A Unique Around-the-World Journey Heads East As you read this story, Mason Andrews should be winging his way eastward out of Italy toward Croatia while sitting in the left seat of his dad’s Piper Lance (a link to the full podcast is at the bottom of this story). Andrews was one very lucky young man when he asked his dad to borrow the airplane for a trip and received a thumbs up. OK, that’s not completely accurate unless you understand the context, that the senior Andrews did actually express a few reservations when young Mason mentioned the length of the trip … around the world. And yes, his dad definitely raised an eyebrow when Mason told him he wanted to make the trip alone. Mason Andrews, a newly minted instrument pilot and Louisiana Tech student just recently turned 18. When Mason Andrews completes his round-the-world trip, he should become the youngest person to complete a global trip solo. Mason wasn’t making the trip to become famous, although he likely will. The trip was actually designed to raise money for MedCamps of Louisiana to fund summer camp for kids with special needs, a summer event where Andrews also serves as a counselor. About the Aircraft The Piper Lance Mason will fly has been modified to carry enough fuel for legs as long as 18 hours. The Lance cruises at about 140 knots burning 13.5 gallons per hour. The first leg of the flight began last week from Republic Field on Long Island NY. The first leg took him from Republic to St. Johns Newfoundland. Mason’s flight plan includes a stop at Paris LeBourget, site of Charles Lindbergh’s arrival following his record-setting solo flight in 1927. Mason Andrews said he believes the flight’s biggest challenge will be “weather.” The Lance is much better equipped to keep him informed of the weather than Lindbergh could have ever imagined.  My EAA Radio co-host Amy Laboda and I managed to convince Mason to join us for an interview last week during our regularly scheduled “Attitude Adjustment,” show at AirVenture 2018. One of the first things Mason mentioned the day I met him was that he was still celebrating the two-year anniversary of his first solo as a student pilot from Monticello Airport (LLQ) in Arkansas. I think you’ll find Mason’s story worthy of 10 minutes of your time. Click here to give it a listen. You can also follow Mason’s journey on Facebook. If you enjoyed Mason Andrews’s story, brought to you by Jetwhine.com, in collaboration with EAA Radio, we invite you to subscribe to Jetwhine.com. It’s free. You can also follow Jetwhine on Twitter @jetwhine and EAA Radio @eaaradio. Enjoy. Rob Mark, Publisher

A Unique Around-the-World Journey Heads East As you read this story, Mason Andrews should be winging his way eastward out of Italy toward Croatia while sitting in the left seat of his dad’s Piper Lance (a link to the full podcast is at the bottom of this story). Andrews was one very lucky young man when he asked his dad to borrow the airplane for a trip and received a thumbs up. OK, that’s not completely accurate unless you understand the context, that the senior Andrews did actually express a few reservations when young Mason mentioned the length of the trip … around the world. And yes, his dad definitely raised an eyebrow when Mason told him he wanted to make the trip alone. Mason Andrews, a newly minted instrument pilot and Louisiana Tech student just recently turned 18. When Mason Andrews completes his round-the-world trip, he should become the youngest person to complete a global trip solo. Mason wasn’t making the trip to become famous, although he likely will. The trip was actually designed to raise money for MedCamps of Louisiana to fund summer camp for kids with special needs, a summer event where Andrews also serves as a counselor. About the Aircraft The Piper Lance Mason will fly has been modified to carry enough fuel for legs as long as 18 hours. The Lance cruises at about 140 knots burning 13.5 gallons per hour. The first leg of the flight began last week from Republic Field on Long Island NY. The first leg took him from Republic to St. Johns Newfoundland. Mason’s flight plan includes a stop at Paris LeBourget, site of Charles Lindbergh’s arrival following his record-setting solo flight in 1927. Mason Andrews said he believes the flight’s biggest challenge will be “weather.” The Lance is much better equipped to keep him informed of the weather than Lindbergh could have ever imagined. My EAA Radio co-host Amy Laboda and I managed to convince Mason to join us for an interview last week during our regularly scheduled “Attitude Adjustment,” show at AirVenture 2018. One of the first things Mason mentioned the day I met him was that he was still celebrating the two-year anniversary of his first solo as a student pilot from Monticello Airport (LLQ) in Arkansas. I think you’ll find Mason’s story worthy of 10 minutes of your time. <a href="https://www.eaa.org/~/media/files/airventure/eaa%20radio%20archive/2018/2018-07-25/mason%20andrews.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click here to give it a listen</a>. You can also follow <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/Masons-MedCamps-Mission-214787132624384/posts/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mason’s journey on Facebook.</a> If you enjoyed Mason Andrews’s story, brought to you by <a href="http://Jetwhine.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jetwhine.com</a>, in collaboration with <a href="http://www.eaaradio.net" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">EAA Radio</a>, we invite you to subscribe to <a href="http://Jetwhine.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jetwhine.com</a>. It’s free. You can also follow Jetwhine on Twitter @jetwhine and EAA Radio @eaaradio. Enjoy. Rob Mark, Publisher

A Unique Around-the-World Journey Heads East

 Click here to listen By Micah Engber Al Bean. I just liked saying the name when I was a kid. It was a cool name, sounded like he would be a cool guy, what a neat name for an astronaut, for the fourth person to ever set foot on the moon. If it weren’t for that cool name, at least pretty cool to a 13 year old boy, I might not know much about Al Bean. Unlike some other astronaut names I know, that are in the forefront of my brain, Captain Bean didn’t fly a lot of missions, but he sure did save the day on one of them. Turns out Al Bean was a pretty cool guy, and one of my childhood heroes; it also turns out, that I guess I’m at the age where I’m starting to lose a lot of them. Now the last survivor of Apollo 12 is gone. Born in 1932 Alan Bean was a Texas boy and a University of Texas graduate with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He was part of Navy ROTC at UT and after graduating, being commissioned, and getting through flight school, he flew the F9F Cougar and A4D Skyhawk. Eventually he was assigned to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, where Pete Conrad was his instructor. Al Bean applied for Astronaut Group Two, and was rejected. That didn’t discourage him though he applied and was accepted to Astronaut Group Three along with Buzz Aldrin, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins and ten other names you may know. He was assigned as backup command pilot for Gemini 10 but never did fly Gemini; in fact he never got assigned an Apollo mission either. He ended up in the Apollo Applications Program where he worked on the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator and was the first astronaut in the tank to try it. He had resigned himself to not fly Apollo when some luck struck him, both good and bad. You see fellow Astronaut Group Three alum and Apollo 12 Lunar Module Pilot Clifton Williams was lost in the crash of his T-38. Pete Conrad, Apollo 12 Commander remembered training Al Bean at Patuxent River and personally requested that he become Clifton Williams’ replacement. See what I mean, good and bad luck at the same time. Al Bean was the right man for the job; in fact he saved the day. You see, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning on launch, and it knocked out the telemetry, as you can imagine quite a problem for a rocket on its way to the moon. In trying to restore telemetry the command came from ground, “… try SCE to ‘Aux”, an obscure switch that seemed to stump both Commander Pete Conrad and Command Module Pilot Richard Gordon. But Al Bean knew it! With Pete Conrad’s hand firmly grasping the abort handle Al Bean saved the mission. Pete Conrad and Al Bean landed Lunar Module Intrepid on the lunar surface and did two EVA’s. Turns out, mixed in with all the hard work, there was also quite a bit of fun on the moon. One of the mission objectives was to collect some material from the Surveyor program, an unmanned two year NASA mission that demonstrated the feasibility of soft landings on the moon pre-Apollo. Al Bean had smuggled a camera timer on board Apollo 12 so he could take a photo of himself and mission Commander Pete Conrad in front of the Surveyor. Something that was done as a practical joke for NASA scientists as they knew nothing about the timer. But when the time came to take the picture, he couldn’t find the timer, and the photo was never taken. When he did find the timer, just before boarding the Lunar Module for departure, he just tossed it away over his shoulder. The timer isn’t the only thing Al Bean tossed away on the moon. He’d worn a silver astronaut pin for six years. As an astronaut that completed training but had not yet flown a mission he was not entitled to a gold pin. Knowing he would be awarded his gold astronaut pin upon his return to earth Al Bean tossed his silver one into a lunar crater. There were a few other little ditties that I could retell. Some Playboy Bunny photos attached to the lunar check list for example, but this is a family show. Al bean didn’t have another space mission until 1973 in Skylab 3, the second manned mission to Skylab. During that time he spent 59 days in orbit, performed a spacewalk, and even tested a prototype of the Manned Maneuvering Unit. It’s said that his Skylab crew accomplished 150 percent of its pre-mission goals. Although appointed backup spacecraft commander for the US crew of the Apollo-Soyuz Project, he never flew in space again after Skylab. As a Captain he retired from the Navy in 1975 but stayed on with NASA for quite some time afterwards as a civilian, in Astronaut Candidate Operations where he had the unofficial title of Chief Astronaut. I always felt that Al Bean had a heart. Like I said, I could hear it in his name; I thought he was a cool guy. Turned out I was right.  He was in line to fly some of the first space shuttle missions but chose not to when he retired from NASA in 1981. In an unselfish gesture he decided there were so many younger astronauts that could do that job that he gave up his opportunity to go back into space to give them a chance. For relaxation and his own personal growth Al Bean took art classes. When he retired from NASA he focused on painting, and his paintings are beautiful. He painted moonscapes, some of him and Pete Conrad on the moon, paintings of the photos he wanted to take, but couldn’t due to the lost timer. He incorporated real moon dust in his paintings and used some of the tools he brought back from the moon to paint them with. When asked about those paintings he once said that if he were painting as a scientist he would have painted in grays but as an artist he could “… add colors to the Moon.” He sure did. For Jetwhine, here in Portland, Maine, This is your Main(e) man, Micah

Click here to listen By Micah Engber Al Bean. I just liked saying the name when I was a kid. It was a cool name, sounded like he would be a cool guy, what a neat name for an astronaut, for the fourth person to ever set foot on the moon. If it weren’t for that cool name, at least pretty cool to a 13 year old boy, I might not know much about Al Bean. Unlike some other astronaut names I know, that are in the forefront of my brain, Captain Bean didn’t fly a lot of missions, but he sure did save the day on one of them. Turns out Al Bean was a pretty cool guy, and one of my childhood heroes; it also turns out, that I guess I’m at the age where I’m starting to lose a lot of them. Now the last survivor of Apollo 12 is gone. Born in 1932 Alan Bean was a Texas boy and a University of Texas graduate with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He was part of Navy ROTC at UT and after graduating, being commissioned, and getting through flight school, he flew the F9F Cougar and A4D Skyhawk. Eventually he was assigned to the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, where Pete Conrad was his instructor. Al Bean applied for Astronaut Group Two, and was rejected. That didn’t discourage him though he applied and was accepted to Astronaut Group Three along with Buzz Aldrin, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins and ten other names you may know. He was assigned as backup command pilot for Gemini 10 but never did fly Gemini; in fact he never got assigned an Apollo mission either. He ended up in the Apollo Applications Program where he worked on the Neutral Buoyancy Simulator and was the first astronaut in the tank to try it. He had resigned himself to not fly Apollo when some luck struck him, both good and bad. You see fellow Astronaut Group Three alum and Apollo 12 Lunar Module Pilot Clifton Williams was lost in the crash of his T-38. Pete Conrad, Apollo 12 Commander remembered training Al Bean at Patuxent River and personally requested that he become Clifton Williams’ replacement. See what I mean, good and bad luck at the same time. Al Bean was the right man for the job; in fact he saved the day. You see, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning on launch, and it knocked out the telemetry, as you can imagine quite a problem for a rocket on its way to the moon. In trying to restore telemetry the command came from ground, “… try SCE to ‘Aux”, an obscure switch that seemed to stump both Commander Pete Conrad and Command Module Pilot Richard Gordon. But Al Bean knew it! With Pete Conrad’s hand firmly grasping the abort handle Al Bean saved the mission. Pete Conrad and Al Bean landed Lunar Module Intrepid on the lunar surface and did two EVA’s. Turns out, mixed in with all the hard work, there was also quite a bit of fun on the moon. One of the mission objectives was to collect some material from the Surveyor program, an unmanned two year NASA mission that demonstrated the feasibility of soft landings on the moon pre-Apollo. Al Bean had smuggled a camera timer on board Apollo 12 so he could take a photo of himself and mission Commander Pete Conrad in front of the Surveyor. Something that was done as a practical joke for NASA scientists as they knew nothing about the timer. But when the time came to take the picture, he couldn’t find the timer, and the photo was never taken. When he did find the timer, just before boarding the Lunar Module for departure, he just tossed it away over his shoulder. The timer isn’t the only thing Al Bean tossed away on the moon. He’d worn a silver astronaut pin for six years. As an astronaut that completed training but had not yet flown a mission he was not entitled to a gold pin. Knowing he would be awarded his gold astronaut pin upon his return to earth Al Bean tossed his silver one into a lunar crater. There were a few other little ditties that I could retell. Some Playboy Bunny photos attached to the lunar check list for example, but this is a family show. Al bean didn’t have another space mission until 1973 in Skylab 3, the second manned mission to Skylab. During that time he spent 59 days in orbit, performed a spacewalk, and even tested a prototype of the Manned Maneuvering Unit. It’s said that his Skylab crew accomplished 150 percent of its pre-mission goals. Although appointed backup spacecraft commander for the US crew of the Apollo-Soyuz Project, he never flew in space again after Skylab. As a Captain he retired from the Navy in 1975 but stayed on with NASA for quite some time afterwards as a civilian, in Astronaut Candidate Operations where he had the unofficial title of Chief Astronaut. I always felt that Al Bean had a heart. Like I said, I could hear it in his name; I thought he was a cool guy. Turned out I was right.  He was in line to fly some of the first space shuttle missions but chose not to when he retired from NASA in 1981. In an unselfish gesture he decided there were so many younger astronauts that could do that job that he gave up his opportunity to go back into space to give them a chance. For relaxation and his own personal growth Al Bean took art classes. When he retired from NASA he focused on painting, and his paintings are beautiful. He painted moonscapes, some of him and Pete Conrad on the moon, paintings of the photos he wanted to take, but couldn’t due to the lost timer. He incorporated real moon dust in his paintings and used some of the tools he brought back from the moon to paint them with. When asked about those paintings he once said that if he were painting as a scientist he would have painted in grays but as an artist he could “… add colors to the Moon.” He sure did. For Jetwhine, here in Portland, Maine, This is your Main(e) man, Micah

