AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

UPDATE: Link to video repaired

Doesn’t hurt to recap one of America’s proudest achievements, sending a huge robot to Mars. Thanks to blimp pilot, author, and aerial photographer Hunter H. Harris of the Eastern Shore of Maryland for sending this link along. It’s easy to get to Mars. You just build a rocket, aim to the right of the moon, and it’s all downhill from there, as you’ll see. Crank the volume–this one’s hard to hear.

At the last U.S. Sport Aviation show in January at Sebring, Florida, rumors indicated hundreds of Skycatcher buyers with deposits down bailed on their order as soon as the price of the light sport aircraft rose to $149,900. AOPA’s Jim Moore has looked at the records and found the rumors to be true. It appears Cessna is conducting more test flights and will have something or other to announce regarding the Skycatcher in two or three months. There are 77 sitting in crates somewhere, either China or Independence, Kansas. Cessna has no comment. In the meantime, Flight Design continues to hold the lead in sales of LSAs.

“Pilot Information” published in Paris

A couple of Cubs went ripping around the French Alps–well, as rippy as Cubs can get–for beautiful photos in the latest issue of Info-Pilote (Pilot Information), the official magazine of the French Aeronautical Federation. You can go here and click on the cover of the magazine on the middle of the right side of the page. (Yes, I know it’s a Husky on the cover but there are Cubs inside–spectacular photo.) You can then “thumb through” by clicking on the right side of each page layout. The Cub photo is near the center of the magazine sample. It costs $43 for 12 times a year, depending on the value of the Euro. The price does not include international shipping. You can contact the co-editor on his Web site.

I gathered this little bit of information for a larger story, but it never found a home.  Several readers asked which light sport aircraft have American engines. Some of these models aren’t available in the U.S. Here’s the list:

Continental and Lycoming both offer specially designed engines for the LSA market: the Continental engine is found on the Cub Crafters Sport Cub, the Cessna Skycatcher, and the American Legend Cub.

Companies using the Lycoming LSA engine include American Legend Cub, Brumby Aircraft of Australia 600/610, Bushwhacker Aircraft Cub, Flying Circus Aircraft’s Vegas, Kitfox Super Sport 7, Ran’s Aircraft S-19, Tecnam P92 Eaglet and Tail Dragger (an actual model name), Zenith STOL CH750, Zlin Savage Cub/Bobber, Renegade Light Sport (Falcon and FK12, and the Morgan AeroWorks Cougar.

The Somerset Police Department in South Central Kentucky is using a Calidus gyroplane for law enforcement under a program run by the federal Department of Justice to aid smaller law enforcement groups.

Flown by Lt. Shannon Smith, the Calidus has aided in several arrests for drunken driving, drug violations, and outstanding warrants. Shannon is the second law enforcement officer in the United States to become a certified flight instructor specific to gyroplanes for police operations

Somerset authorities launched an aviation program in April 2012 with the cooperation of the Law Enforcement Aviation Technology program, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice. The aviation program is administered nationally by the Small, Rural, Tribal, Border Regional Center (SRTB-RC) through The Center for Rural Development in Somerset. The program has assigned 17 aircraft to small law enforcement agencies that might not see aviation as a viable option to their police agency. See it fly here.

A Greek pilot has taken a Pipistrel Taurus motorglider to 22,726 feet above Greece. Wind came from the perfect direction to be lifted by terrain. Read the pilot’s account here.

First it was the Tuskegee Airmen who, after waiting 51 years after World War II, got their just recognition with a Congressional Gold Medal. Then it was the Women Airforce Service Pilots who got the medal four years later. Now, there is an effort to honor the founders of the Civil Air Patrol with the medal, and thus all who flew with the CAP during the war. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has launched a bill to honor 60,000 civilians–men and women 18-81 years old–who were CAP members. “Our founding members helped save lives and preserve our nation’s freedom,” said Maj. Gen. Chuck Carr, CAP’s national commander. The CAP conducted anti-submarine coastal patrols up to 100 miles offshore in March 1942 after 52 oil tankers had been sunk. They carried 50-, 100- and 325-pound bombs or depth charges, attacking 57 enemy submarines and reporting 173 to the military.

EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space), a consortium with offices all over Europe, the UK, and an office in the United States, says LiDaR (Light Detection and Ranging) radar, using pulses of infrared light, can detect turbulence a few hundred feet ahead of an airplane and react to it automatically. The system would adjust flight controls instantly to avoid loss of altitude in downdrafts, commonly referred to as air pockets. It will take years to complete research, the aerospace and defense company said. The bottom line is that the system can react in less than one second–the pilot can’t.

Want to compete on who can come up with the most unusual job in aviation? How about the official title of buffalo mugger? I win. Brim Aviation, based in Ashland, Oregon, with branches in Astoria, Oregon, Texas, and Arizona, uses its own helicopter crew to first shoot a bison with a net gun (no bullets, just a net), then run from the helicopter and wrestle the buffalo to the ground, rodeo style. The actual job title for that is “mugger.” No, really. I saw the video. Yes, I know bison weigh 700 to 2,200 pounds because I saw it on the Internet, and the Internet is never wrong.  I also saw the bison get up afterward and chase the Brim guy. There are more than 90 in one of the oldest herds in the nation, and each year these Utah residents have a blood sample taken. One by one.

The buffalo/bison had every right to attack the Brim guy. Let’s say you are looking around for grass–the legal kind–and you hear this noisy big bird coming after you. You run like crazy, hear an explosion like your great grandfather told you about, and find yourself tangled in a net. This puny two-legged animal grabs your horns and humiliates you by taking you down. So you lie there through the blood sample, the DNA sample, just waiting for your chance. The net comes off and you jump up and charge…and he jumps out of the way. All the other buffalo start laughing. So next year you set up an ambush. Your buddies will attack the humans while you are on the ground. Come on back, Brim!

Sure, Hawker Beechcraft is emerging from bankruptcy, but the magazine Corporate Jet Investor says that isn’t the end of the drama. Next stop? A bidding war for the jet assets. Alasdair Whyte of the magazine says in a personal newsletter that bidders ought to step up, now that Beechcraft (the new name) is rising from the depths. The magazine has previously speculated on who the bidders might be. In that article, the contestants listed are: Mahindra & Mahindra, India’s largest auto maker and supplier of components to Boeing and Gulfstream; Nextant/Directional Capital which already offers the Hawker 400XP aircraft; AVIC, known as China Aviation Industry Corporation (AVIC) that has joint ventures with both Embraer and Cessna and owns Cirrus Aircraft; Xi’an Aircraft International that acquired Austrian composite parts maker FACC in 2009; Hunan Boyun that makes carbon-fiber auto and aircraft parts; and BAE Systems that just might want its own commercial aircraft business.