General Aviation News

Tank contamination shuts down 100LL sales at KMAO

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Marion County Regional Airport (KMAO) in South Carolina, a popular fueling stop for SUN ‘n FUN-bound pilots, reports a 100LL tank contamination problem that will not be solved in time for this year’s event in Lakeland, Florida, April 2-7, 2019.

An airport NOTAM warns pilots 100LL fuel will not be available until March 28. However, the county administrator and airport manager indicated in early March that a longer delay is expected. The problem is rust in the 10,000-gallon 100LL underground tank.

“We have about 1,400 gallons remaining in the tank and when it was monitored in February it was not blue like it should have been,” said airport manager Margaret Pittman. “It wasn’t water, it was rusty fuel.” [Read more…]

Stanton’s Barbecue looking for a new generation of pilots

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The long-time owner of Stanton’s Barbecue Fly-In Restaurant near Bennettsville, South Carolina, says it’s time to introduce her fly-in restaurant to a new generation of pilots.

“My husband Lynn started the restaurant in 1972 and because he liked to fly he eventually built an airport across the road,” said Vera Stanton Meggs, widow of the founder. “It wasn’t long before word got around that there was a barbecue restaurant with its own runway.”

“We still have many of our customers from those first years, but I feel like it’s time we introduced ourselves to the new generation of pilots,” she continued. “We want to let them know it’s still a fun place to fly to and that our barbecue is just as good as ever.” [Read more…]

Pilots lead improvement plan at KGGE

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The leadership at Georgetown County Airport (KGGE), the county airfield across the river from historic Georgetown, S.C., is pushing hard this year to make significant progress on a plan to develop the 680-acre facility into the best general aviation airport along the South Carolina coast.

A 22-member committee spearheaded by two local pilots is at work on a far-ranging initiative called the “Strategic Business Plan For The Georgetown County Airport.”

The plan would transform KGGE and the sprawling physical plant of the former World War II U.S. Marine Corps Auxiliary Air Facility into one of the most advanced aviation economic and education centers in South Carolina. [Read more…]

Saying goodbye to A South Carolina hero

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At midday Saturday, March 3, 2018, a pair of South Carolina Air National Guard F-16 Fighting Falcon warplanes swept over the rural Pee Dee landscape and crossed the local Red Hill Cemetery in a thunderous flyover.

After the low pass the jets, with afterburners blazing, climbed vertically into the blue sky until the sound faded and the outlines of the aircraft disappeared.

It was the kind of precision flying that would have thrilled Norman P. Huggins, the retired Air Force colonel whose remains were being laid to rest. [Read more…]

A veteran pilot’s favorite aircraft

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Longtime pilot Ken Haenlein’s favorite flights are at the controls of his 1941 Boeing Stearman over the pine-covered North Carolina Sandhill region. But his professional flying has always taken him a lot farther from home.

Haenlein is owner and chief pilot of Time Saver Aviation, a Part 135 on-demand flying operation headquartered at Moore County Regional Airport (KSOP) at Southern Pines, N.C. Time Saver’s fleet includes a King Air B100, a B-36 turbocharged Bonanza, and a Piper PA-31 Chieftain.

Ken’s favorite aircraft, however, is Sophie, N62201, a meticulously restored PT-17 Stearman. [Read more…]

Reaching the next generation

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Keith Smith recruits students for the Central Florida Aerospace Academy on the SUN ‘n FUN campus at Lakeland-Linder Regional Airport in Florida with an unusual opening question: “I ask what are you going to be doing when you’re 26 years old?”

According to Smith, the chief administrator at CFAA, that question provokes a lot of responses from middle schoolers.

“They tell me I want to be a football player or a dancer or whatever. I also ask how many of them don’t know what they want to do and how many are considering aviation,” he said. “What I find is that the students don’t have a clue as to what is being offered in aviation.” [Read more…]

I might not be able to walk, but I can fly

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For North Carolina pilot Justin Falls, flying an airplane represents a freedom denied him on the ground.

Falls, 28, overcame a devastating spinal cord injury as a student and has rebuilt his life to include completing college, earning a pharmacy degree and, most recently, passing his sport pilot check ride. [Read more…]

Engineering a special A36 Bonanza

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Veteran aviator Doug Decker approaches most flying matters with an engineer’s critical eye for detail. Things need to be exact. The numbers have to tally. Logic holds ascendency over emotion.

But describing his aircraft, N998PL, a brilliant yellow 1996 A36 Bonanza, Decker sounds a lot like a pilot speaking straight from the heart.

“I don’t think there is an airplane in the United States today that has the form, fit and functions that this airplane has,” Decker began. [Read more…]

An Alaska Logbook: Excursions to Chena Hot Springs and Talkeetna

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Last summer, while on a flying trip to Alaska, I visited two popular tourist destinations in the backcountry.

One of them, Chena Hot Springs, was half an hour by air from our home base at Chena Marina Airport (AK28) in Fairbanks. The other, 184 air miles south, was the historic town of Talkeetna, aerial gateway to Denali, North America’s highest peak. [Read more…]

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