Al Bean: An Astronaut of Many Colors

 click above to listen _________________________ Favorite Flights I Never Flew, by Micah Engber, contributor The mid to late 1980’s were the heyday of Frequent Flyer Programs. Since deregulation, the advent of low-cost airlines a-la People Express and Southwest, the mainline carriers were searching for a means to maintain their customer base, or as some said, their “strangle hold” on the industry. Frequent Flyer Programs started with American Airlines and quickly spread to all the others. By coincidence, this was also the time when, while living in Pueblo, Colorado, I was doing a good deal of commercial flying. Pueblo was only served by Rocky Mountain Airlines (Continental Express) when I started flying from there and that was fine by me. There were three or four daily flights back and forth to the Denver, Stapleton hub, and I always loved climbing on board the de Havilland Dash-7’s or Dash-6 Twin Otters.  (Later America West made a daily stop on a 737 flight from Phoenix to Colorado Springs and back. It always seemed like it would have been strange to fly the less than 50 mile leg PUB to COS but I never had the opportunity.) I joined the Continental One Pass Program early on and was soon an Elite Platinum member. What a wonderful way to fly! In those days most flights were way below capacity which meant I was almost always bumped up to First Class. Although First Class amenities weren’t even near what Business Class is today, it was still pretty spectacular compared to coach. All of the gate agents in Pueblo and some in Denver knew me by name and I was treated like a king. Many people remember the baggage disaster that took place when the new Denver airport opened, but really it wasn’t very different from the old days back at Stapleton. The Continental Express concourse was located at the other end of the airport from Continental’s mainline terminal and although it seemed my bags always made it outbound with me, they generally never accompanied me home. But the service was still spectacular. When I would arrive home in Pueblo the gate agent, having already seen my name on the flight manifest and recognizing me as a very frequent flyer, would pull me aside, tell me my bags didn’t make and that they would be delivered right after the next flight was turned around. Who could ask for more? I kept flying and kept my points banked. At that time, status with Frequent Flyer programs was based on points accumulated, not annual miles flown. I was in great shape as a Platinum One Pass member. By 1990 I could see that Frequent Flyer programs were changing along with the airline business. People Express had disappeared as had the original Frontier. Eastern Airlines and Pan Am were in trouble. TWA and America West were not far behind. Frequent Flyer programs were changing, and not for the better. I had moved to Maine and also found that while wealthy with points I was not very liquid in cash. If points were stocks it was time to sell. So I did, both literally and figuratively. After reserving a few points for something in particular I had in mind; I sold off the remaining points for cash through some specialty travel agents. I must say I did very well. Then I went ahead and used the reserved points for a special flight. My parents had been talking about another trip to Paris for some time. They had been there together before, and my father had been there on his own many times during World War II. He even studied at The University of Paris post war. Their 35th wedding anniversary was coming up and it was time to get them back to Paris. Still being within the golden years of Frequent Flyer programs, as a special anniversary present I was able to use my points to get them to Paris, round-trip in First Class. It was not a flight for me to fly, but nonetheless a memorable one that was worth every last point used for it. Years Later Seventeen years later, in 2007 my Mom, Harriet was talking about another trip to Europe. She and my father had traveled to many places since the Paris trip I managed to scrounge together for them. We had even taken a trip to London together. That was a very special trip. My Dad and I spent a great day together, part of which included sitting on the banks of the Thames and drinking tea, and then a trip to The Imperial War Museum. By this time however in 2007 his health while not terrible, did not allow for him to be as mobile as he once was, he spent most of this trip on his own near our hotel. The trip was a return to London for me, and then on by train for my first time in Paris. While in London my mother and I went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Although I had seen it before it’s a wonderful ceremony and worth seeing again, plus it was on the tour. We were standing in front of the palace gate. I was showing my mom some landmarks so she could get her bearings and know where the guard would be marching in from. It was then that a beautiful young woman that was standing nearby, but was not part of our tour asked me where I learned so much about the area and the ceremony. I told her I had been to London before and loved the city. We struck up a conversation and it turned out she was a Flight Attendant for Singapore Airlines. My God, I was talking to a “Singapore Girl”!! She was on her first flight since going through training and spending her first layover in London. She was a knockout! Now look, I loved my mom, and still do, and I was as dedicated a son to her as any son could be, but I was talking to a “Singapore Girl” and not just any “Singapore Girl” but a “Singapore Girl” that was talking to me because she wanted to, not because I was a passenger. A “Singapore Girl” that asked me where I was staying while in London, a “Singapore Girl” that was telling me that my hotel was near where she was staying, a “Singapore Girl” that wanted to know what I was doing later that evening. It was a dream come true!! As with all flights however, timing is everything. I explained how I was with my parents having taken them here to London and that we would soon be off to Paris. How we had theatre tickets for that night. I asked her when she returned to Singapore, if she might have a turnaround in Paris, New York, anyplace in the USA. Needless to say I never saw her nor heard from her again. And that my friends and fellow Jetwhiners, is the story behind the two best flights in my life, that I never flew. For Jetwhine, here in Portland, Maine, This is your Main(e) man, Micah

click above to listen _________________________ Favorite Flights I Never Flew, by Micah Engber, contributor The mid to late 1980’s were the heyday of Frequent Flyer Programs. Since deregulation, the advent of low-cost airlines a-la People Express and Southwest, the mainline carriers were searching for a means to maintain their customer base, or as some said, their “strangle hold” on the industry. Frequent Flyer Programs started with American Airlines and quickly spread to all the others. By coincidence, this was also the time when, while living in Pueblo, Colorado, I was doing a good deal of commercial flying. Pueblo was only served by Rocky Mountain Airlines (Continental Express) when I started flying from there and that was fine by me. There were three or four daily flights back and forth to the Denver, Stapleton hub, and I always loved climbing on board the de Havilland Dash-7’s or Dash-6 Twin Otters.  (Later America West made a daily stop on a 737 flight from Phoenix to Colorado Springs and back. It always seemed like it would have been strange to fly the less than 50 mile leg PUB to COS but I never had the opportunity.) I joined the Continental One Pass Program early on and was soon an Elite Platinum member. What a wonderful way to fly! In those days most flights were way below capacity which meant I was almost always bumped up to First Class. Although First Class amenities weren’t even near what Business Class is today, it was still pretty spectacular compared to coach. All of the gate agents in Pueblo and some in Denver knew me by name and I was treated like a king. Many people remember the baggage disaster that took place when the new Denver airport opened, but really it wasn’t very different from the old days back at Stapleton. The Continental Express concourse was located at the other end of the airport from Continental’s mainline terminal and although it seemed my bags always made it outbound with me, they generally never accompanied me home. But the service was still spectacular. When I would arrive home in Pueblo the gate agent, having already seen my name on the flight manifest and recognizing me as a very frequent flyer, would pull me aside, tell me my bags didn’t make and that they would be delivered right after the next flight was turned around. Who could ask for more? I kept flying and kept my points banked. At that time, status with Frequent Flyer programs was based on points accumulated, not annual miles flown. I was in great shape as a Platinum One Pass member. By 1990 I could see that Frequent Flyer programs were changing along with the airline business. People Express had disappeared as had the original Frontier. Eastern Airlines and Pan Am were in trouble. TWA and America West were not far behind. Frequent Flyer programs were changing, and not for the better. I had moved to Maine and also found that while wealthy with points I was not very liquid in cash. If points were stocks it was time to sell. So I did, both literally and figuratively. After reserving a few points for something in particular I had in mind; I sold off the remaining points for cash through some specialty travel agents. I must say I did very well. Then I went ahead and used the reserved points for a special flight. My parents had been talking about another trip to Paris for some time. They had been there together before, and my father had been there on his own many times during World War II. He even studied at The University of Paris post war. Their 35th wedding anniversary was coming up and it was time to get them back to Paris. Still being within the golden years of Frequent Flyer programs, as a special anniversary present I was able to use my points to get them to Paris, round-trip in First Class. It was not a flight for me to fly, but nonetheless a memorable one that was worth every last point used for it. Years Later Seventeen years later, in 2007 my Mom, Harriet was talking about another trip to Europe. She and my father had traveled to many places since the Paris trip I managed to scrounge together for them. We had even taken a trip to London together. That was a very special trip. My Dad and I spent a great day together, part of which included sitting on the banks of the Thames and drinking tea, and then a trip to The Imperial War Museum. By this time however in 2007 his health while not terrible, did not allow for him to be as mobile as he once was, he spent most of this trip on his own near our hotel. The trip was a return to London for me, and then on by train for my first time in Paris. While in London my mother and I went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Although I had seen it before it’s a wonderful ceremony and worth seeing again, plus it was on the tour. We were standing in front of the palace gate. I was showing my mom some landmarks so she could get her bearings and know where the guard would be marching in from. It was then that a beautiful young woman that was standing nearby, but was not part of our tour asked me where I learned so much about the area and the ceremony. I told her I had been to London before and loved the city. We struck up a conversation and it turned out she was a Flight Attendant for Singapore Airlines. My God, I was talking to a “Singapore Girl”!! She was on her first flight since going through training and spending her first layover in London. She was a knockout! Now look, I loved my mom, and still do, and I was as dedicated a son to her as any son could be, but I was talking to a “Singapore Girl” and not just any “Singapore Girl” but a “Singapore Girl” that was talking to me because she wanted to, not because I was a passenger. A “Singapore Girl” that asked me where I was staying while in London, a “Singapore Girl” that was telling me that my hotel was near where she was staying, a “Singapore Girl” that wanted to know what I was doing later that evening. It was a dream come true!! As with all flights however, timing is everything. I explained how I was with my parents having taken them here to London and that we would soon be off to Paris. How we had theatre tickets for that night. I asked her when she returned to Singapore, if she might have a turnaround in Paris, New York, anyplace in the USA. Needless to say I never saw her nor heard from her again. And that my friends and fellow Jetwhiners, is the story behind the two best flights in my life, that I never flew. For Jetwhine, here in Portland, Maine, This is your Main(e) man, Micah

