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Generations of Aviation Relevance

October 19, 2015 by Scott Spangler

On my inaugural visit to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, I expected nothing more than the opportunity to meet many of the airplanes I’ve read about in their tactile, three-dimensional magnificence. The museum, part of the National Aviation Heritage Area that encompasses Dayton, Ohio, and its surrounding communities, more than met my expectation. Unexpected was the epiphany that arose from an obscure airplane, a simple but vexing question, and the spirit of my father, a naval aviator who joined his World War II compatriots in 2008.

The Air Force Museum has divided its vast collection by conflict/era in four huge hangars: World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the new hangar, which is open in the spring, which will display the collection’s experimental aircraft, such as the X-15. Walking in the World War II hangar with Paul Dye, editor of Kitplanes magazine, we came across the AT-9 and wondered who had given a Twin Beech an Art Deco makeover. Seeing the airplane in profile, I realized that I’d seen the airplane before, in two-dimensions. And thinking of the worn Aeronautics Aircraft Spotters Handbook, published by the National Aeronautics Council in 1943, resurrected my father’s spirit, for it was his NavCad book bag, and he used it to teach me to read words and airplanes.

Edited by Ensign L.C. Guthman, the handbook categorized the Allied and Axis aircraft of the era by number of engines, from six to gliders, and the position of their wings, high, mid-wing, and low. The AT-9, an advanced trainer, made by Curtiss-Wright, the nacelles of its two Lycoming R-680-9 radial engines extending beyond its Art Deco nose, is on page 134. Not far from what may well be the last tangible example of this little known airplane is the airplane on page 135, the Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando.

As we wandered through the connecting hallway that led to the Cold War, Paul asked an often-posed question: Why has interest in the aircraft of World War II endured in their popularity compared to the veterans who flew during the conflicts waged during my lifetime, Korea and Vietnam? The kernel of one possible answer was planted when I noticed a heavily armed Predator drone flying above a heavily armed Skyraider that saw service in Southeast Asia.

ATC and Pilots: When to Keep your Mouth Shut and when to Speak Up

September 28, 2015 by Robert Mark

ATC and Pilots

This sounds a bit pathetic, but most of the professional pilots I’ve known in my life have been smart alecks, me included … always ready with an opinion, whether anyone asked for it or not. We’re all control freaks to some degree I suppose, not an earth-shattering revelation of course, because those are the kind of people you want around when it’s time to grab the controls and say, “I’ve got it.”

Sometimes knowing when not to grab the microphone in the cockpit though, can be just as important, especially for me when it comes to ATC at least. I spent a decade of my aviation life in a control tower and behind a radar scope, which was just enough to qualify me – by my standards of course – as an expert.

Case in point to grabbing that microphone occurred at Madison, Wis., a few weeks ago with a student in the Cirrus. We were VFR in right traffic for Runway 31 and requesting multiple “option approaches,” the ones that leave it to us to decide whether we’ll make a full stop, stop and go, low approach, or whatever might be left. The long runway, 18-36, was closed for construction and some itinerant traffic was using Runway 3-21. BTW, tower assigned us Runway 31 which I did wonder about with traffic on Runway 3, but then since every controller runs their traffic patterns a little differently I thought no more about it.

After the third or fourth option approach, the tower cleared us to land on Runway 31, but never explained why. On touch down, I simply forgot and told the student “let’s go” and he added full power and reduced the flap setting. As soon as we broke ground the “cleared to land” part flashed in my mind. Maybe 100 feet in the air, the local controller in MSN tower firmly reminds me that when he says cleared to land, he means cleared to land. I really tried not to respond, but of course I did, “Sorry about that. My fault. But 18/36 is closed right?” as in, so what was the real problem other than my failure to follow orders. I honestly didn’t know.

Someone in the tower keyed the mic as if they were going to say something and then decided against it. We landed about 15 minutes later and the ground controller reminded me that I had earlier been cleared to land on Runway 31 and that they really need me to follow instructions in the future. Of course you know I keyed the microphone and asked again what the issue was other than blowing the order … “Did I conflict with some other aircraft?” “No, but you were cleared to land, not for an option,” he said. Since the other pilot was becoming uncomfortable with the exchange I just said, “Roger. Thanks,” and let it go. After all, I did blow it. I just would have liked to have known a bit more, but I decided to just let it go.

Jump ahead a month or so and I’m again acting as CFI in the traffic pattern at Kenosha, Wis., this time having watched the other pilot I’m flying with land out of a really nicely handled circling instrument approach. We decide to stay in the VFR traffic pattern for a bit so the controller in the tower — obviously working both tower and ground himself — taxies us to Runway 7 Left. As we taxi, I hear him chatting with a Citabria pilot he’s sending to Runway 7 Right. About now I became occupied watching my pilot prepare for another takeoff.

