Mike Guidry submitted this photo and note: “Two Cardinals meet each other at Peter O’Knight Airport (KTPF) in Florida. The skyline of Tampa is on the horizon.”
[Read more…]Blast from the past: A classic air show
If this was any other year, General Aviation News would be chock full of stories and photos from EAA AirVenture Oshkosh right about now. Of course, it’s not any other year and the COVID-19 pandemic has cancelled all the big shows.
With that in mind, we decided to give you a rare look at a classic air show from an earlier era.
Slip back in time to 1976. Gasoline cost 57 cents a gallon. That January saw the first commercial Concorde supersonic transport flight. The Winter Olympics were held in Innsbruck, Austria. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started a new company called Apple Computers. And in Harlingen, Texas, the Confederate Air Force gave an air show for the ages.
Many Americans know the CAF today as the Commemorative Air Force, an organization with 85 units around the country that have, collectively, 175 aircraft with which to tell stories of military history at air shows. The legacy of the CAF includes its era at Harlingen, Texas, where the group honed skills in flying diorama presentations and pioneered the use of spectacular pyrotechnics to punctuate the action during their air show.
Between Oct. 7 and 10, 1976, the skies over Harlingen were filled with warplanes from the Second World War, modern military jets, air show performers including Bob Hoover, Art Scholl, Duane Cole, and others, the Blue Angels, and a six-helicopter Army demonstration team, the Silver Eagles.
[Read more…]Have you ever seen a DC-3 on floats?
Our frequent contributor Ted Luebbers recently saw one on his travels to Maine.
“This one is at the Greenville Municipal Airport (3B1) in Maine,” he reports. “Years ago she flew off Moosehead Lake in Maine.”
[Read more…]Michigan pilot creates hangar man cave
Gary Huffman likes to kid people when they come inside his hangar “man cave” asking him where the hangar door is. He tells them he takes the wings off his plane and brings it in through the window.
Except for the telltale red hydraulic cylinders on each side of the closed door, it really isn’t very easy to tell where the hangar door is. When you look at the door, it closely resembles another white pine wall decorated with deer antlers, maps, and photos.
Huffman, who lives in southern Michigan, about 60 miles from the state capitol of Lansing, has a 43-foot, 7-inch by 11-foot, 1-inch custom-made Schweiss hydraulic door on his hangar. The hydraulic pump is hidden away in a white pine box he built to conceal it.
[Read more…]FAA approval for new ELT options for experimental and GA aircraft
ACR Electronics has received FAA approval for several new configurations of its ARTEX ELT 345 Emergency Locator Transmitter, including multiple antenna and remote switch options.
Now approved with a 15-inch antenna and a new two-wire slim-line remote switch, the ELT 345 is available in three different retrofit configurations featuring flexible options that allow for easier and less expensive installations on experimental and general aviation aircraft, according to company officials.
[Read more…]Stearman crashes after bolt breaks off in brakes
The airline transport pilot had performed three touch-and-go maneuvers without braking at the airport in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
On the fourth and last planned landing roll about 30 mph, the Stearman PT17 experienced an excessive tailwheel shimmy. About 25 mph, the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted.
[Read more…]Picture of the Day: Mother Nature’s power in the Sunshine State
Dave Cohen sent in this picture, with a note: “Dave and Carolyn Cohen encountered this impressive rain downdraft north of Orlando, on the return leg of a brunch trip to Williston (X60) from Apopka (X04).”
[Read more…]Ask Paul: Why is our engine running hot in the summer?
Q: Our flying club’s airplane, a 1976 Cessna 172 Model M, has a Lycoming O-320 E2D engine that runs hot only during the summer months of June, July, and August near Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Here are the details we compiled from our JPI EDM-730-4C engine monitor on May 25, 2020, after 15 minutes of level flight:
[Read more…]YouTube star Cory Robin screwed up
Cory Robin flies a Carbon Cub he calls “Ghost” (which is on the Aug. 6, 2020, cover of General Aviation News). He also has a YouTube channel with nearly 47,000 subscribers.
And sadly, he recently crashed his plane in a river in Ohio.
[Read more…]Colorado weather cameras now operational
52 new aviation weather cameras installed on the Colorado Division of Aeronautics’ network of 13 Mountain Automated Weather Observing System (AWOS) site are now operational.
[Read more…]