Favorite Flights I Never Flew

Veterans Day as a Time to Reflect Funny how another person can make you think differently about something you thought you already understood. For me it’s my time in the military, the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s to be precise. When Jetwhine contributor Micah Engber mentioned a Veteran’s Day podcast a few months back, I wondered why. He’d never served. But his idea for telling a unique story kept bugging me until I realized here was a non-vet with something to share and me, a real vet … I had nothing. It took me awhile to come to grips with my issues. Turned out I’m pretty burned out on all the sloppy love people seem to have for vets these days, tossing around “Thanks you for your service,” and sticking “we support our troops” on the butt end of their cars as if that alone makes a difference. President after president seems not to understand that we all too often forget about these men and women once they come back stateside … the one time when Americans could actually put their money where their mouthes and their stickers are. It’s the insincerity of it all that makes me want to scream at times. Could it be worse, sure. When I left the Air Force in the 70s, people were generally indifferent to service men and women.  But listening to Micah’s stories of his grandfather and dad made me realize the two great wars taught him things in a way I never experienced. My dad wasn’t a vet. I don’t fault him for that since he had a hearing problem from the time he was a kid. But it meant there was no one in my family to hear stories from or ask questions of. I think Micah grew up listening to those stories, but actually grew up as he listened. He grew when he asked the questions others thought he should have left alone. After this seven minute piece, I realized I was envious of Micah. While I’m glad he had that time with the guys in his family, I wished I’d been able to share the same thoughts with my family and people who wanted to know more. Maybe I will some day. Until then, have a peaceful Veterans Day. Rob Mark, publisher  Veterans Day (script) Here in the USA Veteran’s Day used to be called Armistice Day. It celebrated the end of World War I. We celebrate it on November 11 as the treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed at Compiègne, France on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. If I understand it correctly, this same day is celebrated in Britain and the Commonwealth countries as Remembrance Day. A far more dignified and appropriate name. As usual here in the USA we changed the nature of the celebration and have turned it into something else completely, but at least we haven’t changed it to a “Monday Holiday” well, not yet anyway. I grew up with a great respect for Armistice Day in my house. My grandfather, Grandpa Max, served in the US Navy in World War I, and during the Mexican Campaign before that. Some listeners may remember that he and I shared our first ever flights together in August of 1969, he at the age of 73, me at 13. My father, Lew, was a World War II veteran of the US Army and was a called back to The US Air Force as a retread for Korea. He was rightfully very proud of his service, and I was, and still am quite proud of him as my Dad. He was part of that group of people called “the greatest generation” by newscaster Tom Brokaw, so were most of my mother and father’s friends and family. I was raised by this generation, as well as the generation before, that fought World War I. As part of “The Greatest Generation” at the age of 18 he was drafted out of his engineering studies at CCNY and landed in England on his 19’th birthday. He would have been one of the first to land on Omaha Beach during D-Day but looking back on it, I suppose he was fortunate to have been injured during the preparations for that invasion; suffering with both head and back trauma that plagued him the rest of his life, fortunately though, it did keep him off the beach that day. I’m not sure I would be here if he weren’t injured then. Those injuries didn’t keep him out of the war though. After the war, Lew went back to college, but having spent so much time building and destroying bridges in the Army Corp of Engineers, he realized engineering was no longer his passion and he became a psychologist. I suppose in some ways this made him more valuable to the Armed Forces as when he was again drafted, this time as a “re-tread” for the Korean War; he was inducted as a Second Lieutenant for the then newly formed US Air Force Medical Corp. After being introduced by mutual friends, in the summer of 1955 Lew and my mother Harriet were married, I came along a little over a year later. Now growing up my Dad and I would watch many World War II films together. Some we saw in theatres, some we saw on TV, all of them we would watch together over and over. While watching those films with my Dad I would ask him questions, questions about his service, about his experience in the war, questions I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to ask. My Dad, being a teacher and a psychologist didn’t discourage me, he knew they were innocent questions and used those times to teach me and tell me about his experiences, as much as he could anyway. I suppose he realized that talking to me about him “having seen the elephant” was good for both of us. He also taught me the etiquette about asking so I’d have a better understanding of veterans. I think watching those films with my Dad, and him teaching me about “The War” helped give me a great respect for our military and the sacrifices they made, and continue to make to this day, in defending we civilians. Thinking back on that makes me think of the word hero and its definition. No, I’m not talking about the sandwich, something I also learned about from my Dad and “the greatest generation”, I’m speaking of the men, and yes, based on the societal norms of the time, most often men, who risked their own lives to save others. You see heroes aren’t sports figures or actors or singers. Celebrities aren’t heroes, unless the heroism didn’t come from their celebrity status. Heroes are the people doing their job, not thinking or maybe at the time not caring about their own safety, when they act to save the lives of others. Most heroes aren’t celebrities and don’t look for nor want that status. Heroes walk among us though, and most often, we unfortunately don’t know them. In truth, they probably wouldn’t want to be known, as they don’t think of themselves as heroes. Most would say, I was just doing my job, and to me, that’s what makes them heroes. Now although my father probably wasn’t a hero to anyone but me, let me tell you what may be an apocryphal story about him. While I was growing up, he owned a 1914 32ACP German Mauser handgun that he captured during the war. I asked him how he got it and he explained that it was all a big mistake. You see it was after VE Day and Dad was still overseas. He was somewhere along the Belgium Luxembourg German border. Things were safe and he was out at a local pub, “drunk as a skunk” he would say. He didn’t know much German but while overhearing a conversation at the next table he was sure he strung together enough to know that a German Colonel had not surrendered and was hiding out in a house in the local village. My drunken father dutifully went to report this to his commanding officer, who was not pleased. The CO could see my Dad was drunk, and knew he didn’t speak any German. The commanding officer sent him to his barracks and ignored him. Not to be ignored Lew stormed back into the duty office and insisted that they needed to go to the address he had, and arrest this German Colonel. This time my Dad was sent back to his barracks escorted by MP’s who stripped him down to his skivvies and put him to bed. Still not thwarted my father returned to his CO and insisted he had to go arrest this Colonel. The CO must have been some understanding kind of guy and didn’t throw my drunken father in the brig, but took him and a couple of MP’s to this house to prove that there was no German Colonel hiding out in this fully cleared area. They entered the house and sure enough, there was a German officer hiding out there, he was at the top of the stairs and drew his side-arm, a 1914 32ACP German Mauser, and started firing down at my Dad, the two MP’s and their CO. Lew, still being, drunk thought to himself, “somebody has to get that gun” and went charging up the stairs to take it away. The German Colonel, either stunned at this stupidity, or out of ammunition, we’ll never know, stopped shooting and my father seized his weapon. Stupidity, drunkenness, heroism, maybe bit of all of that, but when my Dad after telling that story in his joking, good natured and raconteurial manner, was asked why he didn’t get a medal, he would say he was just lucky he didn’t end up in the brig and lose his good conduct ribbon. You see my father may have been a hero to me for various reasons, that being one of them, but it’s not the prima facie basis of it. It does make me think though of other heroes. There’s a former US Air Force pilot I know, who among other duties during his service, was a flight instructor. He wasn’t just any flight instructor though, he would instruct many pilots about to wash out, and was usually able to get them back on track and into the sky, making real USAF pilots out of them. Then there’s this former RAF pilot I know, who also among other things during his service, would hear a klaxon alarm and hop into his F-4 Phantom II and run off to chase down and intercept Russian Bear Bombers. He’d show them we were ever ready and not going to be surprised by them. Through their service, both these pilots helped in keeping a Cold War from going hot, and creating the kind of heroes that most often come to mind when we think of Veteran’s or Remembrance Day. So as a civilian with a great respect for those who serve in our military, I want to extend my thanks to all of you who did and do serve there. Thanks for keeping us safe, thanks for just doing your job. For Jetwhine, here in Portland, Maine This is your Main(e) man, Micah

Veterans Day as a Time to Reflect Funny how another person can make you think differently about something you thought you already understood. For me it’s my time in the military, the U.S. Air Force in the 1960s to be precise. When Jetwhine contributor Micah Engber mentioned a Veteran’s Day podcast a few months back, I wondered why. He’d never served. But his idea for telling a unique story kept bugging me until I realized here was a non-vet with something to share and me, a real vet … I had nothing. It took me awhile to come to grips with my issues. Turned out I’m pretty burned out on all the sloppy love people seem to have for vets these days, tossing around “Thanks you for your service,” and sticking “we support our troops” on the butt end of their cars as if that alone makes a difference. President after president seems not to understand that we all too often forget about these men and women once they come back stateside … the one time when Americans could actually put their money where their mouthes and their stickers are. It’s the insincerity of it all that makes me want to scream at times. Could it be worse, sure. When I left the Air Force in the 70s, people were generally indifferent to service men and women. But listening to Micah’s stories of his grandfather and dad made me realize the two great wars taught him things in a way I never experienced. My dad wasn’t a vet. I don’t fault him for that since he had a hearing problem from the time he was a kid. But it meant there was no one in my family to hear stories from or ask questions of. I think Micah grew up listening to those stories, but actually grew up as he listened. He grew when he asked the questions others thought he should have left alone. After this seven minute piece, I realized I was envious of Micah. While I’m glad he had that time with the guys in his family, I wished I’d been able to share the same thoughts with my family and people who wanted to know more. Maybe I will some day. Until then, have a peaceful Veterans Day. Rob Mark, publisher Veterans Day (script) Here in the USA Veteran’s Day used to be called Armistice Day. It celebrated the end of World War I. We celebrate it on November 11 as the treaty between the Allies and Germany was signed at Compiègne, France on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918. If I understand it correctly, this same day is celebrated in Britain and the Commonwealth countries as Remembrance Day. A far more dignified and appropriate name. As usual here in the USA we changed the nature of the celebration and have turned it into something else completely, but at least we haven’t changed it to a “Monday Holiday” well, not yet anyway. I grew up with a great respect for Armistice Day in my house. My grandfather, Grandpa Max, served in the US Navy in World War I, and during the Mexican Campaign before that. Some listeners may remember that he and I shared our first ever flights together in August of 1969, he at the age of 73, me at 13. My father, Lew, was a World War II veteran of the US Army and was a called back to The US Air Force as a retread for Korea. He was rightfully very proud of his service, and I was, and still am quite proud of him as my Dad. He was part of that group of people called “the greatest generation” by newscaster Tom Brokaw, so were most of my mother and father’s friends and family. I was raised by this generation, as well as the generation before, that fought World War I. As part of “The Greatest Generation” at the age of 18 he was drafted out of his engineering studies at CCNY and landed in England on his 19’th birthday. He would have been one of the first to land on Omaha Beach during D-Day but looking back on it, I suppose he was fortunate to have been injured during the preparations for that invasion; suffering with both head and back trauma that plagued him the rest of his life, fortunately though, it did keep him off the beach that day. I’m not sure I would be here if he weren’t injured then. Those injuries didn’t keep him out of the war though. After the war, Lew went back to college, but having spent so much time building and destroying bridges in the Army Corp of Engineers, he realized engineering was no longer his passion and he became a psychologist. I suppose in some ways this made him more valuable to the Armed Forces as when he was again drafted, this time as a “re-tread” for the Korean War; he was inducted as a Second Lieutenant for the then newly formed US Air Force Medical Corp. After being introduced by mutual friends, in the summer of 1955 Lew and my mother Harriet were married, I came along a little over a year later. Now growing up my Dad and I would watch many World War II films together. Some we saw in theatres, some we saw on TV, all of them we would watch together over and over. While watching those films with my Dad I would ask him questions, questions about his service, about his experience in the war, questions I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to ask. My Dad, being a teacher and a psychologist didn’t discourage me, he knew they were innocent questions and used those times to teach me and tell me about his experiences, as much as he could anyway. I suppose he realized that talking to me about him “having seen the elephant” was good for both of us. He also taught me the etiquette about asking so I’d have a better understanding of veterans. I think watching those films with my Dad, and him teaching me about “The War” helped give me a great respect for our military and the sacrifices they made, and continue to make to this day, in defending we civilians. Thinking back on that makes me think of the word hero and its definition. No, I’m not talking about the sandwich, something I also learned about from my Dad and “the greatest generation”, I’m speaking of the men, and yes, based on the societal norms of the time, most often men, who risked their own lives to save others. You see heroes aren’t sports figures or actors or singers. Celebrities aren’t heroes, unless the heroism didn’t come from their celebrity status. Heroes are the people doing their job, not thinking or maybe at the time not caring about their own safety, when they act to save the lives of others. Most heroes aren’t celebrities and don’t look for nor want that status. Heroes walk among us though, and most often, we unfortunately don’t know them. In truth, they probably wouldn’t want to be known, as they don’t think of themselves as heroes. Most would say, I was just doing my job, and to me, that’s what makes them heroes. Now although my father probably wasn’t a hero to anyone but me, let me tell you what may be an apocryphal story about him. While I was growing up, he owned a 1914 32ACP German Mauser handgun that he captured during the war. I asked him how he got it and he explained that it was all a big mistake. You see it was after VE Day and Dad was still overseas. He was somewhere along the Belgium Luxembourg German border. Things were safe and he was out at a local pub, “drunk as a skunk” he would say. He didn’t know much German but while overhearing a conversation at the next table he was sure he strung together enough to know that a German Colonel had not surrendered and was hiding out in a house in the local village. My drunken father dutifully went to report this to his commanding officer, who was not pleased. The CO could see my Dad was drunk, and knew he didn’t speak any German. The commanding officer sent him to his barracks and ignored him. Not to be ignored Lew stormed back into the duty office and insisted that they needed to go to the address he had, and arrest this German Colonel. This time my Dad was sent back to his barracks escorted by MP’s who stripped him down to his skivvies and put him to bed. Still not thwarted my father returned to his CO and insisted he had to go arrest this Colonel. The CO must have been some understanding kind of guy and didn’t throw my drunken father in the brig, but took him and a couple of MP’s to this house to prove that there was no German Colonel hiding out in this fully cleared area. They entered the house and sure enough, there was a German officer hiding out there, he was at the top of the stairs and drew his side-arm, a 1914 32ACP German Mauser, and started firing down at my Dad, the two MP’s and their CO. Lew, still being, drunk thought to himself, “somebody has to get that gun” and went charging up the stairs to take it away. The German Colonel, either stunned at this stupidity, or out of ammunition, we’ll never know, stopped shooting and my father seized his weapon. Stupidity, drunkenness, heroism, maybe bit of all of that, but when my Dad after telling that story in his joking, good natured and raconteurial manner, was asked why he didn’t get a medal, he would say he was just lucky he didn’t end up in the brig and lose his good conduct ribbon. You see my father may have been a hero to me for various reasons, that being one of them, but it’s not the prima facie basis of it. It does make me think though of other heroes. There’s a former US Air Force pilot I know, who among other duties during his service, was a flight instructor. He wasn’t just any flight instructor though, he would instruct many pilots about to wash out, and was usually able to get them back on track and into the sky, making real USAF pilots out of them. Then there’s this former RAF pilot I know, who also among other things during his service, would hear a klaxon alarm and hop into his F-4 Phantom II and run off to chase down and intercept Russian Bear Bombers. He’d show them we were ever ready and not going to be surprised by them. Through their service, both these pilots helped in keeping a Cold War from going hot, and creating the kind of heroes that most often come to mind when we think of Veteran’s or Remembrance Day. So as a civilian with a great respect for those who serve in our military, I want to extend my thanks to all of you who did and do serve there. Thanks for keeping us safe, thanks for just doing your job. For Jetwhine, here in Portland, Maine This is your Main(e) man, Micah

Veterans Day as a Time to Reflect

I was really starting to like the FAA the past few years, what with the Part 23 rewrite and passage if 3rd Class Medical reform. I saw them as more of a kinder, gentler agency … more let’s all work together for the greater good and that sort of thing … until a couple of weekends ago at least. That’s when the FAA performed one of those end runs around everyone, slipping a settlement on Santa Monica airport mess in under everyone’s radar on a Saturday morning. The FAA’s deal with Santa Monica allows the city to chop up the airport’s single runway as soon as the ink’s dry on the necessary paperwork. That should shrink Runway 03/21 from 4,973 feet to something closer to 3,500, just short enough to make it useless for most jets and even some large chartered turboprops. I suppose the agency was thinking the good news inside this “innovative solution” as the administrator called it, was that the airport will remain open for business until 2028, if the city hasn’t already driven everyone away by then of course. But seriously … they see this deal as innovative? Let me quote Administrator Michael Huerta. “Mutual cooperation between the FAA and the city enabled us to reach this innovative solution, which resolves longstanding legal and regulatory disputes. This is a fair resolution for all concerned because it strikes an appropriate balance between the public’s interest in making local decisions about land use practices and its interests in safe and efficient aviation services.” A fair resolution? I’m struggling with this one. Sure municipalities ought to have a say in local airport operations, but what about this solution strikes anyone as innovative or fair? The FAA and the City have been in this skirmish for decades of course and we all knew something had to give sooner or later. But from this point on, the agency is going to have a tough time convincing anyone of their support for the industry if everyone knows they’re willing to pull another Meigs Field fiasco at the 11th hour. And let’s be serious, this really is a Meigs Field like move. The City of Chicago closed Meigs Field to create a new park. – Photo courtesy Lee Hogan The agency says this historic agreement removes the uncertainty of the airport closing at a moment’s notice like Meigs. The FAA says they’ll be on their toes to enforce the Santa Monica agreement. Yeah, right. But if this agreement is so innovative, so grand, so historic, why sneak it in under the media radar on Saturday morning where PR writers only send the news releases they hope no one will really notice? Some readers told me they think the settlement was nudged along by the new administration at the last minute, but I doubt it. The FAA just doesn’t move that fast … unless it’s in their best interests I guess. Hmmm … now where are those stupid thumbs down emojis you need them? Ah yes …  I’m Rob Mark in Chicago.

