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In Flight USA Articles
Contrails: Twisted Humor Stalks the Skies
By Steve Weaver
I’ll admit it, during the years that I was instructing, as much as I loved to fly and to teach flying, there were times when I needed a break. The years that I was running the little country flight school in the late sixties and teaching eight to ten hours a day for weeks without a break, I sometimes longed for a change of pace. It was hard, unrelenting work.
But the schedule of the flight school dictated the hours that we flew and in the summer, we tried to take advantage of the long days. We harvested every hour that we could to help us stand against the long, dark winter that was to follow, and summer days when I could just relax were few.
So sometimes I did dumb things that amused me, just to break up the routine a bit. It was nothing that I could go on the road with, but those incidents served to give me chuckles and most of the time, they gave them to the whole airport.
Ninety Nines Women Pilots – Flying in Amelia Earhart’s Footsteps
By Donia Moore
OC 99s Aviation Week (Donia Moore)The Powder Puff Derby was in full flight, with aircraft landing and taking off from Lockheed Terminal, piloted by women members of the International Ninety Nines Women’s Flying Club. On the ground, Girl Scout Troop 671 watched in awe as the pilots maneuvered their aircraft around the tower and headed through the clear skies for the next leg of the relay air race. Most of the young Scouts had never even seen a small plane, outside or inside, and few had ever seen women pilots flying them. Amelia Earhart was a distant historical figure to most of them. The girls were at the airport to act as hostesses for the lady fliers, helping out where they could. One of the Scouts was so captivated by the 
Cameron’s first solo - Fullerton 99s. (Donia Moore)scene that she only stare longingly at what looked to her like toy airplanes come to life.
The mother of another of the Scouts was flying in the competition that day. Though she was well known and well liked by them all, none of the other Scouts except her daughter had ever seen her fly her plane before. Noting the rapturous look on the Scout’s face, she decided to return to the airport later that afternoon and offer to take the girls up for a ride. She didn’t know that the experience would fuel the lifelong dream of one young Scout to take her own place above the clouds.
Fighting Flight
By Shanon Kern
C-FHAD making a water landing. (Courtesy Shanon Kern)On a warm June day, in Vancouver B.C., my family and I watched in awe as small single engine air taxis took off from the bay and disappeared over the horizon. I could see the amazement and wonder in my children’s eyes as the single engine caravan taxied out to the center of the bay and magically lifted upward. In an instant, I was transported back to my own childhood amazement of flight. My Father, a newly minted commercial pilot, flew the “Sports book” from Laughlin, Nev. to Las Vegas, Nev. every night for the casinos. I was his sleeping stow away. By the age of five, my mind was convinced that I would be a pilot like my father.
By the age of seven, my father had changed careers and stopped flying. Somewhere over the years, as life progressed, I had forgotten about my young dreams of becoming a pilot. I was left instead with a completely unfounded and debilitating fear of heights and flying. I spent my entire twenties distancing myself from the dreams of the younger “me”.
Skies to Stars: Moons
By Ed Downs
Notice, the title of this month’s Skies to Stars is “Moons,” the plural of “Moon.” No, Earth did not pick up another moon, but the one we have is fascinating. This writer’s 12” reflector is well adapted to study our moon in surprising detail. With a clear sky and 300 power magnification, the normal visual distance of about 250,000 miles can be cut down to a surprisingly close 800 miles. Not only can one see the vast number of craters that were created during the late heavy bombardment period (upwards to four billion years ago), but also the mountain ranges and “seas” that were formed by volcanic activity. Best observed when less than half full to improve shadow contrast, our moon is a wonder of discoveries. But our moon is not the only show in town. Mercury and Venus do not have moons, we have one and Mars has two small moons, leaving the inner rocky planets significantly “moon challenged.” You see, there are at least 180 moons (and still counting) in our solar system; many of which can be seen by amateur astronomers.
On the Cover: SAM MASON: The YoungestMember of the U.S. National Aerobatic Team
EAA to FAA: ADS-B Mandate Fraught With Hurdles for GA
Cost, Compliance, Lack of Benefits Preventing Adoption
EAA Vice President of Advocacy and Safety, Sean Elliott, told the FAA on Oct. 28 that while the recreational aviation community is willing to work toward a modernization of the national airspace system, mandated ADS-B compliance is still fraught with too many hurdles to motivate general aviation aircraft owners to install the costly equipment.
Speaking at an FAA-sponsored “call to action” summit on ADS-B and NextGen in Washington, D.C., Elliott emphasized that the low installation rate in GA aircraft thus far–only about 6,200 aircraft out of 157,000 in the fleet––is due to a dubious cost/benefit ratio for aircraft owners. The FAA has mandated that ADS-B be installed in those aircraft by 2020 as a cornerstone of the NextGen system.
