General Aviation News

Where the magic happens

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EAA Chapter 229 bears a strong resemblance to a great many of its peer chapters. The membership is overwhelmingly male and old.

As I sit on the verge of turning 61 years old, it concerns me that I am one of the younger members of the group. Attendance at gatherings is low enough that meetings are only held during the colder weather months when Snowbirds move south to mix in with the natives. Even then, the hangar is never full. If a dozen members show up at the same time, it’s a big deal.

Seven miles away from EAA Chapter 229’s hangar/workshop is the local public high school. Inside that school building sit more than 150 students who are taking an aerospace course that will eventually lead to the completion of their private pilot ground school requirements. Some want to fly, some want to turn wrenches, some want to become engineers who design the aircraft of the future, and some want to do some combination of two or more of those things.

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see the irony of the situation. One group wants very much to find new, younger members who might revitalize the organization. The other is made up of young people who seek a means of getting through the chain-link fences, the barbed wire, and the Do Not Enter signs, to begin their careers in aviation.

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Roundabouts and runways

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Let’s say you and I live in a small city of 30,000 people, more or less. We drive the roads regularly to go to work, drop the kids off at school, make a quick run to the grocery store, and maybe keep a medical appointment or two. So do our neighbors. America is a car culture after all. In our hypothetical town about 10,000 of us are actual drivers.

Our first roundabout appears on the edge of town, outside the heavily trafficked downtown area. A single-lane roundabout, it’s a simple example of this traffic taming design. This particular roundabout is intended to handle the traffic at a four-way intersection where two roads cross at a right angle. Today there isn’t much there, but there are plans for rezoning that will allow commercial and industrial development in the future. The development will benefit our town’s bottom line.

All good so far, right?

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Welcome to the cusp of yet another new age

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This past week something remarkable occurred on live streaming video for all the world to see.

Elon Musk, the enfant terrible of the tech world, introduced the public to a pick-up truck so far out of the mainstream in terms of styling that many initially took it as a joke. Surely there must be a more traditional looking model sitting in the wings, ready to roll out after we all had a good laugh at this ugly duckling.

Nope. The unfinished steel shell, blacked-out windows, and sharp angular form are the real deal. This news surprised a great many who had been anticipating something amazing, not something so repugnantly unrefined.

When the markets opened, Tesla stock fell more than 6%. The world saw and the world responded. Musk’s big reveal was a bust. The CyberTruck would be a loser of the first order.

Or so it seemed. Musk came back with fire, tweeting that his company had received 146,000 orders for the much maligned vehicle in just 24 hours, which translates to $8 billion in sales.

In the interest of full disclosure I’m honor bound to mention, one of the orders on Tesla’s books belongs to me. There will be a CyberTruck in my driveway sometime in late 2021, or 2022, or something like that. I believe in a weird, bright future. 

So, what’s all this got to do with aircraft, aviation, or the price of avgas?

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A little give and take never hurts

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I’d like to make a confession.

The truth is I like to think of myself as a reasonable guy, a nice guy, the kind of guy who would not just lend, but actually give away, a cup of sugar if a neighbor came by asking for one.

Be that as it may, I don’t always agree with the folks managing my local airport. They sometimes do things that make no sense to me, financially or in terms of marketing the facilities. On other occasions I find they don’t take an appropriate interest in the visionary ideas I share with them. They just don’t seem to care.

This can be tremendously frustrating. 

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To your health

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Long ago, before AstroTurf was in wide use, before Quantitative Easing was a thing, when we were still talking about the scourge of global cooling, there was only one pathway for the average Jane or Joe to follow should they decide to get involved in general aviation. That path led directly through the office of an FAA Designated Medical Examiner.

Today, there are three entirely separate paths for us to choose from.

I call that progress. 

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There are moments…

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A cold front passed during the night, dragging Pensacola, Florida’s temperature down more than 40°, to the high 30s. I detest the cold. But the sky cleared significantly and the winds came down to manageable levels. Still stiff, but not howling as they had been. 

Thankfully, I’d anticipated the change, packing a pair of long pants, a long sleeve shirt, a jacket, and even a real pair of grown-up socks. It was cold, but I was reasonably comfortable when protected from the wind. Being out on the ramp was a bit brisk, but while inside the FBO or tucked into the cockpit, I was fine.

The little Cessna 152 took on fuel. I did the walk-around inspection with great care. The sun peaked over the horizon revealing low, puffy clouds over Escambia Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

It was time to go home. 

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Advancing in reverse

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Last week the aviation news was awash with reports of Gulfstream’s new mighty machine, the G700. While I was not at the National Business Aviation Association convention in Las Vegas to see it in person, on paper the aircraft is impressive.

With a range of 7,500 nm and a maximum cruise speed of Mach 0.9, the G700 is a head turner. Sporting a stand-up cabin, oodles of windows for the passengers to gaze out of, and seating for up to 19 passengers, Gulfstream seems to have hit a home run with its new flagship offering.

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Not gone, just somewhere else

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There is a great thrill to buying an airplane. At least that’s always been my experience.

The search, the pre-buy inspection, the haggling, the deal. It’s all a heady concoction that ends, hopefully, with an aircraft in your hangar that can bring you joy and adventure whenever you get the urge to fly.

For most of my flying career I’ve been a renter. It was convenient. It was also expensive, but not as expensive as ownership, I reasoned. And that’s true to a point. But there is a cost that goes along with that savings. This particular cost is known as inconvenience. 

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Who is calling the shots here?

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When I began my flirtation with aviation, I made a huge mistake that cost me a great deal of money and wasted a considerable amount of time.

As a flight student, it was my erroneous belief that I was to decide what my instructor and I would do each day. I had no idea there existed a book known as the Practical Test Standard (PTS, now known as the Airmen Certification Standard or ACS), or that specific tasks and areas of knowledge were required that I would be tested on.

And so I twiddled away money and flight time under the delusional belief that all I had to do was fly for 40 hours. At the conclusion of that time the FAA would bestow upon me a Private Pilot Certificate.

No, it doesn’t work that way. I was an ignoramus and a half.

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Something new

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There is a universal truth for pilots. It has to do with the journey that got them from being a dedicated ground-pounder to an occasional inhabitant of the air.

That first flight lesson was a little intimidating. Exciting, but not altogether comfortable. There tend to be a few nerve endings waving around loose. This flying thing isn’t for the faint of heart, after all.

For those of us who make it through those first few lessons, the reward is a sneaking suspicion that grows over time. It suggests that maybe, just maybe, we have a shot at this.

Slow flight wasn’t so tough. Power-off stalls were actually kind of fun. Power-on stalls, well that’s another story, but we got through them. And ground reference maneuvers — they can be frustrating when the wind is high, but on the nicer days they’re a cake walk.

Then comes our solo. For most new pilots that momentous event comes as a complete surprise.

Gulp. 

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