Some part of my brain must have heard the tower clear the Citabria for takeoff from the right runway with a left turn out, just before he cleared us from the left runway, but it remained one of those distant notes in my brain until we were about 200 feet in the air. That’s when I saw the taildragger cutting across our path from the right. I instinctively told the pilot I was flying with to head right behind the Citabria as the ENW controller mentioned him as “traffic ahead and to our right.” He was a lot more than that. If we hadn’t turned, it would have been close.

The pilot flying with me looked at me in wonderment as I just shook my head and keyed the microphone … “nice tower.” No response.

I rang the tower manager a few days later on the phone because I wanted him to know how close I thought we would have been had we not banked right after takeoff. I told him I thought the ENW tower controller just plum forgot about the taildragger off the right when he cleared us for takeoff. I got it. It happens. I just wanted to see if I’d missed something here too.

Sad to say but the tower manager at Kenosha never rang back.

This is where it becomes tough for me. Should I ring the tower manager again and risk sounding like a know-it-all? I make mistakes too. What do you think? Let me know at rob@jetwhine.com.

Note: This story ran originally at the AOPA Opinion Leaders blog.

Above & Beyond: Volunteer Pilots Fight for Israel

September 21, 2015 by Scott Spangler

Trailer for Above and Beyond.

Wandering through the recently added titles to Netflix’s “watch now” films the other night, I came across Above and Beyond, a documentary about the birth of what became the Israeli Air Force during the nation’s 1948 fight for survival. (It’s also available on-demand and through iTunes.)

And that’s about all I knew about this chapter of aviation history. But after watching this comprehensive recounting of events, including interviews with the surviving aviators, my initial reaction was, Why haven’t we heard more about this! It is a story far more compelling than the American Volunteer Group (AVG) that fought, as the Flying Tigers, for the Chinese early in World War II.

The AVG had the wink-and-nod support of the U.S. Government. The American volunteer pilots, ground crews, and others who volunteered to fight for Israel not only risked their lives, their U.S. citizenship was also on the line. Al Schwimmer (that’s him, left), the American businessman who bought surplus U.S. C-46 cargo planes, among others, and illegally hopscotched them around the world to Israel, lost his. Staying in Israel, he founded Israel Aircraft Industries, and in 2001, President Clinton pardoned him.

Most of the U.S. volunteer pilots, like Milton Rubenfield, father of the actor we know at Paul Rubens (nee Pee-wee Herman) were Jewish, but a number of them were not. And irony does not begin to describe their first fighter aircraft, Czech-built Messerschmitt Bf-109 with engines coming from a variety of aircraft described only as “bombers.” Later, they replaced them with Spitfires, and a surplus B-17 was its bomber.

The nascent Israeli Air Force was small, but it made a difference. It’s a compelling story too long overlooked, and as a documentary, Above and Beyond sets a new standard of excellence. And some of its best parts are the interviews with the pilots who risked it all. Now in the deep winter of their lives, they all still possess—and exhibit—the self-confident swagger that led them to volunteer for what many in 1948 was sure to be a lost cause. I may watch it again tonight. — Scott Spangler, Editor

United Airlines: Time to Stop Just Talking About Customers

September 16, 2015 by Robert Mark

Jetwhine

United Airlines: Time to Stop Just Talking About Customers

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Over the last 20 years, we all listened to one United CEO after another talk about how much they value their customers.

Enough talk.

United’s new CEO Oscar Munoz needs to stop the talking and start showing customers if the carrier ever really wants to again be great. Give a listen and tell me what you think.

Rob Mark, publisher

Labor of Love: Capturing Veteran Leather

September 7, 2015 by Scott Spangler

When John Slemp came to the JetWhine.com lunch at EAA AirVenture 2015, he carried with him a large flat package that was maybe 20 by 24 inches by an inch deep and wrapped in brown paper. At such gatherings, most people just show up with their appetites, and as we later learned, John did, too, and it was wrapped in brown paper.

John is a commercial photographer with more than two decades of experience who, since 2001, has specialized in aviation. But his commercial work pays for his labor of love, photographing the decorated veteran leather flight jackets from conflicts past. And when they are still with us, and able to sit for his camera, the veterans who wore the iconic U.S. Army Air Force A-2 and U.S. Navy G-2 flight jackets. In the brown paper were several mounted prints of these spectacular images.

So far he’s photographed 31 pieces of veteran leather, and when he reaches his goal of 50, he plans to publish a book that will really be about, he said, the veterans who wore the jackets pictured. The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, the National Naval Aviation Museum, and others have opened their closets to the project that began at a meeting of EAA Chapter 690 in Lawrenceville, Georgia, with the jacket pictured above. (You can see more at John’s website, Aerographs Aviation Photography website.)

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