Welcome to this edition of News Brief.
Let's get you caught up on the news of the week.
Well, it seems like the only time general aviation gets in
the national news is when something bad happens.
And it happened again.
A lineman stole a King Air from a Tupelo Airport and flew aimlessly
around northern Mississippi for more than 5 hours.
At one point, he threatened to crash into a local Wal-Mart.
We ran out of fuel.
Landed in a soybean field.
And then the cops arrested him.
The D.A.
has charged him with grand larceny and making terrorist threats.
He's awaiting trial.
Now, it didn't take long for some to target general aviation airports
once again.
The Associated Press quoted a former NTSB member saying that the, quote, vulnerable
ability of small airports has worried security experts for years.
But our security expert says airports really are not a threat.
AOPA is proud of the security record that our industry has.
Fortunately, as we saw with
this event this last weekend, events like this are pretty rare.
They don't happen very often.
And we're going to continue to engage with industry
and with our government agency partners
to secure our airports as much as possible, to protect
our members, freedom to fly, and certainly to ensure
that as much as possible, events like this are remaining exceedingly rare.
And AOPA's Airport Watch has been implemented at airports across the nation.
AOPA Airport Watch Program is something that came about in the wake of 911.
Among all of the other efforts that popped up after that time
and the the airport watch program was really designed as a
you know, if you see something wrong, say something type program.
And it's designed to help general aviation airports implement
proven comprehensive security measures.
And speaking of AOPA's Airport Watch.
We have an online course that you can take.
Now, the course gives you practical guidance on what you can do
to prevent someone from stealing your airplane
or how to keep your airport secure from bad guys.
The link is in the description.
Well, folks are still talking about last week's big news - the approval
to use GAMI's 100 UL in all piston engine airplanes,
there have been lots of questions, including questions
about the weight and range you can get from this no lead fuel.
So we talked to George Braly again and the answer.
Well, it's going to be pretty much the same as 100 low lead.
The GAMI fuel is a little heavier but it packs a little more energy.
So as you see from this approved flight manual supplement that comes with the STC,
your range payload tradeoff remains about the same.
The STCs for the full fleet will be available
within a few weeks on the GAMI website. And yes,
we are working on a way to get fleet wide approval for no lead fuels.
The fleet wide approval, which remains out there
as one of the biggest opportunities.
We have to make sure that this fuel that moves away from potentially STC
to a fleet wide approval.
We're on a journey here that won't happen overnight.
And we'd like to see an ASTM approval at some point in time,
because this will become an international standard.
So keep an eye out on our special unleaded fuel page
for the latest updates on the transition to a no led future.
Well, if you're looking for some help to further your aviation training,
I've got good news for you.
The 2023 AOPA Foundation Scholarship Program just opened this week.
Scholarships up to $14,000 are available for flight
training aircraft maintenance and other aviation related pursuits.
There are also scholarships
for high school students and teachers who can use the AOPA.
You can fly aviation STEM curriculum.
Many of these scholarships
are made possible by a generous donation from the Ray Foundation.
The application period runs through February.
Check out the details on our website.
Speaking of training,
have you ever heard of confirmation bias?
That's where you look at something new and interpret that as evidence of something.
You think you already know or believe.
And it happens to us in aviation.
Take this as an example.
You think you know where the airport is
and you see something that you think looks like it's part of the airport.
And so you convince yourself that it really is the airport.
Well, that nearly happened to our own Sierra Harrop on our way to Oshkosh.
Use all the tools at your disposal and double check that
what you think you see is what you actually see and you want.
That confirmation bias leads you astray.
Where you can see the full video on our YouTube channel.
It really is a great training tip.
Now, here's a great safety enhancement from the folks at Lightspeed.
They've just released what they call the next generation headset,
and it has some pretty nifty safety features built in.
For example, the Lightspeed
Delta Zulu headset has built in carbon monoxide sensing.
If the carbon monoxide levels go up in the cabin,
you'll hear an alert in the headset.
Then speaking of hearing, you can adjust this headset
to compensate for some of the hearing loss that's common to a lot of older pilots.
You literally take a hearing test with the headset
to adjust it, to give you the best audio in each ear.
Now you can read Dave Hirschman's review of the new headset on our website.
The Lightspeed Zulu Delta retails for $1,099.
Do you remember The Jetsons?
I know. I watched them when I was growing up.
You may have heard that fans estimate that George Jetsons birthday
would have been this year.
And while we're far from flying car reality depicted in the show,
it does look like in the near future we could have Uber like taxi service
by eVTOLs Some of these concepts aircraft are autonomous, but many are piloted.
But what will it be like to be the pilot on one of these aircraft?
Well, Tom Horne got a glimpse.
He recently flew the simulator at Joby's office in Washington, D.C..
So so too, to get it into a hover.
You just pull back on the vertical control and up you go.
And I'll hover at 60 feet and I'll let go.
And it'll
stay there because it's fly by wire.
The design is in flight testing.
It will see one pilot and four passengers,
a range of 150 miles with 200 miles per hour of the top speed.
You can see more of Tom's flight on our YouTube channel.
Now, on the other end of the fine spectrum,
a seaplane rating is considered one of the most fun to get.
I know it was the most fun for me to get.
It's a fairly quick rating to get in many terrain over a long weekend.
So there are several places you can get seaplane training in.
Southern Sea Pioneer New Orleans offers a variety of training options.
We have a part 141 C Flight School.
We offer a few different courses
from anywhere from getting your seaplane rating to just being seaplane proficient.
And then extensive training through Seaplane Safety Institute,
the Sea Point Safety Institute is a three day training program
for recurrent training, for pilots.
It's intended to take a private seaplane pilot
and bring them up to the caliber of a commercial seaplane pilot.
First day would be ground school.
The second day we go to underwater egress, and the third day is about 2
hours of flight training.
Well, you're going to learn maneuvers that you haven't learned in just your
initial seaplane training.
Well, Southern Seaplane also offers
multi-engine seaplane training and a unique Piper Nomad.
That's basically an Aztec on floats.
You can also book a seaplane fishing charter or take a scenic flight
over New Orleans.
You can read more about the company in the October issue
of AOPA Pilot magazine or check out our video about it.
Well, finally this weekend is the AOPA Hang Out and Fly Inn in Spokane,
Washington.
Let's check in with our own Sierra Harrop for a preview.
Hey, we're here in Bremerton on the Kitsap Peninsula, west of Seattle.
We're going to be loading up and flying in beige, Betty.
That is a 210 horsepower Cessna 170 B.
I'm flying over there with Ryan Lapointe, who is actually
one of the demo pilots in our STOL demo for the AOPA.
Hang out at Spokane.
Really looking forward to getting over there.
I've talked to a couple pilots
here in western Washington and folks are excited for this event.
A lot of people are making their plans to head over there.
We've heard people are coming from all over
Washington, up from Oregon, of course, Idaho or even from Montana.
So it's going to be a great event.
I'm really looking forward
to getting over there and not too shabby of a way to arrive.
And of course, the AOPA sweepstakes, 170 B will be there.
So base many here will be in good company.
And I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody there.
We're going to have a great weekend and hope that you can see me
and Betty and everyone else at the hangout in Spokane.
All right.
Well, thanks, Sierra.
I'm looking forward to your report next week on how it all went.
And that's it for News three for this week.
Thanks so much for watching.
And if you're not already an AOPA pilot, we'd love for you
to join together, we can preserve our freedom to fly.
See you next week.