I was really starting to like the FAA the past few years, what with the Part 23 rewrite and passage if 3rd Class Medical reform. I saw them as more of a kinder, gentler agency … more let’s all work together for the greater good and that sort of thing … until a couple of weekends ago at least. That’s when the FAA performed one of those end runs around everyone, slipping a settlement on Santa Monica airport mess in under everyone’s radar on a Saturday morning. The FAA’s deal with Santa Monica allows the city to chop up the airport’s single runway as soon as the ink’s dry on the necessary paperwork. That should shrink Runway 03/21 from 4,973 feet to something closer to 3,500, just short enough to make it useless for most jets and even some large chartered turboprops. I suppose the agency was thinking the good news inside this “<a href="http://according to the agreement" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">innovative solution</a>” as the administrator called it, was that the airport will remain open for business until 2028, if the city hasn’t already driven everyone away by then of course. But seriously … they see this deal as innovative? Let me quote Administrator Michael Huerta. “Mutual cooperation between the FAA and the city enabled us to reach this innovative solution, which resolves longstanding legal and regulatory disputes. This is a fair resolution for all concerned because it strikes an appropriate balance between the public’s interest in making local decisions about land use practices and its interests in safe and efficient aviation services.” A fair resolution? I’m struggling with this one. Sure municipalities ought to have a say in local airport operations, but what about this solution strikes anyone as innovative or fair? The FAA and the City have been in this skirmish for decades of course and we all knew something had to give sooner or later. But from this point on, the agency is going to have a tough time convincing anyone of their support for the industry if everyone knows they’re willing to pull another Meigs Field fiasco at the 11th hour. And let’s be serious, this really is a Meigs Field like move. The City of Chicago closed Meigs Field to create a new park. – Photo courtesy Lee Hogan The agency says this historic agreement removes the uncertainty of the airport closing at a moment’s notice like Meigs. The FAA says they’ll be on their toes to enforce the Santa Monica agreement. Yeah, right. But if this agreement is so innovative, so grand, so historic, why sneak it in under the media radar on Saturday morning where PR writers only send the news releases they hope no one will really notice? Some readers told me they think the settlement was nudged along by the new administration at the last minute, but I doubt it. The FAA just doesn’t move that fast … unless it’s in their best interests I guess. Hmmm … now where are those stupid thumbs down emojis you need them? Ah yes … I’m Rob Mark in Chicago.

The FAA Lost Me at “Innovative Solution”

Can Airports Help Revive the Aviation Industry? Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber to The Aviation Minute, Click Here to sign up … it’s free. ______________________________ Listen Now  I knew we had a lot of landing areas here in the United States … but 19,315 according to the FAA? Wow. That number is of course broken down into traditional airports, heliports, seaplane bases. No matter what you call them or what they look like, they all have one thing in common. They represent a place where airplanes, helicopters and seaplanes come home to roost from time to time. Some of those airports represent much more of an opportunity to me than simply as landing areas though. The aviation industry is still suffering from an economic recession of sorts. In the early 1980s, we produced 15,000 piston aircraft. Last year we produced 1,328. In the 1990s we had over 700,000 pilots on the FAA register. Today that numbers in the high 500,000s. Student pilot starts are down from the old days too with nearly 7 in 10 students quitting long before they ever earn a pilot certificate. Aircraft maintenance technician numbers have been flat since 1990, which equates to zero growth. Worst of all, 75% of the AMTs today are over the age of 50. As an industry, our ship has been taking on water for sometime despite a number of conscientious initiatives to increase the pilot, mechanic and airplane supply, most of which haven’t moved the needle much. If we don’t figure out a way to start bringing new blood into the industry soon, there won’t be enough people to fly the airplanes we build, or fix them, or service them at those thousands of U.S. airports. The question is how to fix the problem we all know about, but that many people still seem to believe is someone else’s problem? Rather than another national initiative, what if we focused our triage efforts locally … at our neighborhood airport? When people think of learning to fly, they go to the airport. If they want to buy a plane they often visit the airport first. When they need one fixed, or they want a hangar, they head to the airport. This is where I think airport managers can help. Traditionally, they focus on keeping the airport alive with solid pavement, newly mown grass and runway lights that work … all very necessary tasks. But marketing the industry is not something airport people normally think about. But what if airport managers started thinking a bit more about marketing, I think they might just transform their airport into a local industry beacon of sorts, one that encourages people to learn to fly, or become involved in any of a half dozen other careers within the industry? I’m not asking airport managers to fix the industry’s personnel woes all alone, just help coordinate local efforts with the airport tenants whose companies need the boost as much as the industry. Imagine organizing a couple of career days, or a Young Eagles Rally or two to stimulate interest. What about an airport Facebook page or a blog to tell the local community about the value of the airport, one that regularly posts photos or stories gathered from airport tenants? Before you know it we might even convince the community around our airports to ignore those 8-foot barbed wire fences and stop in for a visit. I think airport managers are up to the challenge of coordinating the local marketing efforts for our industry. We’ll talk more about the actual tactics in another episode too. And for those naysayers who are already saying that will never work … tell me what you’d suggest instead because I haven’t seen much working lately. If we don’t all start realizing that fixing what ails our industry is everyone’s concern … flight schools, FBOs, flying clubs, maintenance and avionics shops, trust me … we may one day find that the airport managers who are still around may have a lot fewer airports to watch over. I’m Rob Mark. See you next time. And if you don’t already subscribe to the aviation minute, find us on iTunes under Jetwhine or visit our archive at jetwhine.com

Can Airports Help Revive the Aviation Industry? Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_4-29-2015.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here to listen</a> as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber to The Aviation Minute, <a href="http://jetwhine.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=238772aa3f8efbb034ec01f58&amp;id=227426553a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click Here</a> to sign up … it’s free. ______________________________ Listen Now I knew we had a lot of landing areas here in the United States … but 19,315 according to the FAA? Wow. That number is of course broken down into traditional airports, heliports, seaplane bases. No matter what you call them or what they look like, they all have one thing in common. They represent a place where airplanes, helicopters and seaplanes come home to roost from time to time. Some of those airports represent much more of an opportunity to me than simply as landing areas though. The aviation industry is still suffering from an economic recession of sorts. In the early 1980s, we produced 15,000 piston aircraft. Last year we produced 1,328. In the 1990s we had over 700,000 pilots on the FAA register. Today that numbers in the high 500,000s. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/learntofly1.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Student pilot starts are down from the old days too with nearly 7 in 10 students quitting long before they ever earn a pilot certificate. Aircraft maintenance technician numbers have been flat since 1990, which equates to zero growth. Worst of all, 75% of the AMTs today are over the age of 50. As an industry, our ship has been taking on water for sometime despite a number of conscientious initiatives to increase the pilot, mechanic and airplane supply, most of which haven’t moved the needle much. If we don’t figure out a way to start bringing new blood into the industry soon, there won’t be enough people to fly the airplanes we build, or fix them, or service them at those thousands of U.S. airports. The question is how to fix the problem we all know about, but that many people still seem to believe is someone else’s problem? Rather than another national initiative, what if we focused our triage efforts locally … at our neighborhood airport? When people think of learning to fly, they go to the airport. If they want to buy a plane they often visit the airport first. When they need one fixed, or they want a hangar, they head to the airport. This is where I think airport managers can help. Traditionally, they focus on keeping the airport alive with solid pavement, newly mown grass and runway lights that work … all very necessary tasks. But marketing the industry is not something airport people normally think about. But what if airport managers started thinking a bit more about marketing, I think they might just transform their airport into a local industry beacon of sorts, one that encourages people to learn to fly, or become involved in any of a half dozen other careers within the industry? I’m not asking airport managers to fix the industry’s personnel woes all alone, just help coordinate local efforts with the airport tenants whose companies need the boost as much as the industry. Imagine organizing a couple of career days, or a Young Eagles Rally or two to stimulate interest. What about an airport Facebook page or a blog to tell the local community about the value of the airport, one that regularly posts photos or stories gathered from airport tenants? Before you know it we might even convince the community around our airports to ignore those 8-foot barbed wire fences and stop in for a visit. I think airport managers are up to the challenge of coordinating the local marketing efforts for our industry. We’ll talk more about the actual tactics in another episode too. And for those naysayers who are already saying that will never work … tell me what you’d suggest instead because I haven’t seen much working lately. If we don’t all start realizing that fixing what ails our industry is everyone’s concern … flight schools, FBOs, flying clubs, maintenance and avionics shops, trust me … we may one day find that the airport managers who are still around may have a lot fewer airports to watch over. I’m Rob Mark. See you next time. And if you don’t already subscribe to the aviation minute, find us on iTunes under Jetwhine or visit our archive at <a href="http://jetwhine.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">jetwhine.com</a>

Can Airports Help Revive the Aviation Industry?

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber to The Aviation Minute, Click Here to sign up … it’s free. __________________________ Why U.S. Airmen Should be Grateful for the NTSB  Podcast Text — Last week’s crash in the French Alps raised a number of issues, like how the young pilot accused of the tragedy managed to keep his health issues hidden from his employer, how few airlines outside the US. bring another employee into the cockpit when one pilot must leave and of course how, or if, pilots can even be allowed to fly if they’re suffering from any mental health issues. There is one item that wasn’t mentioned though, at least not directly … the differences between how aircraft accidents like these are investigated here in the US versus other parts of the world. In the United States, our National Transportation Safety Board has spoiled us, in a good way. The NTSB is, of course, an independent federal agency established outside the Dept. of Transportation and answering only to Congress. Since the NTSB was crated back in 1926, the agency and its predecessors have investigated some 132,000 aviation accidents. But back to the Alps. The first comments about the Germanwings crash were released by French Prosecutors. The French BEA, their equivalent of our NTSB, was sent to the accident site, but have not been heard from. In Europe and other parts of the world, prosecutors being first to the microphone are not all that unusual because their motives are different from ours. Here, the NTSB searched for a cause, with the hopes of preventing a similar incident. Elsewhere it doesn’t work quite the same. When a business jet crashed into a snowplow on takeoff from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport last year, the Russians quickly arrested the snowplow driver as well as the tower controllers. Outside the US, aircraft accidents are often seen as criminal events first, hence the need to find the culprit. Prosecutors are more like cops to me. They want a bad guy and within a very short period of time following the Germanwings crash, they pinned it on the co-pilot. But let me be clear … I’m not saying the co-pilot is not responsible for the accident. What I’m saying is that there is so much work yet to be done, so many more pieces of the crash to be investigated that I’m appalled at the direction the media coverage has taken. In a number of interviews, Lufthansa’s CEO Carsten Spohr repeated that the event was a one-off, making the chances of another like it quite slim. Our White House also strangely chimed in just hours after the crash explaining it didn’t appear to be a terrorist event. Now how could they possibly know that for certain just hours after the crash? There are so many unanswered questions, like if the co-pilot is responsible, why did he do it? Why does there appear to have been no post-impact fire? What mental health issues was the pilot actually suffering from? How much did the airline really know and when? What else was happening on-board the aircraft before the accident? We only have reports of a few select bits of the cockpit voice recording. We haven’t even located the flight data recorder, and no one’s even asking about it any longer. When I read comments from the Lufthansa people, they sounded more like a corporate defense strategy than facts surrounding an accident investigation. A few days after the crash, many airlines decided it was time to place someone else in the cockpit – like a flight attendant – when the other pilot leaves. So that just about covers it I guess. If the pilot hadn’t been alone, the crash would not have happened. We’ve located the problem, the bad guy is dead anyway, so let’s move on. Ask yourself how the same crash would have been handled in the U.S. I doubt you’d see an airline CEO on TV offering the media their selection of details aimed at keeping the company out of hot water. We airmen here in the U.S. should be extremely grateful for the existence of the NTSB, a group focused on investigating every last bit of evidence before determining a probable cause. Other airmen around the world – pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers – can only dream of such an organization in their countries. And the people dreaming the most are those people still sitting in jails around the world. From Chicago, I’m Rob Mark. See you next time. By the way, if you enjoy the Aviation Minute, why not send your friends to our archive at Jetwhine.com? We’d really appreciate it your referral.

