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In your eyes, what is the best aircraft that came out of the Golden Age of Aviation?


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This is a link to the final signed letter being sent to the President in opposition to his user fee proposal.  195 Member of Congress signed the letter. March 2012.

http://www.aircraftownernews.com/Letter_Opposing_Aviation_User_Fees_2012.pdf

The Flightline TV show attended the 25th annual Log Cabin Fly-In, Mondovi, WI

http://www.airnav.com/airport/WS69

Special thanks to our sponsors, CountryChev.com, Strukturoc.com, Exclusive Aviation, MyPOV360.com and Wings Financial

Doug Ward, a B-17 ball turret gunner and American hero, along with his good friend Judie Ohm were our hosts (They greeted us dressed in WWII aviator uniforms!) They met our crew as we arrived and set up to do a feature story about their event. They provided refreshments and a warm place for all to meet and greet.

This was our 1st trip over to the Log Cabin Fly-in & we enjoyed it. Luckily the weather was warmer and the winds were not as strong as predicted earlier in the day.  After seeing Doug’s hand built log cabin home and interesting out-buildings and hangars, we decided we’d like to see his summer Fly-In if our schedule permits.

A special thanks goes out to Doug Beck who took our show pilot, Paul Jackson up for a little ride to capture some in-flight footage. Doug is a moderator for the website http://www.skiplane.org and welcomes all to log-in and check it out.

 

Today, the spirit of the Golden Age of aviation is still alive and flying. The Flightline shot a great segment with Clay Adams and his 1929 Travel Air. Clay flies the skies of the Midwest, hopping rides two at a time, introducing a new generation to the wonders of flight while providing older generations an opportunity to be immersed in nostalgia.

The Flightline, an aviation show like no other, launches their second season to a growing audience of aviation enthusiasts throughout the Midwest and a worldwide online following. By partnering with FS-North and FS-Wisconsin the show will have a regional reach of 4+ million households, in preparation for a National roll-out. Season two is presented in High Definition by CountryChev.com

 

The show is hosted by Eden Prairie’s Mark DeJoy and “show pilot” and consultant Paul Jackson of Chaska who is a senior captain for a major air carrier and a certified flight instructor. DeJoy and Jackson are lifelong friends who have known each other since kindergarten.

This season, the show will be broadcast on Saturday mornings at 10:30AM starting July 2nd. A channel finder is provided on The Flightline website to find your local channels.

These aviation stories focus not only on aircraft new and old, military and civilian, small and large, but also on the people who fly them. The stories are produced to appeal not only the aviation enthusiast, but by anyone who marvels at the wonder of flight. In addition to their ground-based HD cameras, the production team uses small HD cameras mounted in and around the aircraft to give the audience the feeling they are along for the ride when they take to the skies.

Featured stories include: the Navy’s Blue Angels, the Air Force’s new F-22 Stealth Fighter, vintage aircraft from aviation’s Golden Age, old warbirds, aerobatic aircraft, barnstormers and stories about the past, present and future of aviation.

“We like to tell people that we provide an air show every week for our viewers” said Executive Producer Mark DeJoy. “When people get to see these aircraft up close and in the air in high definition, it really is like you’re there in the cockpit”

More information available online at www.flightline.TV

Be a FAN on Facebook. www.facebook.com/theflightline.tv

A few weeks ago, I had one of the best experiences of my aviation life. As part of the annual conference of the National Transportation Safety Board Bar Association in Washington, DC, we got private tours of the NTSB laboratories. We were given access to the room where the only people to listen to the actual cockpit voice recordings after a fatal accident actually sit around and listen and create the transcript that is made public. We were shown the lab where Flight Data Recorder information is extracted from the black boxes recovered from accident scenes (they also take data from panel-mounted and handheld GPS receivers, engine monitors, and other electronics). We got to explore the structures laboratory where they examine large and small pieces of aircraft (and other modalities) for signs of what caused them to fail. We were taken to the animation labs, where the NTSB specialists design and create animations to demonstrate, for the Board and for the public, the last few minutes of a crash, and all of the relevant information from multiple sources, in an audio-visual presentation which is easy to understand.

The next day, we were taken by bus to the NTSB's accident investigation academy near Dulles Airport, where investigators from the US and from around the world are trained in the fine arts of accident investigation. This academy was built after the families of the victims of TWA flight 800 recognized the expertise of the investigators who worked tirelessly for years to determine the manner in which that aircraft came apart in a blaze over Long Island Sound. Thousands of pieces of the wreckage were recovered from the water and from the bottom of the Sound and were painstakingly reconstructed in a hangar at one of the old Grumman Aircraft plants. This reconstruction was then taken apart, moved to the academy, and carefully reconstructed there as a teaching aid for future investigators. The families approached Congress and asked for money to be allocated to develope an academy dedicated to this work so that others could learn from their tragedy. Out of respect for the victims and their families, the families control access to the reconstruction, and no photographs are allowed. We were very fortunate to have been able to get access to the reconstruction.

