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In Flight USA Articles
Growing up in West Virginia
By Steve Weaver
It’s a really neat thing to spend your life living where you grew up. One reason this is true is, you are constantly seeing things around you that remind you of earlier times in your life. The other day something I saw reminded me of my early fascination with things that flew. As I thought of how I was then, I wondered if there could exist in our modern world, a child with the intensity of yearning for the sky that I had when I was young. I recall a passion for the air that I can only describe as blood lust for the sky and the machines that went there. I was wild to see an airplane on the ground; one I could touch and look inside and inspect from all angles as I walked around it.
But such a thing was impossible, because I lived far out in the country and my family had no car, so I was without means to visit an airport and get close to an airplane. I remember that my young dreams frequently starred airplanes that had crashed near my home. Strangely and far from being ghoulish, these dreams featured no broken people or bloody pilots, but rather they were about airplanes that had simply come to earth, seemingly with no people involved. Later I realized my subconscious mind knew that if I was going to get close to an airplane, this was the only way it could happen.
Learn to Beat the Hazards of Winter Flying
By Alan Smith
When summer and fall have passed and the hard cold of winter has set in we have to be careful in setting up our airplanes for safe operation. Fuel, oil and flying surfaces need special care and preflight preparation will take a lot longer than it did in the days of warm sunshine. Flying through winter skies, whether gray or blue, also needs special care as cold temperatures get colder with altitude.
On preflight being careful with your fuel is important. Never park your airplane with partial or fully empty tanks. We all know that on a cool summer night condensation will occur in partially full tanks, but, in winter, you could have ice in the tanks that would not show up in a cursory drain check in preflight inspection. Drain each tank separately by at least a quart into a transparent container and look for any solid contamination along with water. In winter, storage tanks, even those underground, can acquire rust. Fuel delivery from them drops off during the cold season and the reduction of underground temperatures can cause a slight shrinkage in metal storage facilities and let internal surface corrosion work into stored fuel. These tanks can also acquire water through condensation.
Key Congressional Leaders Join Together to Oppose User Fees
In early October, a total of 134 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed letters to the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction (“Super Committee”) and to House and Senate leadership expressing strong opposition to the Obama administration’s proposal to impose a $100-per-flight fee as part of its deficit reducing package. The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and its member companies played a very active role in building support for both of these efforts.
Representatives Sam Graves (R-MO) and John Barrow (D-GA), co-chairs of the House General Aviation Caucus, authored a letter describing how detrimental user fees would be to the recovery and health of the general aviation (GA) industry. “General aviation user fees have been proposed several times by different Administrations, both Republican and Democrat. The U.S. House of Representatives has repeatedly and overwhelmingly opposed them,” the GA Caucus declared. “We support the current system of aviation excise taxes, which are a stable, efficient, and equitable source of funding. Per flight user fees have crippled the general aviation industry in other countries and we are concerned about the ramifications such fees would have in the U.S.”
ICAS Sets Tentative Convention Schedule
Smack In The Middle of a Thunderstorm
By Steve Weaver
I crouched miserably behind the instrument panel of the shuddering, heaving Aztec, listening to what sounded like a million BBs being shot against my windshield. I was reviewing my options as well as my sins, and I took what comfort I could from an observation that I remembered by someone who had been there; that when you’re really flying in hail, you won’t wonder if that’s what it is. I was still wondering, so this must still be rain. But rain like this I’d never seen. This was like being inside a garbage can that was being shot with fire hoses. I wondered how the engines could continue to run, since they seemed to be under water. Lightning was streaking on each side of me and almost at the same time the deafening crash of the thunder would for an instant, block the noise of the rain and even the engines. I was smack in the middle of a thunderstorm and I was not a happy young aviator.
Win A Luscombe
GAMA: User Fee Opposition
Reno 2011: Our Coverage
NTSB Premilinary Report
NTSB Identification: WPR11MA454
14 CFR Part 91: General Aviation
Accident occurred Friday, September 16, 2011 in Reno, Nev.
Aircraft: NORTH AMERICAN/AERO CLASSICS P-51D, registration: N79111
Injuries: 11 Fatal, 66 Serious.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.
Flying a Full Circle
By Pete Shirk
Air racing is a high-risk game but all the safety precautions and care usually keep it safe. Sometimes the best intentions are just not enough, and that happened in a horrible way on Friday, Sept. 16, 2011.