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_3-30-2015.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here to listen</a> as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber to The Aviation Minute, <a href="http://jetwhine.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=238772aa3f8efbb034ec01f58&amp;id=227426553a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click Here</a> to sign up … it’s free. __________________________ Why U.S. Airmen Should be Grateful for the NTSB Podcast Text — Last week’s crash in the French Alps raised a number of issues, like how the young pilot accused of the tragedy managed to keep his health issues hidden from his employer, how few airlines outside the US. bring another employee into the cockpit when one pilot must leave and of course how, or if, pilots can even be allowed to fly if they’re suffering from any mental health issues. There is one item that wasn’t mentioned though, at least not directly … the differences between how aircraft accidents like these are investigated here in the US versus other parts of the world. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/NTSB.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>In the United States, our National Transportation Safety Board has spoiled us, in a good way. The NTSB is, of course, an independent federal agency established outside the Dept. of Transportation and answering only to Congress. Since the NTSB was crated back in 1926, the agency and its predecessors have investigated some 132,000 aviation accidents. But back to the Alps. The first comments about the Germanwings crash were released by French Prosecutors. The French BEA, their equivalent of our NTSB, was sent to the accident site, but have not been heard from. In Europe and other parts of the world, prosecutors being first to the microphone are not all that unusual because their motives are different from ours. Here, the NTSB searched for a cause, with the hopes of preventing a similar incident. Elsewhere it doesn’t work quite the same. When a business jet crashed into a snowplow on takeoff from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport last year, the Russians quickly arrested the snowplow driver as well as the tower controllers. Outside the US, aircraft accidents are often seen as criminal events first, hence the need to find the culprit. Prosecutors are more like cops to me. They want a bad guy and within a very short period of time following the Germanwings crash, they pinned it on the co-pilot. But let me be clear … I’m not saying the co-pilot is not responsible for the accident. What I’m saying is that there is so much work yet to be done, so many more pieces of the crash to be investigated that I’m appalled at the direction the media coverage has taken. In a number of interviews, Lufthansa’s CEO Carsten Spohr repeated that the event was a one-off, making the chances of another like it quite slim. Our White House also strangely chimed in just hours after the crash explaining it didn’t appear to be a terrorist event. Now how could they possibly know that for certain just hours after the crash? There are so many unanswered questions, like if the co-pilot is responsible, why did he do it? Why does there appear to have been no post-impact fire? What mental health issues was the pilot actually suffering from? How much did the airline really know and when? What else was happening on-board the aircraft before the accident? We only have reports of a few select bits of the cockpit voice recording. We haven’t even located the flight data recorder, and no one’s even asking about it any longer. When I read comments from the Lufthansa people, they sounded more like a corporate defense strategy than facts surrounding an accident investigation. A few days after the crash, many airlines decided it was time to place someone else in the cockpit – like a flight attendant – when the other pilot leaves. So that just about covers it I guess. If the pilot hadn’t been alone, the crash would not have happened. We’ve located the problem, the bad guy is dead anyway, so let’s move on. Ask yourself how the same crash would have been handled in the U.S. I doubt you’d see an airline CEO on TV offering the media their selection of details aimed at keeping the company out of hot water. We airmen here in the U.S. should be extremely grateful for the existence of the NTSB, a group focused on investigating every last bit of evidence before determining a probable cause. Other airmen around the world – pilots, mechanics, air traffic controllers – can only dream of such an organization in their countries. And the people dreaming the most are those people still sitting in jails around the world. From Chicago, I’m Rob Mark. See you next time. By the way, if you enjoy the Aviation Minute, why not send your friends to our archive at <a href="http://Jetwhine.com?" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jetwhine.com?</a> We’d really appreciate it your referral.

Why U.S. Airmen Should be Grateful for the NTSB

How Passengers Helped Mess Up Frequent Flyer Programs Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber to The Aviation Minute, Click Here to sign up … it’s free.     Push to play If you missed last week’s episode of The Airplane Geeks Show, you also missed the discussion Brian Coleman our assistant producer started about frequent flyer programs. He began by mentioning the changes Southwest Airlines recently made to its Rapid Reward system. OK … bias alert — I’m a long time Southwest customer, a fact that has nothing to do with the photo I have in my office of the airline’s founder Herb Kelleher and I having a glass of Wild Turkey when I was lucky enough to meet him many years back. Anyway, everyone seemed so concerned about Rapid Rewards. The changes mean a free flight costs more than it used to. Hmmm … A free flight costs more … now there’s a contradiction for you. My only comment though was so what? The fact that Southwest took this long to tweak their program to better reflect the price of the ticket was the real surprise to me. Even though I have to drive crosstown to Midway to connect with Southwest, I make the trip often, but not because of the free tickets. I just like Southwest’s service. Free tickets are just gravy. And I don’t fly Business Select either. I’m in back with everybody else. But of course Brian couldn’t stop himself from talking about frequent flyer points. A couple of days later, he just had to share a post from our buddy Brett Snyder over at the Cranky Flier … that’s crankyflier.com BTW. Brett makes airline economics look pretty easy as you’ll see if you read his Feb. 19th story about Southwest. I don’t disagree with what Brett said at all, but the changes don’t mean much to me. So maybe I’m in a minority even when the guy who cuts my hair started asking me for advice the other day on how best to travel using frequent flier points … Uggggh! Just a Touch of History One thing that keeps me centered when people start griping about free flights is remembering that Bob Crandall created American’s Advantage program in 1981 as a way to retain customers. All the other airlines of course quickly copied the program. Thirty Five years later though, all the airlines would like to dump these loyalty programs if they could, because they’re a ton of extra work for little return to the airlines. But we’re a generation of flyers addicted to free flights, so the airlines are probably stuck with these things. But just because they’re stuck with these frequent flyer white elephants doesn’t mean the airlines won’t continue tweaking them though. Most importantly, there’s absolutely nothing passengers can do about any of this either. Keep this in mind though as we all scuffle for free tickets. We passengers created much of this mess ourselves. All the airlines did was deliver what their customers asked for … cheap tickets. So the seats are tight, there’s no food, they lose our bags now and again, not to mention a host of new fees. We wanted cheap tickets and well, we got em. The low-cost airlines that appeared after deregulation are what got people focused on price BTW. Before deregulation, when all the airlines charged the same price, I think they were actually trying to create a cruise line kind of travel experience in the air. But post-deregulation passengers chasing the cheapest ticket helped turn that experience into something closer to traveling by Greyhound bus. So back to Southwest. To me, they’re an airline that delivers a consistent system for boarding airplanes. They let my bags ride free and the employees always seem pretty happy to see me. And no, Southwest isn’t perfect. They’ve lost some of my bags along the way. But they made good enough on the problem to keep me as a customer. That’s life I think. People screw up and companies screw up. It’s how they handle the situation when they make a mistake though that’s important to me. But then if I start talk about those kind of situations too much, I’ll be stepping on Cranky Flier’s toes. And I don’t want to make him any crankier than he already is. For now, I’m going to see if I have a free ticket on Southwest. If not, I’ll wait until I do. There just seems to be so many more important things to worry about these days I think … like what Brian Coleman has in store for me on this week’s show. From Chicago, I’m Rob Mark. We’ll see you next time. Be sure and check out The Aviation Minute archive at Jetwhine.com in case you want to catch up on any back episodes.

How Passengers Helped Mess Up Frequent Flyer Programs Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the script of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_2-23-2015.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here to listen</a> as well. If you’re not yet a subscriber to The Aviation Minute, <a href="http://jetwhine.us2.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=238772aa3f8efbb034ec01f58&amp;id=227426553a" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Click Here</a> to sign up … it’s free. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/SWA-Logo.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> Push to play If you missed last week’s episode of The Airplane Geeks Show, you also missed the discussion Brian Coleman our assistant producer started about frequent flyer programs. He began by mentioning the changes Southwest Airlines recently made to its Rapid Reward system. OK … bias alert — I’m a long time Southwest customer, a fact that has nothing to do with the photo I have in my office of the airline’s founder Herb Kelleher and I having a glass of Wild Turkey when I was lucky enough to meet him many years back. Anyway, everyone seemed so concerned about Rapid Rewards. The changes mean a free flight costs more than it used to. Hmmm … A free flight costs more … now there’s a contradiction for you. My only comment though was so what? The fact that Southwest took this long to tweak their program to better reflect the price of the ticket was the real surprise to me. Even though I have to drive crosstown to Midway to connect with Southwest, I make the trip often, but not because of the free tickets. I just like Southwest’s service. Free tickets are just gravy. And I don’t fly Business Select either. I’m in back with everybody else.<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/TAM-Final-LogowithJet-01.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> But of course Brian couldn’t stop himself from talking about frequent flyer points. A couple of days later, he just had to share a post from our buddy Brett Snyder over at the Cranky Flier … that’s <a href="http://www.crankyflier.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">crankyflier.com</a> BTW. Brett makes airline economics look pretty easy as you’ll see if you read his <a href="http://crankyflier.com/2015/02/19/southwest-alters-rapid-rewards-redemption-rates-to-be-more-opaque/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Feb. 19th story about Southwest</a>. I don’t disagree with what Brett said at all, but the changes don’t mean much to me. So maybe I’m in a minority even when the guy who cuts my hair started asking me for advice the other day on how best to travel using frequent flier points … Uggggh! Just a Touch of History One thing that keeps me centered when people start griping about free flights is remembering that Bob Crandall created American’s Advantage program in 1981 as a way to retain customers. All the other airlines of course quickly copied the program. Thirty Five years later though, all the airlines would like to dump these loyalty programs if they could, because they’re a ton of extra work for little return to the airlines. But we’re a generation of flyers addicted to free flights, so the airlines are probably stuck with these things. But just because they’re stuck with these frequent flyer white elephants doesn’t mean the airlines won’t continue tweaking them though. Most importantly, there’s absolutely nothing passengers can do about any of this either. Keep this in mind though as we all scuffle for free tickets. We passengers created much of this mess ourselves. All the airlines did was deliver what their customers asked for … cheap tickets. So the seats are tight, there’s no food, they lose our bags now and again, not to mention a host of new fees. We wanted cheap tickets and well, we got em. The low-cost airlines that appeared after deregulation are what got people focused on price BTW. Before deregulation, when all the airlines charged the same price, I think they were actually trying to create a cruise line kind of travel experience in the air. But post-deregulation passengers chasing the cheapest ticket helped turn that experience into something closer to traveling by Greyhound bus. So back to Southwest. To me, they’re an airline that delivers a consistent system for boarding airplanes. They let my bags ride free and the employees always seem pretty happy to see me. And no, Southwest isn’t perfect. They’ve lost some of my bags along the way. But they made good enough on the problem to keep me as a customer. That’s life I think. People screw up and companies screw up. It’s how they handle the situation when they make a mistake though that’s important to me. But then if I start talk about those kind of situations too much, I’ll be stepping on Cranky Flier’s toes. And I don’t want to make him any crankier than he already is. For now, I’m going to see if I have a free ticket on Southwest. If not, I’ll wait until I do. There just seems to be so many more important things to worry about these days I think … like what Brian Coleman has in store for me on this week’s show. From Chicago, I’m Rob Mark. We’ll see you next time. Be sure and check out The Aviation Minute archive at <a href="http://Jetwhine.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jetwhine.com</a> in case you want to catch up on any back episodes.

How Passengers Helped Mess Up Frequent Flyer Programs

Why is Regional Airline Pay So Bad? Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the text of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.  I was thinking the other day about my early days as a working flight instructor. I remember hanging out with a bunch of other instructors at Palwaukee airport grousing about how we’d live on the 5 bucks an hour we could get paid for sitting in the right seat of a Cessna 150. Then one day we heard about this guy on the airport who was willing to instruct for free … zero, zip, nada … just because he loved flying so much. He had another job so he didn’t really care about the money. I can tell you … the rest of us instructors didn’t much like this idea of a competitor undercutting our prices. There was a lesson about pilot wages that I took from this experience after one of the other guys told me not to worry about that instructor. “Hey,” he told me. “The guy may get a few students, but don’t you think they’ll be paying him what both his students AND that instructor believe he’s worth?” Hmmmm. I never forgot that. So on to today’s topic … the lousy pay at the regional airlines. Why does it continue, many people wonder? First a bit of context. Most of the regional airlines provide service to more than one major airline. Because there are only a few regional feeders to deliver service to the few majors we have left in this country, the business has become pretty cut-throat. That means those regionals will do most anything to keep costs low and that means … you guessed … keep wages low. So let’s compare Envoy, the old American Eagle carrier, with the mainline pilots at American Airlines just to see how different the groups are. You may have heard recently the American mainline pilots – represented by the Allied Pilots Association – just signed a new contract, one that gives them an immediate 23% pay hike and 3% annual raises after that. Not bad, but then American Airlines pulled down some serious profits the past few years including a windfall off the drop in fuel prices. A point about those percentages though. Long before AA sought bankruptcy protection a few years ago, their pilots took a 35% pay and benefit cut to help the company stay afloat. This of course was happening while AA management was lining its own pockets with hefty bonuses, cash payouts that eventually cost those folks their jobs. That kind of management behavior happens more than you might think actually and it’s one reason pilots and management don’t get along very well … at any airline. But back to the Envoy pilots since AA is making money these days. Well, the Envoy pilots just signed an agreement that freezes their already measly wages for at least another 10 years. So, despite being represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, the Envoy pilots are now guaranteed to remain poor for at least another decade. However, that’s not the only reason regional airline pilots are so poorly paid. The pilots have a hand in this. If regional airline management realized that pilots wouldn’t work for these awful wages, pay rates that enable some of them to qualify for food stamps, something would have to give. Perhaps the mainlines would need to pay more for their regional feed, or perhaps ticket prices would need to go up, or perhaps the real cheapskate regionals might be forced to shut down. Regional pilots don’t need to accept these poor paychecks. But until those pilots begin refusing these kinds of wages, I guess we can only say that they too seem to know what they’re efforts are worth. From Chicago, I’m Rob Mark. See you next time. And be sure and visit The Aviation Minute archive at Jetwhine.com if you need to catch up on some past episodes.