NBAA Airs Member Concerns at FAA’s ADS-B “Call to Action” Summit
Doug Carr, NBAA’s vice president of regulatory and international affairs, shared Member Companies’ concerns about the Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) system at the FAA’s “Call to Action” summit, held Oct. 28 in Washington, DC. The meeting attracted more than 100 representatives from government and industry organizations.
The FAA’s goal for the summit was to work with industry representatives to identify and overcome the barriers to operators equipping with ADS-B Out avionics by the Jan. 1, 2020 deadline.
Carr expressed concerns about the challenges of maintaining privacy on ADS-B Out equipped aircraft, while other industry representatives relayed a variety of concerns of aircraft owners and operators, including questions regarding the overall benefit of ADS-B.
Embry-Riddle Worldwide Hosted a Small UAS Challenge at Wings Over Houston in November
Enthusiasts of small, unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) had a chance to demonstrate their aircraft and skills during a Small UAS Challenge in Houston Nov. 1 and 2.
Sponsored by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Worldwide, the competition was free and open to private, academic and commercial participants. This indoor challenge featured an obstacle course (emphasizing agility and maneuverability), dead lift (lifting ability) and time trial (speed over a closed course). Eligible aircraft, which could be no larger than 36 inches and 10 pounds, required a vertical takeoff and landing.
Skies to Stars: Andromeda
By Ed Downs
It was another night at the Astronomy Club of Tulsa’s observatory, just southwest of Mounds, Okla. Yes, that is in the middle of nowhere, just right for dark night observing. It was also a visitor night, with a group of kids from a scout group and many adult visitors planning to join our group of astronomy nerds as we pointed our telescopes starward. With pleasant temperatures, it looked like a great observing evening, so of course, Oklahoma weather decided not to cooperate. Altostratus and cruciform clouds covered about two thirds of the sky, but a group of diehards headed out to do what we could to entertain and educate guests.
Our local expert and guru, John Land, conducted a terrific planetarium show, using what little of the sky could be seen by using a laser pointer, all the while promoting safe use of laser pointing devices, but trying to find a good target for beginners to view proved difficult. This writer was asked to see if I could find M 31 with my 12-inch Orion reflector, sometimes called a “light bucket” due to its ability to suck in even dim objects. Sure enough, M 31 was located, and folks were invited to view this wonder of the skies. We then realized the “M 31” meant absolutely nothing to the newcomers, and finally announced, “Who wants to take a look at the Andromeda Galaxy?”
Contrails: Looking for Bubba
By Steve Weaver
He was, way country. I was a West Virginia country boy too, back there in the late ‘60s when I met Bubba, but this guy was light years ahead me. He exuded the aura of his mountaineer heritage, and you could hear his roots in his speech and see ancient times in his countenance.
In age, he was a few years beyond my own late 20s when I met him. He had been raised by his grandparents on a mountainside farm, where the folds of the Appalachians first rise up out of the foothills of Central West Virginia and begin their march to the Piedmonts.
He had enlisted in the service after high school, more to have a job than as a career choice. In those opportunity-starved years, the old West Virginia saw of ‘coal mines, moonshine or movin’ on down the line’ applied to almost every boy unable to go on to college after high school. And so Bubba moved on, into the blue uniform of the U.S. Air Force, and after basic training was stationed at a Strategic Missile site in North Dakota.
Cessna’s Flagship Citation Latitude Debuted at NBAA
The Citation Latitude, Cessna’s newest midsize business jet, made its public debut at the annual National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Convention & Exhibition, giving customers and industry observers a first look at the company’s latest in a long line of Citations, the world’s most popular line of business jets. Cessna Aircraft Company is a subsidiary of Textron Aviation, Inc., a Textron Inc. company.
“From cabin to cockpit, customers are impressed with the expansiveness of the Citation Latitude,” said Kriya Shortt, senior vice president, Sales and Marketing. “The superior flight functionality, performance and reliability that are inherently Citation are matched by the clean, contemporary cabin environment, superior in-flight productivity and integrated flight management suite– elevating the flight experience for both passengers and pilots.”
Well and Truly Grounded
By Ed Wischmeyer
There’s a trick to avoiding having the FAA ground you for medical reasons. Just like in telling a joke, the answer is “timing.”
In my latest case, the problem is scoliosis, meaning, that my spine is not straight, but rather looks like the ground track of a pilot landing with a tailwheel for the first time. That spinal curvature puts pressure on the nerves coming out of the spinal column (stenosis) and causes pain. I’m guessing that it could eventually cause full lack of functionality.