Jimmy Leeward, a veteran pilot and air racer, had taken all the precautions, and yet on lap three of the Gold Race, coming off pylon eight on the west end of the course and heading down the home stretch in front of the flight line, crowd, bleachers, VIP tents, trailers, food and beverage concessions, FAA trailer, and control tower, all the care, safety precautions, experience and expertise gave way to catastrophe.
9-11 Remembrances at Wine Country Airshow
By Hayman Tam
A piece of Ground Zero was on display next to the “First Responder” F-15 Eagle. (Hayman Tam)Close to 25,000 airshow fans came out for the Wings Over Wine Country Airshow put together by the Pacific Coast Air Museum (PCAM) in Santa Rosa, Calif. This two-day show takes place at Charles Schulz – Sonoma County Airport (STS) and is the museum’s major fundraising event. The cloudy skies cleared and the temperature warmed up to perfect, just right to put in earplugs and sunscreen and enjoy the festivities.
This year’s airshow honored two national occasions occurring this year, the Centennial of Naval Aviation and the 10th Anniversary of the 9-11 attack.
The Navy theme was echoed on the ground by the museum’s F-14A Tomcat, F-16N Viper, F-5E Freedom Fighter, A-4E Skyhawk, F-8 Crusader and A-6E Intruder. Wings of Gold took to the air in the form of flybys with several USN T-28 Trojans and a very rare C-1A Trader, a long-retired carrier onboard delivery aircraft. The popular Greg Colyer traded his normal USAF T-33 for one with a U.S. Navy “Blue Angels” motif, exciting the crowd as the only featured jet performer, showing how nimble a fifty-plus year old jet can be.
Film Critic and Author Leonard Maltin On Some of His Favorite Aviation Films
By S. Mark Rhodes
Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guides have been a great resource for filmgoers to discover new favorites and re-visit old chestnuts. His most recent addition (Leonard Maltin’s 2012 Movie Guide from Signet) is nearly 1,700 pages and weighs in at nearly two pounds (it can crush the Kindle!).
Embedded within this guide are insightful, capsule interviews of some of the most noteworthy aviation films that Hollywood turned out in its golden age. Mr. Maltin was nice enough to speak to In Flight USA’s Mark Rhodes about some of his favorite aviation films and how the aviation film genre might make a comeback.
In Flight USA: Once upon a time the aviation film was as much a part of Hollywood genre films as the Detective film, the Western, the Science Fiction film and so on. What do you think are the reasons that the genre declined?
Leonard Maltin: (Long Pause) “I am just guessing mind you, but I think a lot of it has to do with gaming (video games) which maybe has taken the place of the excitement audiences used to get with aviation movies. When Top Gun (1986) came out in the 80s there was a lot of comment then about how some of the combat flying sequences resembled video games. And in those intervening years, those games have become really vivid and even realistic. This (the rise of gaming) might have replaced some of the thrill that films like Top Gun used to provide movie audiences.”
Author Jack Whitehouse’s Fire Island History Sheds Light on an Early Chapter of U.S. Military Aviation
By S. Mark Rhodes
Embedded within the pages of Jack Whitehouse’s new book, Fire Island: Heroes & Villains on Long Island’s Wild Shore (History Press) is the fascinating, but mostly forgotten story of the creation of one of the first U.S. Naval Air Station’s on Long Island near the community of Bay Shore, New York in 1917. Whitehouse, an author/historian with a fascinating resume that includes graduation from Brown, a stint as the commanding officer of a patrol gunboat as well as having had the honor of being the first Naval Officer to participate in an exchange program with the Royal Norwegian Navy was nice enough to check in with In Flight’s Mark Rhodes about his book and this unique chapter in not only Long Island, but U.S. aviation.
In Flight USA: Bay Shore was basically the second American community to get a United States Naval Air Station. What do you think the rationale for locating it there was in particular?
Jack Whitehouse: “The Navy had several good reasons for selecting Bay Shore, located in approximately the geographic middle of the south shore of Long Island, as a location for a U.S. Naval Air Station. First, in 1916 the Second Battalion of the Naval Militia of the State of New York had built an eight-acre base in Bay Shore on the edge of the Great South Bay. The purpose of the naval militia base was to train naval volunteers in flying and aviation mechanics; thus to a great extent the site was already functioning as a naval air station.”