Why is Regional Airline Pay So Bad? Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or just read the text of the show below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_2-9-2015.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here to listen</a> as well. I was thinking the other day about my early days as a working flight instructor. I remember hanging out with a bunch of other instructors at Palwaukee airport grousing about how we’d live on the 5 bucks an hour we could get paid for sitting in the right seat of a Cessna 150. Then one day we heard about this guy on the airport who was willing to instruct for free … zero, zip, nada … just because he loved flying so much. He had another job so he didn’t really care about the money. I can tell you … the rest of us instructors didn’t much like this idea of a competitor undercutting our prices. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/q400.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>There was a lesson about pilot wages that I took from this experience after one of the other guys told me not to worry about that instructor. “Hey,” he told me. “The guy may get a few students, but don’t you think they’ll be paying him what both his students AND that instructor believe he’s worth?” Hmmmm. I never forgot that. So on to today’s topic … the lousy pay at the regional airlines. Why does it continue, many people wonder? First a bit of context. Most of the regional airlines provide service to more than one major airline. Because there are only a few regional feeders to deliver service to the few majors we have left in this country, the business has become pretty cut-throat. That means those regionals will do most anything to keep costs low and that means … you guessed … keep wages low. So let’s compare Envoy, the old American Eagle carrier, with the mainline pilots at American Airlines just to see how different the groups are. You may have heard recently the American mainline pilots – represented by the Allied Pilots Association – just signed a new contract, one that gives them an immediate 23% pay hike and 3% annual raises after that. Not bad, but then American Airlines pulled down some serious profits the past few years including a windfall off the drop in fuel prices. A point about those percentages though. Long before AA sought bankruptcy protection a few years ago, their pilots took a 35% pay and benefit cut to help the company stay afloat. This of course was happening while AA management was lining its own pockets with hefty bonuses, cash payouts that eventually cost those folks their jobs. That kind of management behavior happens more than you might think actually and it’s one reason pilots and management don’t get along very well … at any airline. But back to the Envoy pilots since AA is making money these days. Well, the Envoy pilots just signed an agreement that freezes their already measly wages for at least another 10 years. So, despite being represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, the Envoy pilots are now guaranteed to remain poor for at least another decade. However, that’s not the only reason regional airline pilots are so poorly paid. The pilots have a hand in this. If regional airline management realized that pilots wouldn’t work for these awful wages, pay rates that enable some of them to qualify for food stamps, something would have to give. Perhaps the mainlines would need to pay more for their regional feed, or perhaps ticket prices would need to go up, or perhaps the real cheapskate regionals might be forced to shut down. Regional pilots don’t need to accept these poor paychecks. But until those pilots begin refusing these kinds of wages, I guess we can only say that they too seem to know what they’re efforts are worth. From Chicago, I’m Rob Mark. See you next time. And be sure and visit The Aviation Minute archive at <a href="http://Jetwhine.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jetwhine.com</a> if you need to catch up on some past episodes.

Why is Regional Airline Pay So Bad?

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.  At the risk of droning on about a topic my pals David and Max at the UAV Digest show are getting tired of hearing, I just think it’s time to come clean. I really do think drones, UASs, or RPVs or whatever you want to call them, are really pretty incredible technology. And like David and Max, I think their future is set in stone … even here in the United States. There is just one teensy little piece of the conversation that drone builders and operators seem to be avoiding in the constant push to let the drones fly. How do we safely separate remotely-operated drones from people-carrying airplanes? We expect a new rule on commercial drones from the FAA by year’s end. But my guess is that will only cover the barest minimums like operations below 400 feet and within line of sight of the operator. Those kinds of model-airplane like guidelines might work too if drones keep well clear of airports. But what about the rest of the million or so drones sold around the world in the past few years, the ones that seem to be flying closer and closer to airplanes and airports? I met a helicopter pilot from Alaska earlier this year who told me he’d had more than a couple of close calls with drones on the North Slope. Who was operating them, no one knew. He just knew they were too darned close for comfort. In Australia last week, firefighters operating both aircraft and helicopters said they’d had so many near collisions that they’re planning on pulling out of a fire scene if there’s even the mention of a nearby drone. The real missing link in this drone puzzle is that practical technology to sense-and-avoid other traffic, the roll normally played by pilots looking out the cockpit windows, doesn’t exist. Sense-and-avoid technology is a must-have too if drones and manned airplanes are ever going to operate in the same airspace safely because ATC radar doesn’t seem to see drones at all. Luckily, there haven’t been any drone / aircraft mid air collisions … yet So to all you drone builders and operators out there, I’m really with you on these things. We pilots and air safety geeks don’t want to shut you out … honest. Without a universal miracle tool packed inside each and every drone however, one that protects the flying public from drone drivers operating somewhere safe with a joystick and a laptop, expect pushback against drones – plenty of it too. Right now the push is only coming from a few pilots and industry organizations. But when passengers realize the real threat they’re facing, the conversation will become much, much louder.

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to The Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_11-17-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen as well. At the risk of droning on about a topic my pals David and Max at the UAV Digest show are getting tired of hearing, I just think it’s time to come clean. I really do think drones, UASs, or RPVs or whatever you want to call them, are really pretty incredible technology. And like David and Max, I think their future is set in stone … even here in the United States. There is just one teensy little piece of the conversation that drone builders and operators seem to be avoiding in the constant push to let the drones fly. How do we safely separate remotely-operated drones from people-carrying airplanes? We expect a new rule on commercial drones from the FAA by year’s end. But my guess is that will only cover the barest minimums like operations below 400 feet and within line of sight of the operator. Those kinds of model-airplane like guidelines might work too if drones keep well clear of airports. But what about the rest of the million or so drones sold around the world in the past few years, the ones that seem to be flying closer and closer to airplanes and airports?<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/TAM-Final-LogowithJetwhine.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> I met a helicopter pilot from Alaska earlier this year who told me he’d had more than a couple of close calls with drones on the North Slope. Who was operating them, no one knew. He just knew they were too darned close for comfort. In Australia last week, firefighters operating both aircraft and helicopters said they’d had so many near collisions that they’re planning on pulling out of a fire scene if there’s even the mention of a nearby drone. The real missing link in this drone puzzle is that practical technology to sense-and-avoid other traffic, the roll normally played by pilots looking out the cockpit windows, doesn’t exist. Sense-and-avoid technology is a must-have too if drones and manned airplanes are ever going to operate in the same airspace safely because ATC radar doesn’t seem to see drones at all. Luckily, there haven’t been any drone / aircraft mid air collisions … yet So to all you drone builders and operators out there, I’m really with you on these things. We pilots and air safety geeks don’t want to shut you out … honest. Without a universal miracle tool packed inside each and every drone however, one that protects the flying public from drone drivers operating somewhere safe with a joystick and a laptop, expect pushback against drones – plenty of it too. Right now the push is only coming from a few pilots and industry organizations. But when passengers realize the real threat they’re facing, the conversation will become much, much louder.

Droning on About UAS

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.  Time to Give ATC an “Atta Boy” Most aviation stories only seem to find their way on to the desks of those of us who devour industry news or consider themselves true aviation geeks, except when it’s about an accident, especially one involving an airliner. Those stories can remain in the public eye for weeks or even months. In late September though, a local Chicagoland story made it to the front pages … and it had absolutely nothing to do with an accident. September 26th was the day a deranged Harris Corp employee – a guy I won’t dignify by mentioning his name – contracted to work for the FAA at Chicago’s massive enroute ATC center in Aurora Illinois reported for work in the early morning hours and went right to his mischief. Shortly after reporting for work about 5 am, he ignited a fire that demanded the building be evacuated. Unfortunately, in addition to lots of center radio frequencies going dead, the fire also destroyed much of the enroute ATC system radar and radio infrastructure. That meant hundreds of airplanes and thousands of people sat on the ground around the nation eventually while the FAA tried to figure out what to do next. Surprising to many people, me included actually, the FAA brought center traffic back at ZAU, the center’s identifier … slowly at first by sending hundreds of controllers to nearby terminal radar facilities like O’Hare, Rockford, South Bend, Milwaukee and dozens of others. They also sent another few hundred people to adjoining centers like Minneapolis, Kansas City, Cleveland and Indianapolis where traffic was kept moving … slowly. No doubt the cost to the airlines for the delays and cancellations was massive as was the inconveniencing of hundreds of thousands of airline and business aviation passengers. But it all worked … and it all worked safely. I think it’s time to recognize the men and women of the FAA, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists and everyone else who worked around the clock to restore ATC service in a mere two weeks. To all of the FAA controllers and PASS technicians and yes, probably even a few managers who probably haven’t heard it yet, thank you. Thank you for getting air traffic moving again in Chicago and around the country. And thank you for working without a safety net or even a plan for the most part. If you find yourself flying through Chicago Center’s airspace one of these days, or those adjoining centers that lent a hand to make this work too, be sure and say “Nice job fixing that ZAU mess guys. We appreciate what you did.” I’m Rob Mark. See you next time.

Dear Reader / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM2011-03-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen as well. Time to Give ATC an “Atta Boy” Most aviation stories only seem to find their way on to the desks of those of us who devour industry news or consider themselves true aviation geeks, except when it’s about an accident, especially one involving an airliner. Those stories can remain in the public eye for weeks or even months. In late September though, a local Chicagoland story made it to the front pages … and it had absolutely nothing to do with an accident. September 26th was the day a deranged Harris Corp employee – a guy I won’t dignify by mentioning his name – contracted to work for the FAA at Chicago’s massive enroute ATC center in Aurora Illinois reported for work in the early morning hours and went right to his mischief. Shortly after reporting for work about 5 am, he ignited a fire that demanded the building be evacuated. Unfortunately, in addition to lots of center radio frequencies going dead, the fire also destroyed much of the enroute ATC system radar and radio infrastructure. That meant hundreds of airplanes and thousands of people sat on the ground around the nation eventually while the FAA tried to figure out what to do next. Surprising to many people, me included actually, the FAA brought center traffic back at ZAU, the center’s identifier … slowly at first by sending hundreds of controllers to nearby terminal radar facilities like O’Hare, Rockford, South Bend, Milwaukee and dozens of others. They also sent another few hundred people to adjoining centers like Minneapolis, Kansas City, Cleveland and Indianapolis where traffic was kept moving … slowly. No doubt the cost to the airlines for the delays and cancellations was massive as was the inconveniencing of hundreds of thousands of airline and business aviation passengers. But it all worked … and it all worked safely. I think it’s time to recognize the men and women of the FAA, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists and everyone else who worked around the clock to restore ATC service in a mere two weeks. To all of the FAA controllers and PASS technicians and yes, probably even a few managers who probably haven’t heard it yet, thank you. Thank you for getting air traffic moving again in Chicago and around the country. And thank you for working without a safety net or even a plan for the most part. If you find yourself flying through Chicago Center’s airspace one of these days, or those adjoining centers that lent a hand to make this work too, be sure and say “Nice job fixing that ZAU mess guys. We appreciate what you did.” I’m Rob Mark. See you next time.

Time to Give ATC an “Atta Boy”