Words are simply inadequate to convey the sensations one experiences when the double doors open from a building hallway, and you come face-to-face with some 40% of a B-747 showing obvious signs of an explosion and of ripping apart, literally, at the seams. A climb up a tall staircase allows you to look into the fuselage from an area just behind the cockpit, each seat, in the condition in which it was found, placed exactly in the location it occupied right up until the aircraft came apart under those unfortunate passengers. It is like looking into a tomb, only without the bodies. To me at least there was an overwhelming feeling that this was where over 200 people died.

On the floor, dwarfed by the wreckage of the 747, are other aircraft fuselages, including a Cessna that suffered an in-flight fire. Although the instructor who showed us around took pains to show us the way that the smoke trails from the rivet holes indicated the initial point of origin of the fire, the chared interior of an aircraft type in which I had many hours of flying time was quite sobering. Engines, props, control cables, spinners, and other debris from numerous fatal accidents were on shelves around the room. For the professionals, they serve as instructional aids. For me, they served as a stark reminder of the consequences of mistakes.

Having now spent quite a bit of time with NTSB personnel, both in the field and at their offices and the academy, I am more than ever impressed with this small, independent government agency. No one that I met reminded me of a "typical government bureaucraft." Everyone with whom we came in contact was not only an expert in his or her field, but was clearly keenly aware of the seriousness of the mission of the agency. The entire NTSB -- Board Members, Judges, staff, investigators, and others -- numbers only about 400 people spread around the country, and ready at a moment's notice to assist other countries around the globe. They do more with less than just about any other government agency I can think of. As Americans, we can be proud that we have this agency to lead the world in pursuing safety in transportation. As passengers and pilots, we can and should also be thankful that we have this agency to search for causes, and to make safety recommendations in an effort to keep us all as safe as we can be.

I never thought that my founding www.throughthefence.org would land me in front of a Congressional committee but that is exactly what happened on September 22, 2010.  I had the honor and privilege to testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee about the FAA’s newly released and updated FAA-2010-0831 (http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-22095.pdf) policy on residential through-the-fence access.  (Hearing can be seen at: http://transportation.edgeboss.net/wmedia/transportation/20100922fc.wvx)

The FAA’s “revised” policy essentially allows for all current and “shovel ready” residential through-the-fence (rTTF) properties but codifies a ban on all future rTTF.  This is an important distinction since the current policy (FAA 5190.6B) (http://www.faa.gov/airports/resources/publications/orders/compliance_5190_6/) had only been an interpretation by FAA personnel that rTTF was “incompatible airport adjacent land use.”

The Democrats lined up the FAA and three supporting witnesses while the Republicans selected me and Mitch Swecker who is the States Airport Manager for the State of Oregon which is very support of rTTF access. 

Catherine Lang (http://www.faa.gov/about/key_officials/lang/), who is the Acting Assistant Administrator for Airports at the FAA in Washington, was the first witness after Congressman Kurt Schrader from Oregon spoke favorably as a panel member himself.  Ms. Lang did not go into her background as a member of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s Aeronautical staff.  We certainly know how much Daley’s organization loves general aviation with its undying support of Meigs Field!

Ms. Lang sported the FAA’s previous points, all of which have been proven to be non factual, not supported by data, and/or not on point, except for a new one—some hangar homes enter the runway in the middle and require aircraft to back taxi.  It seems that the FAA has to keep coming up with new rTTF problems at every turn just to stay ahead of the truth.  The FAA office of Airport Compliance and Field Operations has be the model of “don’t let the facts get in the way of our policy!”

Ms. Lang was followed by Carol Comer (http://tomcat2.dot.state.ga.us/Aviation/Contact_Us/staff.cfm), Aviation Programs Manager of the Georgia DOT, who proudly announced she was a pilot who lived on a private airpark but supported the fact that no federally funded Georgia airport had rTTF access.  Ms. Comer may have neglected to mention that her property was made more valuable by her prohibition of rTTF access at public airports!

