Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2018 i Plane & Pilot

THE MYSTERY What was the real fate of pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, who disappeared on July 2, 1937, before reaching their Pacific Island destination on an attempted circumnavigation of the earth? THE BACKSTORY The mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan when their flight disappeared over the Pacific just over 80 years ago while on an attempted circumnavigation of the globe is the most famous and enduring mystery in the history of flight and one of the most compelling mysteries of modern times. Amelia, of course, was the pilot, a record-setting aviator who was the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, among numerous other firsts. Noonan, her navigator, was at her side on the would-be round-the-world flight. But on…

Tallest height allowable for USAF pilots: 6’7” Heaviest powered paraglider pilot: 440 pounds Highest max takeoff weight: Antonov AN-225, 1.3 million pounds Greatest payload: AN-225, approximately 560,000 pounds Max takeoff weight, Boeing 787: about 502,000 pounds (no, it won’t fit inside the AN-225) Largest piston engine: Lycoming XR-7755, 36 cylinders, 7,750 cubic inches, dry weight, 6,050 pounds Weight of Beech Baron B-58, for comparison: 5,400 pounds Biggest helicopter: Mil Mi-26 Mi-26 max takeoff weight: 123,459 pounds Max payload Mi-26: Approximately 44,000 pounds Biggest parachute: NASA’s, 150 feet in diameter (half a football field) Purpose: Return moon booster rockets to earth Largest gyroplane: Fairey Rotodyne, 40 passengers (never entered production) Fattest logbook ever: Ed Long, power-line patrol pilot, 65,000 hours 65,000 hours in calendar time: 7.4 years aloft Fattest woman’s logbook:…

Flying is challenging. When I was younger and just starting out as a pilot, I wasn’t a very confident person and was an even less confident pilot. Today, even after I’ve gotten a few new ratings and logged a lot more time, I still face many uncertainties as a pilot. (Don’t we all? If you don’t admit to having insecurities as a pilot or as a person, I sure wouldn’t fly with you.) I have a lot of questions. • How short of a runway CAN I take off from in this thing? • Why can’t I remember what that antenna is for after all these years? • What is that airplane parked over there? A C-140? A Luscombe? I should know that by now. • Oh, man. I should…

For decades, the most popular GA planes have been four seaters. That hasn’t changed. The reason is easy. Most owners want more room than you get in a two-seater, but they don’t need that much more room. A four-seater fits the bill perfectly. While few of these planes travels regularly (or at all) with all the seats filled, all of them can do just that, though many of them will require the pilot to fill the tanks only part way in order stay within weight limits. And, sure, there are fewer four-seaters available than there used to be, but the ones we have today feature a variety of technologies and advancements that would have been unimaginable back in the days when 10,000 planes were built every year. These days, the…

I have been a professional pilot for more than 50 years with nearly 20,000 hours, flying everything from Champs and C-172s to DC-6s and F-86s. Most of my flights I’d consider fairly ordinary. But then again, I’ve had several student pilots try to kill me while administering check rides as a designated pilot examiner, and I’ve run into some weather-related situations that made the hair on my head run down to hide under my shirt. But the one life (and flying) experience that stands out most in my mind happened when I was a teenager. I learned a lesson I have abided by until this day. Actually, two lessons: 1. Never offer your services as a pilot without considering the consequences. 2. Never take a cat up in an airplane…

I was just over 1,000 miles south of Honolulu on the second leg of a four-leg ferry flight from Santa Barbara to Subic Bay, Philippines, when all three GPSs failed. The Cessna 421’s panel mount system and both of my portables stopped working at the same time. My lat/ long position froze in place, and nothing was changing on the distance readout to Majuro, Marshall Islands. Since I was fairly certain I wasn’t hovering, that had to be wrong. God had turned off GPS. I’d passed over Johnston Island an hour before, and I knew there was nothing but water between me and my next stop. Once you pass Johnston, there’s not even a rock sticking up out of the Pacific to serve as an emergency waypoint. In GPS language,…

Sporty’s Air Scan Aviation Scanner Lots of pilots like to listen in on ATC transmissions when they’re at home or in the hangar, and handheld air band scanners are a great way to do that. But they have their limitations, most notably a lot of dead airtime between transmissions. With its ingenious new Air Scan Aviation Radio/Scanner ($139.95), Sporty’s has created a product that fills a number of needs at a really affordable price. The radio is portable and comes with a power adapter. With built-in speakers, it’s also the best-sounding air band radio we’ve heard. The cool part is that you can use it to listen to AM or FM radio. The unit will automatically interrupt that regularly scheduled programing when an aviation call comes in on any one…

We turned the corner and crossed the hold short line to the blast off section of Runway 17 in this new Skyhawk we were flying, N688CS. It was my usual haunt, San Marcos, Texas, and the November air was still too warm for late fall, though the stability of the air, luckily, could have been worse. As I advanced the power lever—it’s really not a throttle, more of a way to let the system know I wanted more power—I took in the whirr. It was really quiet, the kind of quiet that takes some getting used to, that is, if you’re not current in a diesel-powered airplane, which I wasn’t. I was expecting the lack of gas-piston noise, so that wasn’t the part that made me take notice. No, the…

Lockheed Burbank had the Skunk Works, a shop known for the rather secretive production of spectacular flying machines. West Georgia Regional Airport was home to The Possum Works, a hangar held by a couple of old-timers who were always playing with the fun stuff. Between the three of them, they owned a Stinson Gullwing, a Cassutt Formula One racer, a de Havilland Chipmunk and a P-51 Mustang. Hess Bomberger owned the Mustang and had it painted in the colors of Vergeltungswaffe, the P-51D he’d flown in Europe. He drove his vintage Cadillac out every day and worked on the Mustang. He’d take someone for a ride every other weekend or so. I spent countless mornings at the Possum hangar, working on the Mustang with Hess. When I was around for…