Note to the World’s Best Readers / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.  I wouldn’t be much of an aviation writer if I didn’t read. And I don’t think you can be much of an aviation enthusiast if you don’t read either, so I do my part by strumming through a bunch of aviation magazines, online pubs and a couple of newspapers each week to stay in touch with the industry. Here are some of the folks I read, no matter what they write. You’ll also find most of them on Twitter. I’ve known most of them for years so trust me, if you have the opportunity to say hi at a show when you see them, don’t be shy. They all like to schmooze about the industry no matter where you come from … except maybe for helicopters. I’m not sure they count since we all really know those things fly using wires and magic anyway. author with Dan Webb (C) &amp; Jon Ostrower (R) at MDW Jon Ostrower – The Wall Street Journal – I first learned about Jon when he started writing his 787 blog. Right from the start I realized he had a flare for digging deep for the inside details on every single issue relevant to the extra years it took Boeing to kick that new bird of theirs out the door. He spent a few years at Flight Global before heading out the door to DC to work for the WSJ. There’s even a pic around the net somewhere of Jon at his first AirVenture sporting a Jetwhine button. I have to find that one. @jonostrower Molly McMillian – The Wichita Eagle – Molly’s one of the few working journalists who still covers aviation for a general readership newspaper, The Wichita Eagle. Really nice, smart lady. Find her on Twitter @mmcmillin    Matt Thurber – Aviation International News &amp; Business Jet Traveler – Matt’s a versatile writer, pilot and even an A&amp;P technician so he’s the guy I go to with nuts and bolts questions when I get stuck. And the guy writes 24 hours a day I think since his byline is everywhere. Tom Haines – AOPA Pilot’s – Tom’s the soft spoken editor of AOPA Pilot magazine and the guy who gets to file some of the coolest pilot reports around, so I’m extremely envious. Despite the fact that he flies a Bonanza rather than a Cirrus, I still respect him a bunch. He also hosts AOPA Live, every week, another cool job. @tomhaines29 Flying’s Pia Bergquist Pia Bergqvist – Flying – I remember back in the old days when Pia worked in PR at Cessna. She gave me my first demo ride in a Cessna Corvalis before she moved on to Flying magazine. She loves the Cirrus like I do and there is no truth to the rumor that I only admire her because she’s Swedish. I’m half on my dad’s side. @piapilot John Croft – Aviation Week – John’s Av Week’s safety geek so we see eye to eye on many things in this industry, although AvWeek gives him way more space each week to write than I do at AINSafety … not that I’m complaining Charlie, just comparing. We actually met up at a safety conference in DC some years back when he introduced himself only by his Twitter handle, @avweekjc Mike Collins – AOPA Pilot’s Technical Editor – Mike earned my undying admiration when he came to Chicago a few years ago to shoot the photos for an AOPA Pilot story I wrote about flying the L-39 at Gauntlet Warbirds at KARR. We flew in January and Mike spent half a morning hanging out of the back of a T-6 shooting the photos. The way he was dressed, he looked like a big bear at the back end of that airplane. He also climbed on board an MU-2 for a quick ride around the world earlier this year. What a guy. Bill Garvey – Business and Commercial Aviation – Bill Garvey gave me one of my early chances to write a story when he was still editor at Professional Pilot magazine, a place nearly everyone I know in the biz has hung their hat at one time or another. Good people Bill … and he gets the helicopter thing because his son’s a Coast Guard chopper driver. Terry Maxon – Dallas Morning News – Terry’s the only other reporter I know for a major newspaper – The Dallas Morning News – who thinks and talks aviation. He was also one of the first newspaper guys to add “Jetwhine” to his blog roll eight years ago when we started. @tmaxon Mary Kirby with author at NBAA Mary Kirby – Runway Girl Network – The first time I heard Mary’s name was at an Aerospace Industries Association luncheon in DC a bunch of years back. She asked a question of AIA president Marion Blakey … one of those truly awkward questions … one that every other guy in the room really wanted to ask but didn’t. She stood up and I was instantly impressed. She’s the GIC (goddess in charge) at The Runway Girl Network now. OK, so she’s a little taller than me, so what? @runwaygirl Steve Trimble – Flight Global’s Americas Editor – Now about Steve. I know the guy writes for Flight Global, but he also travels more than any other writer I know. We chatted for a couple of minutes this year just before he left AirVenture about the fact that he had to scoot back east and then down to Brazil for LABACE and then I forgot where. I’d get airsick if I had to travel on as many airliners as he does. @fg_strim Tom Horne – AOPA Pilot – Tom and I had the good fortune to connect at Bradley CT a bunch of years back when we were both assigned to write pilot reports for different magazines on the Challenger 605. Besides being a great writer, Tom has probably forgotten more about how weather actually works here on earth than I ever knew. @tomhorne Andy Pastor – The Wall Street Journal – Andy is one of the few writers here I haven’t actually met, but still read religiously. Perhaps that’s because every time there seems to be a breaking aviation story, he’s the one doing the breaking at the Journal. Auntie Benet And what would a story like this be without Auntie Benet, aka the Aviation Queen. Boy do we go back a ways … Regional Airline News was our first connection I think and I can’t even remember that far back. Now, of course, she’s with AOPA but still manages to join us on The Airplane Geeks often, like here last summer at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center at KIAD. No mention of writers would be complete without a tip of the hat to someone who got me started 35 years ago … Gordon Baxter then of Flying magazine. Gordon, or “Bax” as he liked to be called, wrote a column every month called “Bax Seat,” that ran for as long as I can remember. He also earned part of his living traveling the country giving talks about airplanes and how flying fit into his life down in Beaumont Texas. He came to the Stick and Rudder flying club at Waukegan Illinois a many years ago and I mustered up the courage to go say hi and tell him I wanted to be an aviation writer like him … something I’m still trying to achieve BTW. “So just sit down and write,” he suggested. And I did. I still remember the weekend he stayed at our home before a local talk I helped organize at Chicago DuPage Airport (KDPA). “Do you mind if I take off my shoes and socks?” he asked my wife after he put down his suitcase. That was Bax. He died in 2005.  Enjoy them all. And don’t forget to tell me who else the rest of us should be reading. Rob Mark, Publisher

Note to the World’s Best Readers / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_9-22-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen as well.  I wouldn’t be much of an aviation writer if I didn’t read. And I don’t think you can be much of an aviation enthusiast if you don’t read either, so I do my part by strumming through a bunch of aviation magazines, online pubs and a couple of newspapers each week to stay in touch with the industry. Here are some of the folks I read, no matter what they write. You’ll also find most of them on Twitter. I’ve known most of them for years so trust me, if you have the opportunity to say hi at a show when you see them, don’t be shy. They all like to schmooze about the industry no matter where you come from … except maybe for helicopters. I’m not sure they count since we all really know those things fly using wires and magic anyway. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/rob-dan-Jon-at-MDW.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>author with Dan Webb (C) &amp; Jon Ostrower (R) at MDW Jon Ostrower – The Wall Street Journal – I first learned about Jon when he started writing his 787 blog. Right from the start I realized he had a flare for digging deep for the inside details on every single issue relevant to the extra years it took Boeing to kick that new bird of theirs out the door. He spent a few years at Flight Global before heading out the door to DC to work for the WSJ. There’s even a pic around the net somewhere of Jon at his first AirVenture sporting a Jetwhine button. I have to find that one. @jonostrower Molly McMillian – The Wichita Eagle – Molly’s one of the few working journalists who still covers aviation for a general readership newspaper, The Wichita Eagle. Really nice, smart lady. Find her on Twitter @mmcmillin    Matt Thurber – Aviation International News &amp; Business Jet Traveler – Matt’s a versatile writer, pilot and even an A&amp;P technician so he’s the guy I go to with nuts and bolts questions when I get stuck. And the guy writes 24 hours a day I think since <a href="http://www.bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/saving-lives-one-flight-time" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">his byline is everywhere</a>. Tom Haines – AOPA Pilot’s – Tom’s the soft spoken editor of AOPA Pilot magazine and the guy who gets to file some of the coolest pilot reports around, so I’m extremely envious. Despite the fact that he flies a Bonanza rather than a Cirrus, I still respect him a bunch. He also hosts <a href="http://www.aopa.org/AOPA-Live?watch={EF8EC671-FE0C-4EBA-9382-8C57E9F718EB}" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AOPA Live</a>, every week, another cool job. @tomhaines29 <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Pia.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Flying’s Pia Bergquist Pia Bergqvist – Flying – I remember back in the old days when Pia worked in PR at Cessna. She gave me my first demo ride in a Cessna Corvalis before she moved on to Flying magazine. She loves the Cirrus like I do and there is no truth to the rumor that I only admire her because she’s Swedish. I’m half on my dad’s side. @piapilot John Croft – Aviation Week – John’s Av Week’s safety geek so we see eye to eye on many things in this industry, although AvWeek gives him way more space each week to write than I do at <a href="https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/ainsafety/2014-09-15/crane-not-added-london-helicopter-database-says-aaib" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AINSafety</a> … not that I’m complaining Charlie, just comparing. We actually met up at a safety conference in DC some years back when he introduced himself only by his Twitter handle, @avweekjc Mike Collins – AOPA Pilot’s Technical Editor – Mike earned my undying admiration when he came to Chicago a few years ago to shoot the photos for an <a href="http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2012/April/1/Flying-a-Real-Jet" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AOPA Pilot</a> story I wrote about flying the L-39 at Gauntlet Warbirds at KARR. We flew in January and Mike spent half a morning hanging out of the back of a T-6 shooting the photos. The way he was dressed, he looked like a big bear at the back end of that airplane. He also climbed on board an MU-2 for a quick ride around the world earlier this year. What a guy. Bill Garvey – Business and Commercial Aviation – Bill Garvey gave me one of my early chances to write a story when he was still editor at Professional Pilot magazine, a place nearly everyone I know in the biz has hung their hat at one time or another. Good people Bill … and he gets the helicopter thing because his son’s a Coast Guard chopper driver. Terry Maxon – Dallas Morning News – Terry’s the only other reporter I know for a major newspaper – <a href="http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Dallas Morning News</a> – who thinks and talks aviation. He was also one of the first newspaper guys to add “Jetwhine” to his blog roll eight years ago when we started. @tmaxon <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/kirby.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Mary Kirby with author at NBAA Mary Kirby – Runway Girl Network – The first time I heard Mary’s name was at an Aerospace Industries Association luncheon in DC a bunch of years back. She asked a question of AIA president Marion Blakey … one of those truly awkward questions … one that every other guy in the room really wanted to ask but didn’t. She stood up and I was instantly impressed. She’s the GIC (goddess in charge) at <a href="http://www.runwaygirlnetwork.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Runway Girl Network</a> now. OK, so she’s a little taller than me, so what? @runwaygirl Steve Trimble – Flight Global’s Americas Editor – Now about Steve. I know the guy writes for Flight Global, but he also travels more than any other writer I know. We chatted for a couple of minutes this year just before he left AirVenture about the fact that he had to scoot back east and then down to Brazil for LABACE and then I forgot where. I’d get airsick if I had to travel on as many airliners as he does. @fg_strim Tom Horne – AOPA Pilot – Tom and I had the good fortune to connect at Bradley CT a bunch of years back when we were both assigned to write pilot reports for different magazines on the Challenger 605. Besides being a great writer, Tom has probably forgotten more about how weather actually works here on earth than I ever knew. @tomhorne Andy Pastor – The Wall Street Journal – Andy is one of the few writers here I haven’t actually met, but still read religiously. Perhaps that’s because every time there seems to be a breaking aviation story, he’s the one doing the breaking at the Journal. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/benet.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Auntie Benet And what would a story like this be without Auntie Benet, aka the Aviation Queen. Boy do we go back a ways … Regional Airline News was our first connection I think and I can’t even remember that far back. Now, of course, she’s with AOPA but still manages to join us on The Airplane Geeks often, like here last summer at the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center at KIAD. No mention of writers would be complete without a tip of the hat to someone who got me started 35 years ago … Gordon Baxter then of Flying magazine. Gordon, or “Bax” as he liked to be called, wrote a column every month called “Bax Seat,” that ran for as long as I can remember. He also earned part of his living traveling the country giving talks about airplanes and how flying fit into his life down in Beaumont Texas. He came to the Stick and Rudder flying club at Waukegan Illinois a many years ago and I mustered up the courage to go say hi and tell him I wanted to be an aviation writer like him … something I’m still trying to achieve BTW. “So just sit down and write,” he suggested. And I did. I still remember the weekend he stayed at our home before a local talk I helped organize at Chicago DuPage Airport (KDPA). “Do you mind if I take off my shoes and socks?” he asked my wife after he put down his suitcase. That was Bax. He died in 2005. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Bax1-e1411326124716.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> Enjoy them all. And don’t forget to tell me who else the rest of us should be reading. Rob Mark, Publisher

Aviation Writers I Read

Note to the World’s Best Readers / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can click here to listen as well.  One obstacle to learning to fly these days is that so many of the GA training fleet is old … and many definitely look their age. It wasn’t that long ago that I cancelled a nighttime demo flight for a prospective student because I noticed that some of the old Cessna’s interior lights were inoperative. And early Cessnas didn’t offer much cockpit lighting to begin with to see the instruments. Then I found a few bruises outside that had been covered with Duct-Tape and I just said no. A few years earlier, I’d tried to check out in an old Piper down in Florida that looked like it hadn’t been washed in 20 years. It flew OK, but after spending the money to fly it, I decided to pass on putting my family into it. I’m not the only instructor nor renter that’s ever faced this situation either. I was pretty excited last week to see a canary yellow Cessna 152 sitting outside of the south door of the AOPA building at AirVenture. The airplane was part of AOPA’s 152 reimagined project to encourage more people not only to learn to fly, but to also get back into the air at a relatively low cost. The airplane at Oshkosh had been rebuilt inside and out … new paint, new interior – even those cheapie plastic parts Cessna used were all new. The engine had been rebuilt and reset to zero time and the airplane had new Garmin avionics including a GPS installed. This practically new Cessna 152 can be had for $99,000, or $89,000 for a Cessna 150. AOPA chose Aviat in Afton Wyoming to handle the refurbishment work and you can pick the color scheme when you order one. Yeah but … Now before you cough at the $99,000 figure, don’t forget that a Cessna 162 Skycatcher, a much less capable airplane, was selling for $150,000 brand new before Cessna cancelled production last year. The price of a brand new 172 can easily top $300,000. What I think should make the reimagined 150 and 152 even more tantalizing to someone trying to build time with two or three other pilots, or a flight school after a rugged inexpensive airplane, is that it costs just a tad over 60 bucks an hour to operate … including the fuel. AOPA’s even willing to finance 70% of the purchase. Of course, you could go out and find your own used 150 or 152 for much less than $99,000. You’d need to find a company to strip it all down bare for the inspection, replace all the interior bits, hang a new motor on it and add the fresh instruments and avionics. Could you do it for less than $99 grand? Probably. But I think that’s a lot of work, especially for someone new to aviation. There will be plenty of experienced pilots out there ready to tell you about all the other airplanes you can find for less money, but if those airplanes were such a great deal, I’d have to ask why more people aren’t buying them. AOPA doesn’t make a dime on these airplanes either. Think about this … if four wanna-be pilots came up $7500 each, they could build a lot of flight time for not a whole lot of money, especially in a time when the magic 1,500 hour ATP limit seems unreachable. Personally, I like this idea. But if you have a better one, let me know. You’ll find more info about the 152 reimagined at AOPA.org where I’m sure you’re already a member. That’s all for the Aviation Minute this time. Don’t forget to share your Aviation Minute link with a friend. Rob Mark, Publisher

