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When The Neighbors Say No Way
A return to 100-degree afternoon ground temps last week discouraged flying in the heat of the day, but by the time you read this, all should be back into fall conditions. On Thursday, we sweated through a flight with 80-plus degrees at 4000 feet MSL; it was cooler on the ground before takeoff.
The week’s in-and-out movements at Butler aerodome included an undetermined high-wing homebuilt two-seater, a Piper Super Cub and a Cessna 172. Scott Phillips was down from Drexel in a Cessna Skylane and Randy Shannon flew his Zenith 750 SD homebuilt over to Mexico, MO on Friday to attend Zenith Aircraft’s annual Homecoming gathering.
Local flyers included Jeremie Platt moving his Grumman Tiger, Steven Koehn flying his Cessna Skyhawk, instructors Christian Tucker and Jay McClintock exercising the Piper Tomahawk and BCS making some runs in the AirTractor sprayplane.
Forget what I said in last week’s column about the Lincoln, MO Fly-in being rescheduled for September 26, this coming Saturday. Despite the rain, it went off as planned on the 12th, with about 25 planes attending. What is to happen on the 26th is the last-Saturday assembling of the Fliar’s Club, so any Fliars wishing to participate should be on the ramp at 0730 hours, in full regalia.
Leftover nationwide aviation news included the following items. In observance of the 25th Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, there were plans to fly a United Airlines Boeing 777 in a low pass over United’s training center in Denver, with four F-16 fighters escorting it. The flight was to be a tribute to the lives lost in the two United planes on 9/11. However, when word of the planned flight got out the community objected and it had to be canceled.
Another NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) outcome interrupted plans by the CEO of Beta Technologies for a 900-foot landing area next to his Vermont home. Beta is developing neat little electric vertical-takeoff/landing vehicles that are supposed to be just the ticket for personal commuting, but as we suspected, neighbors don’t always want one buzzing around their property. The Zoning Board heard their objections and turned down his proposal.
A pilot of a Beech Duke twin took off from Oklahoma City’s Sundance suburban airport a couple of weeks ago, but he departed with the ground-handling tow bar still attached to the nosegear. Luckily, it didn’t jam the gear during retraction, but its presence was detected and they diverted to Wiley Post airport for better emergency services. Because the Duke is a twin-engine plane, there was no interference from a propeller on the nose, and the pilot kept the nosegear off as long as he could during the landing. The tow bar skipped along harmlessly, followed by the tire, so no damage resulted. A better preflight inspection will no doubt be conducted on any future flights.
Week before last, an American Eagle Embraer E170 commuter airliner left Chicago for Minneapolis with 52 s.o.b. (souls on board) when the captain reported a “loose control yoke,” requesting an immediate return to address the issue. The flight landed successfully using the copilot’s control wheel and those passengers willing were able to depart about 30 minutes late. It’ll be interesting to see what the investigation turns up, since the Embraer is a fly-by-wire airplane and the yoke only moves actuators rather than actual flight controls.
The Los Angeles County tax assessor, who’s enforcing LA’s rules about “habitual situating” of aircraft part-time in the county for property tax purposes, plays hardball. A Valdez, Alaska helicopter owner took his R44 ‘copter to the Torrance factory for overhaul, and got a tax lien for $5700 slapped on it for the time it was there; maintenance stays are supposed to be exempt. Supposedly, the mistake was acknowledged, but the lien still encumbered his title for months.
Because of the SNAFU (WW-II speak, Situation Normal, All Fouled Up) in last week's column, we’re going to recycle the previous brain-teaser for this time: What kind of airplane was built by the U.S. Naval Aircraft Factory in the early 1940s? You can send your answers to kochhaus1@gmail.com.
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