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Cirrus Burns Under Canopy, Malevolent Drones Attack
From the air, burned up pastures and harvesting corn give the landscape a brownish fall cast. The seasonable temperature inversions of autumn mornings mean ground fog is a possibility and warm air will be encountered on climbout. September brings some of the best flying weather of the year.
Visiting movements noted past week around the Butler aerodrome were a Beech Baron twin, a Cessna Skylane and a Piper Archer. Local aviators airborne included Jeremie Platt in his Grumman Tiger, Gerald Bauer and Randy Miller, both flying missions in the club Cessna Skyhawk, Jerel and Steven Koehn went out in their Cessna 172 on different occasions, and your faithful scribe was up in the Aeronca Champion. A pair of Cessnas dueled in the traffic pattern Thursday night under the eclipsing full moon. A total of five Fliars participated in the last-Saturday Fliars Club Flyout.
The World Aerobatic flying competition was finishing up at press time in Mason City, Iowa, one of the rare U.S. hostings of the contest. A total of 35 pilots from 8 countries took to the sky to tumble, roll and loop in front of judges, all to pick the best performance. Unlike airshow acrobatics, competition flight involves following a planned program in a specific box of airspace, much like figure skating. We’ll report on the winners next week.
The battle for airspace access is heating up in Palm Beach County, Florida, where President Trump’s Mir-A-Lago resort home occupies a cylinder of restricted sky, even during times when the President is not in residence. Somehow, the secret service thought it was a good idea to block off airspace continuously, rather than have it turned on and off intermittently, which keeps traffic from the former Palm Beach International airport routed over noise-sensitive neighborhoods. The one-mile, up to 2000-feet, no-fly zone is an invisible hazard to air traffic, with frequent violations logged. Unfortunately, the only winners are the law firms filing protests, which will probably go nowhere.
Meanwhile, Space X is planning a huge space launch facility at Pecan Island, Louisiana, with 10 launch pads capable of shooting up thousands of rockets annually. The Boca Chica, Texas Space-X complex is evidently out of room and Elon Musk’s company wants to be able to put more hardware into orbit. It’s a $100 billion project encompassing 125,000 acres. Construction is to begin next year, with liftoffs starting in 2029.
Down in Brazil, a Cirrus SR-22 pilot made news last week when he pulled his emergency whole-plane parachute handle after hearing a noise and explosion on board, and as the airplane descended under canopy it was observed to be trailing smoke and flames. Fortunately the pilot was able to extricate himself after touchdown, leaving the Cirrus to be consumed by the conflagration. Could have been worse, under the circumstances.
In Germany, attack drones have been found at Leipzig airport, probably Russian in origin, evidently failed attempts to blow up cargo planes at the hub facility there. In other attacks at Ukraine, there has been evidence of AI-piloted drones that select targets on their own, using images of likely sites. Scary stuff.
In the last column, our brain-teaser wanted to know of the name of the guy that first developed the whole-airplane emergency parachute. Believe it or not, it was Boris Popov. For next time, we want to know the origin of Nashville, TN, airport’s ICAO code of “BNA”, as it prepares to be renamed “Dolly Parton International.” You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
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