<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/152-jetwhine.com_.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Note to the World’s Best Readers / Listeners – You now have the option to listen to the Aviation Minute podcast or read the text below. If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, you can <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_8-4-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen as well. One obstacle to learning to fly these days is that so many of the GA training fleet is old … and many definitely look their age. It wasn’t that long ago that I cancelled a nighttime demo flight for a prospective student because I noticed that some of the old Cessna’s interior lights were inoperative. And early Cessnas didn’t offer much cockpit lighting to begin with to see the instruments. Then I found a few bruises outside that had been covered with Duct-Tape and I just said no. A few years earlier, I’d tried to check out in an old Piper down in Florida that looked like it hadn’t been washed in 20 years. It flew OK, but after spending the money to fly it, I decided to pass on putting my family into it. I’m not the only instructor nor renter that’s ever faced this situation either. I was pretty excited last week to see a canary yellow Cessna 152 sitting outside of the south door of the AOPA building at AirVenture. The airplane was part of AOPA’s 152 reimagined project to encourage more people not only to learn to fly, but to also get back into the air at a relatively low cost. The airplane at Oshkosh had been rebuilt inside and out … new paint, new interior – even those cheapie plastic parts Cessna used were all new. The engine had been rebuilt and reset to zero time and the airplane had new Garmin avionics including a GPS installed. This practically new Cessna 152 can be had for $99,000, or $89,000 for a Cessna 150. AOPA chose Aviat in Afton Wyoming to handle the refurbishment work and you can pick the color scheme when you order one. Yeah but … Now before you cough at the $99,000 figure, don’t forget that a Cessna 162 Skycatcher, a much less capable airplane, was selling for $150,000 brand new before Cessna cancelled production last year. The price of a brand new 172 can easily top $300,000. What I think should make the reimagined 150 and 152 even more tantalizing to someone trying to build time with two or three other pilots, or a flight school after a rugged inexpensive airplane, is that it costs just a tad over 60 bucks an hour to operate … including the fuel. AOPA’s even willing to finance 70% of the purchase. Of course, you could go out and find your own used 150 or 152 for much less than $99,000. You’d need to find a company to strip it all down bare for the inspection, replace all the interior bits, hang a new motor on it and add the fresh instruments and avionics. Could you do it for less than $99 grand? Probably. But I think that’s a lot of work, especially for someone new to aviation.<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/MVP.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> There will be plenty of experienced pilots out there ready to tell you about all the other airplanes you can find for less money, but if those airplanes were such a great deal, I’d have to ask why more people aren’t buying them. AOPA doesn’t make a dime on these airplanes either. Think about this … if four wanna-be pilots came up $7500 each, they could build a lot of flight time for not a whole lot of money, especially in a time when the magic 1,500 hour ATP limit seems unreachable. Personally, I like this idea. But if you have a better one, let me know. You’ll find more info about the 152 reimagined at <a href="http://AOPA.org" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">AOPA.org</a> where I’m sure you’re already a member. That’s all for the Aviation Minute this time. Don’t forget to share your Aviation Minute link with a friend. Rob Mark, Publisher

AOPA’s 152 Reimagined

Click play below to listen to this program  If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, click here to listen to the program. ____________________________ I was working on a couple of a stories related to the Malaysian Airlines tragedy over the weekend when an idea popped into my head. The Nall Report AOPA publishes each year tells us the GA accident rate isn’t improving much these days, but thankfully is not getting any worse either. I wondered if there were other parts of the industry we GA folk might be able to model to create a system that might actually reduce the number of GA accidents. The airlines and their FOQA program came to mind. That stands for Flight Operational Quality Assurance. FOQA is all about capturing operation data and digging deeply to understand the stories that information tells us. Before you go data privacy on me though, give this episode of The Aviation Minute a listen and tell me what you think. Rob Mark, Publisher

Click play below to listen to this program  If you receive Jetwhine via e-mail, <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_7-21-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen to the program. ____________________________ I was working on a couple of a stories related to the Malaysian Airlines tragedy over the weekend when an idea popped into my head. The <a href="http://www.aopa.org/Pilot-Resources/Safety-and-Technique/Accident-Analysis/Joseph-T-Nall-Report" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nall Report AOPA</a> publishes each year tells us the GA accident rate isn’t improving much these days, but thankfully is not getting any worse either. I wondered if there were other parts of the industry we GA folk might be able to model to create a system that might actually reduce the number of GA accidents. The airlines and their FOQA program came to mind. That stands for Flight Operational Quality Assurance. <a href="http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/0/40c02fc39c1577b686256e8a005afb0a/$FILE/AC120-82.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">FOQA</a> is all about capturing operation data and digging deeply to understand the stories that information tells us. Before you go data privacy on me though, give this episode of The Aviation Minute a listen and tell me what you think. Rob Mark, Publisher

Can This Reduce the Number of GA Accidents?

AP photo of the MH17 site in eastern UkraineThe trouble with an aircraft accident that happens on the other side of the world for we Americans, especially one that occurs in a battle zone, is understanding which source speaks the truth about what’s happening on the ground.Right now the MH17 crash is one of those kind of accidents. The Ukrainians say the Russians and the separatists were behind shooting down the Boeing 777 while the Russians either point the finger at the Ukraine government or simply refuse to answer at all.For us over here, reports vary from “people are wandering all over the MH17 accident site and have already given the black boxes to the Russians,” to the alternative I heard this morning, “the site is completely intact and nothing valuable has been removed.” So who do we believe? Our only official source in the U.S. is the White House press secretary of the State Department and they say the site’s been compromised.While I do agree that the first 24-48 hours worth of accident information almost always seems to be tainted with rumor more than anything else, it does make it pretty tough to relate the story without a journalist or government source we can trust to tell us what they see on the ground.That said, I thought you might find this Saturday evening interview from Fox News about the potential implications of the data recorders and evidence being removed from the MH17 site of interest. It runs about 5 minutes. Rob Mark, PublisherIf you receive Jetwhine by e-mail, click here to listen in.

AP photo of the MH17 site in eastern UkraineThe trouble with an aircraft accident that happens on the other side of the world for we Americans, especially one that occurs in a battle zone, is understanding which source speaks the truth about what’s happening on the ground.Right now the MH17 crash is one of those kind of accidents. The Ukrainians say the Russians and the separatists were behind shooting down the Boeing 777 while the Russians either point the finger at the Ukraine government or simply refuse to answer at all.For us over here, reports vary from “people are wandering all over the MH17 accident site and have already given the black boxes to the Russians,” to the alternative I heard this morning, “the site is completely intact and nothing valuable has been removed.” So who do we believe? Our only official source in the U.S. is the White House press secretary of the State Department and they say the site’s been compromised.While I do agree that the first 24-48 hours worth of accident information almost always seems to be tainted with rumor more than anything else, it does make it pretty tough to relate the story without a journalist or government source we can trust to tell us what they see on the ground.That said, I thought you might find this Saturday evening interview from Fox News about the potential implications of the data recorders and evidence being removed from the MH17 site of interest. It runs about 5 minutes. Rob Mark, PublisherIf you receive Jetwhine by e-mail, <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/Fox_News_MH17.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen in.

MH17 Flight Recorders and Evidence

I had an opportunity to visit the normally closed-to-the-public NTSB Training Center near Leesburg Virginia a few weeks ago as a guest of director Paul Schuda assisted by Senior Air Safety Investigator Bill English. To say my visit was eye opening would be quite an understatement. Schuda’s briefing detailed the thought processes behind the NTSB’s recent decision not to reopen the TWA 800 investigation. There was much more too, including a look see at the TWA 800 fuselage reconstruction. The entire Friday afternoon event gave me pause to think about how I write about an aircraft accident, with the insight that perhaps too many of us our jumping to indict the pilots when there may be more to the probable cause to consider. I hope you’ll give this episode a listen. If you’re receiving this Jetwhine/ Aviation Minute post via e-mail, click here to listen to the program.  Rob Mark, Publisher

<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/TWA-800-small.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>I had an opportunity to visit the normally closed-to-the-public NTSB Training Center near Leesburg Virginia a few weeks ago as a guest of director Paul Schuda assisted by Senior Air Safety Investigator Bill English. To say my visit was eye opening would be quite an understatement. Schuda’s briefing detailed the thought processes behind the NTSB’s recent decision not to reopen the TWA 800 investigation. There was much more too, including a look see at the TWA 800 fuselage reconstruction. The entire Friday afternoon event gave me pause to think about how I write about an aircraft accident, with the insight that perhaps too many of us our jumping to indict the pilots when there may be more to the probable cause to consider. I hope you’ll give this episode a listen. If you’re receiving this Jetwhine/ Aviation Minute post via e-mail, <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_7-7-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen to the program. Rob Mark, Publisher

Rethinking Aircraft Accident Stories

Fresh evidence has been uncovered in the disappearance of Malaysian flight 370 (MH370) according to The Telegraph of London. To date, there hasn’t been one single shred of physical evidence that proves any of the dozen or so theories about what happened aboard that airplane less than an hour after it departed Kuala Lampur in March. The mystery was never solved, just put on hold. Then last Friday, a media note surfaced in Australia that said MH370 searchers were again altering the search area for the airplane to another part of the South Indian Ocean based on some undefined new analysis. Yesterday’s Telegraph story again pointed the possible finger of responsibility at the captain of the 777,  Zaharie Shah and his flight simulator.  Listen to the latest Aviation Minute to learn more about new evidence in the MH 370 mystery.  Rob Mark, Publisher If you received this Jetwhine story via e-mail, click here to listen to the program.

Fresh evidence has been uncovered in the disappearance of Malaysian flight 370 (MH370) according to The Telegraph of London. To date, there hasn’t been one single shred of physical evidence that proves any of the dozen or so theories about what happened aboard that airplane less than an hour after it departed Kuala Lampur in March. The mystery was never solved, just put on hold. Then last Friday, a media note surfaced in Australia that said MH370 searchers were again altering the search area for the airplane to another part of the South Indian Ocean based on some undefined new analysis. Yesterday’s Telegraph story again pointed the possible finger of responsibility at the captain of the 777,  Zaharie Shah and his flight simulator. Listen to the latest Aviation Minute to learn more about new evidence in the MH 370 mystery.  Rob Mark, Publisher If you received this Jetwhine story via e-mail, <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_6-23-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here</a> to listen to the program.

Is Fresh Evidence About MH370 Another Wild Goose Chase?

First let’s talk a little reality … Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), or drones as most of us refer to them are coming … and they’re coming soon. That’s not necessarily all bad though. Drones can operate in places that are not safe to send a manned aircraft, as well as on missions where the duration would surely exhaust a human. They also come in a range of sizes from just a few pounds to the mammoth Global Hawk weighing in at about 32,000 lbs. or slightly larger than the Hawker 800 biz jet I used to fly. The FAA’s come under fire from drone manufacturers and potential users for not acting quickly enough to draft regulations allowing these pilot-less aircraft to blend into civilian airspace with the rest of the civilian aircraft. But there’s a safety problem with moving too fast that no one seems to have addressed. Give this show a listen though and tell us what you think. BTW, for the most up-to-date coverage on drones here in the U.S., give a listen to the UAV Digest produced by my Airplane Geeks comrades Max Flight and David Vanderhoof.  Rob Mark, Publisher – If you’re receiving this Jetwhine post by e-mail, click here to listen … even from a smartphone. You can also subscribe to The Aviation Minute at iTunes.

<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/quad.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>First let’s talk a little reality … Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), or drones as most of us refer to them are coming … and they’re coming soon. That’s not necessarily all bad though. Drones can operate in places that are not safe to send a manned aircraft, as well as on missions where the duration would surely exhaust a human. They also come in a range of sizes from just a few pounds to the mammoth Global Hawk weighing in at about 32,000 lbs. or slightly larger than the Hawker 800 biz jet I used to fly.<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/hawk.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> The FAA’s come under fire from drone manufacturers and potential users for not acting quickly enough to draft regulations allowing these pilot-less aircraft to blend into civilian airspace with the rest of the civilian aircraft. But there’s a safety problem with moving too fast that no one seems to have addressed. Give this show a listen though and tell us what you think. BTW, for the most up-to-date coverage on drones here in the U.S., give a listen to the <a href="http://theuavdigest.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">UAV Digest</a> produced by my Airplane Geeks comrades Max Flight and David Vanderhoof. Rob Mark, Publisher – If you’re receiving this Jetwhine post by e-mail, <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_6-10-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here to listen </a>… even from a smartphone. You can also subscribe to The Aviation Minute at iTunes.

Why Drones Really Worry Me as a Pilot

Memorial Day here in the United States is one of the days we remember all the men and women who served and perished in armed conflicts around the world since our own Civil War in the mid-1800s. The stories emerging about how poorly we treat these men and women once we’re through with them though is not pretty. There are some parallels between VA care for vets and our aviation industry. Tell us what you think.  Rob Mark, Publisher — If you’re receiving this Jetwhine post by e-mail, click here to listen … even from a smartphone. Subscribe to The Aviation Minute at iTunes. 

<a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/memorial-day1.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>Memorial Day here in the United States is one of the days we remember all the men and women who served and perished in armed conflicts around the world since our own Civil War in the mid-1800s. The stories emerging about how poorly we treat these men and women once we’re through with them though is not pretty. There are some parallels between VA care for vets and our aviation industry. Tell us what you think. Rob Mark, Publisher — If you’re receiving this Jetwhine post by e-mail, <a href="http://traffic.libsyn.com/jetwhine/TAM_5-23-2014.mp3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">click here to listen</a> … even from a smartphone. Subscribe to The Aviation Minute at iTunes. <a href="http://www.jetwhine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/iTunes.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a>

The Aviation Minute: A Few Memorial Day Thoughts

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