Mr. Swecker (http://www.aviation.state.or.us/Aviation/staff.shtml) was next and discussed how rTTF helped Oregon airports stay economically viable and active.  He was followed by Ann Crook (http://www.ecairport.com/AboutELM/airport_manager.asp), Manager of the Elmira Regional Airport, who stated her airport, did not have rTTF access nor did it want it.  Crook was followed by James Coyne who heads the National Air Transportation Association, the trade organization of FBOs, which is mostly concerned about off airport competition to on airport FBOs.

I was the last speaker and I had to mention that even though I was a Republican witness, I was the Democratic candidate for coroner in Teton County Wyoming.  I continued that just like the coroner’s office, the rTTF policy should be a non partisan issue.

You may see the full text of my prepared comments at www.throughthefence.org but to summarize, I pointed out the lack of data and supporting information for the FAA’s position.  The FAA policy represents lots of “what if’s” and “maybe’s” that are not realistic.

I also could not let Ms. Lang get away with her written testimony comment where she characterized rTTF home owner’s input at a public airport board meeting as “influence” that was an “inappropriate process.”  Apparently Ms. Lang forgot the FAA is a part of the administrative branch of the United States, a representative democracy based on public meetings and individual input to government representatives.

My most important point is local airport authorities know who their best neighbors are and these local agencies should be allowed to make those decisions, not the FAA.

It is important for all pilots and those with an interest in aviation to contact their Congressman and Senators to support Representative Sam Graves’ house bill HR 4815 (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-4815).

 

The crew at The Flightline TV show had a fantastic day visiting the largest gathering of aircraft in the State of Iowa, Blakesburg Antique air show. This is one of the premier aviation events in the country. Hundreds of beautiful planes displayed in a beautiful setting.  Enjoy this segment we produced and be sure to be a FAN of The Flightline TV show on facebook. http://www.facebook.com/TheFlightline.TV

    Of late, I am being increasingly convinced that we need to do more squawking -- while we still can.   

    I’m not talking about transponder squawking, I’m talking about political type squawking in defense of General Aviation.  

    In my last blog I wrote about the Ross Lake issue where the some elements are trying to ban seaplanes from a National Recreation Area.  Of course, they want to keep the whole place open for jet skis, power boats and every other type of activity you can imagine – except for seaplanes. Not to mention that the recreation area was conceived by a guy who had a lodge there served primarily be seaplanes to begin with!  The comment period on this rule closed now but there are more issues including TTF, which you can still chime in on.  

    The TTF [Through The Fence] issue realtes to local airports which receive Federal Funds.  Residential Through-the-Fence (rTTF) agreements are situations where hangar homes on private property are connected to airports via taxiways.  Hangar home owners support the adjacent airports for this access with fees and purchased services.

    If you want to fix your low blood pressure, go to Dr. Brent Blue’s Web site on the subject: www.ThroughTheFence.org.  After you read the completely ridiculous position taken by certain management types inside the FAA you will be amazed.  

    Brent was invited to testify mid-month before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on “Residential Through-the-Fence Agreements at Public Airports: Action to Date and Challenges Ahead.”  Amongst man other comments, using Freedom of Information Act requests, Brent proved that the FAA does not have even one documented noise complaint from a hangar home for the past ten years nor has any example of a single airport that has had difficulty expanding due to rTTF agreements.   

    Brent is spot-on when he says: “This is a FAA fix to a problem that does not exist. The FAA personnel who came up with this policy had not even seen a hangar home till this past winter. Their lack of evidence and data is shocking given they are establishing a policy that affects the economic viability of small general aviation airports.”  

    I urge you to read Brent’s testimony in front of the House Transportation Committee earlier this month. You can read it by clicking on the link: Brent Blue TTF Hearing. It’s absolutely fabulous.  

    There is still opportunity to comment on the FAA’s TTF position at they have posted their proposed revised policy on residential “through the fence”  (TTF) agreements at GA airports.  The short version is that they propose allowing all current agreements but no new ones after the effective date of the policy (which is not set at this time).  

    In January, the FAA initiated a review due to our input as well as the input of the EAA and other groups.  (The AOPA dropped the ball completely.)   As a result, the Agency is proposing to amend its policy regarding access to airports from residential property and Grant Assurance 5, Preserving Rights and Powers.   

    The proposed policy is Docket No. FAA-2010-0831 and is now on display at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-22095.pdf. This document was published in the September 9, 2010 Federal Register.  Please comment on the proposed policy through www.regulations.gov. All comments received by the FAA will be posted at www.regulations.gov.  Comments will be accepted for 45 days from the date the notice was published in the Federal Register which should be October 22^nd.  

    If we don’t start squawking politically, we soon won’t have to worry about squawking our transponders as they are hell-bent on chipping away at GA as we know it today. The best defense is a good offense and we are behind right now!