The king-kong fix for this is spinal fusion, meaning, the doctor opens his erector-set catalog to “implants” and gets all the metal bits and pieces to hold the selected vertebra in place until they can grow together, i.e., fuse. The downside of this is that with those vertebra rigidly affixed, stresses accumulate at the end of the fused region. A real world example is that on many sailplanes with extra stiffening around the spoilers, eventually, the paint cracks around the end of the spoilers, indicating the stress.
Zlin Meister
By David Brown
Proud Owner Jeff Koehler with Zlin N242DC in its present paint scheme. (David Brown)Twenty years ago former F-15 pilot and Air Force Academy graduate, Jeff Koehler, worked for Northrop Grumman on the B2 program, but still yearned to return to the skies. Initially he used a Cherokee 140 to commute to Los Angeles from his home in Camarillo, but eventually he realized that he wanted more from his flying. What he really hungered for was an aerobatic aircraft, so took his time looking at all the possible contenders, ranging from the Pitts Special to the CAP 10. One consideration was cockpit room, as Jeff is over six feet tall. This ruled out a number of contenders with cramped cockpits.
Working in Melbourne, Fla. by this time, Jeff had an opportunity to fly the Moravan Zlin 242, which was a Lycoming-powered variant of the Czech Zlin 241 of famed aerobatic lineage (Zlin 526 and Zlin 50) and was at that time relatively cheap for a new aircraft ($125,000). Also, the cockpit was of ample size.
Orion Trial By Fire Video
Orion's First Flight
Taste of Flight Gala
Pan American Airways at Historic Flight Dates
Aircraft Spruce Announces Customer Appreciation Day
The Man, The Myth and The Legend: Author John F. Ross’s new book on Eddie Rickenbacker Celebrates the Life and Times of America’s First Aviation Hero
By Mark Rhodes
Eddie Rickenbacker’s natural charisma helped forge the public image of military aviation as a glamorous, albeit risky profession. (National Archives)Eddie Rickenbacker is a major figure in U.S. Military History, becoming America’s first flying Ace in World War I and subsequent Medal of Honor winner. After the war, his work as a businessman and aviation advocate with Eastern Airlines helped pave the way for sustainable, safe and reliable commercial aviation in post World War II America. Add to this his dashing exploits as an early pioneer of auto racing and his many escapes from death (the publicity material for Enduring Courage lists eight separate incidents, including a horrific Pacific Ocean crash where he and several others were stranded on rafts for 24 days in 1942) and you have a great example of American Heroism taken to the nth degree.
Despite this, Eddie Rickenbacker, while not an obscure figure is not exactly the household name he was in the first half of the 20th century. John F. Ross’ brilliant new biography Enduring Courage: Ace Pilot Eddie Rickenbacker and the Dawn of the Age of Speed (St. Martin’s Press) is a welcome corrective to this, placing Rickenbacker’s contributions in a variety of fields in proper context in 20th century American history. Mr. Ross paints a picture of a tough-as-nails, complex man whose quick thinking, physical skills, hard edged charisma and instinct for survival helped make him one of America’s most influential and admired men of the first half of the 20th century. Mr. Ross was nice enough to correspond via email about his work and the man, the myth and the legend of Eddie Rickenbacker.
Editorial: Stick and Rudder
By Ed Downs
Does that title sound familiar? For many, the book, Stick and Rudder, written by Wolfgang Langewiesche, appears on nearly every bookshelf of aviators around the world. First published in 1944, this book became the quintessential word on the “art of flying,” stressing the need to develop well-understood skills to be used in controlling the aircraft. Those of us who teach Flight Instructor Refresher Clinics (FIRC’s) are hearing the term “stick and rudder” again, but not in reference to this classic book. This time it comes from the FAA, having added mandated content to approve FIRC curriculums that addresses the subject of “stick and rudder” skills, or more accurately, the lack of such skills. But let me take a step back and explain the issue at hand.
Every CFI must undergo classroom (or today, web-based) training once every 24 calendar months. The course undertaken is approved by the FAA and must contain a specific amount of FAA mandated content. Companies that conduct such courses maintain an FAA approved status, as do their instructors, like this writer. The program (class or web) MUST contain a minimum of 16 hours of actual training, and significant paperwork is involved. Failure to attend a FIRC every two years and pass two written exams means the CFI loses the privilege to instruct. Once a FIRC is missed, the CFI must attend a FIRC and take an FAA check ride to reinstate CFI privileges. Stop and think about it, how many other licensed professions (medical, legal?) have such requirements?