ordinance while supersonic. It may replace piloted aircraft in theater.
Meanwhile, NASA is about to go supersonic at Edwards AFB with its X-59 boomless test airplane, a needle-nose manned experimental craft doing research on flying at Mach 1.4 without generating a sonic boom, paving the way for possible commercial supersonic transports. Currently, U.S. law prohibits exceeding Mach 1 over land. The X-59 has no windshield; the pilot uses video screens to see out during takeoff and landing. The test plane may not make a sonic boom, but the chase aircraft flying alongside certainly will.
Last Wednesday, the Marine Corps held a retirement ceremony at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, for the AV-8B Harrier vertical takeoff ground support jet. The screaming British-developed hover-jet has been in service for 50-some years and is being replaced by the Lockheed Martin F-35B, which uses a lift-fan to make VTOL operations.
Our question from last week was “how fast do jet airliners move when taxiing with idle power?” Probably an average of about 35 mph, but with the residual thrust at idle you have to ride the brakes to keep speed down. For next time, why don’t jets use reverse thrust instead of brakes for ground operations? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
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