Well. Hey everybody, hey, some nimbys will go to
pretty extreme lengths to get rid of an airport. You know,
they might even resort to hiding something paid for by the taxpayers that doesn't support their
position. Santa Clara County officials reportedly sat on a report
about lead at Reid Hillview airport in California. Kept it hidden until a newspaper
forced them to disclose it. So why did they sit on it?
You can guess because the report shows that soil at the airport contained lead levels below
the local, state or federal safety standards.
Now, as you'll remember, Santa Clara wants to close Reid Hillview and one of their excuses is
that lead contamination from aircraft exhaust as having an effect on local kids.
But you know, an earlier report shows that blood levels and kids near the airport are no
higher than what they are for kids living much farther away.
But hey, why let facts get in the way. And then there's, we're just going to take our
marbles and go home approach. Now the courts have stalled the plan to turn
East Hampton Airport into a private used prior permission required to use facility.
So since the courts have stopped them, the town on Long Island has told its lawyers to do what
they need to do to close the airport completely.
AOPA and others have been fighting to keep the
airport open and you know, once it's closed, they may really regret that it has been closed.
Here's something that's pretty positive teaching kids about aviation and getting them
more involved. And one of the ways we do that is with the AOPA
high school STEM curriculum. And you know that curriculum is now in some 500 classrooms for
next year. And the teachers who are going to be teaching
from that curriculum have been spending this week doing professional development for it.
So they are here at A O. P. A. We have some 19 teachers at the you can
fly academy this week. They've been going through all kinds of
activities, learning about aviation. Now, many of them went for airplane rides.
That was a highlight for many of them, particularly the folks who got to fly in the
Extra and they're excited to take what they've learned back into the classrooms.
It is so much better to teach a course where the curriculum is predetermined as opposed to
figuring it out. AOPA makes a wonderful systematic clear,
able to be presented. Well, I'm fired up to deliver this curriculum
to my students in the Bronx.
There's another teacher professional development program coming up in July and
Norman Oklahoma. Now, all teachers in the curriculum can access
the training online as well. It's really a great program and doing
extraordinary as well.
And speaking of aviation careers, have you ever wanted to order pilots about,
Well, here's your chance. If you're gen Z or a young millennial. FAA is
recruiting for new air traffic controllers. They've launched their be ATC
campaign. Applications opened June 24 And just a reminder,
even though ATC might be telling pilots where to go.
You don't always have to do what they tell you if it's going to be cause something to be
unsafe or you're just not able to do it.
Remember one of the words in your pilot lexicon is unable. Well a great event for young
flyers. The third annual young aviators fly-in to Triple
Tree Aerodrome in South Carolina.
It's a beautiful 7000 ft grass strip. Now this event was organized by young aviators,
For young aviators and even younger aviators had a blast taking young eagles rides.
It was super awesome to see all these little kids come out that were so excited to get some
of their first airplane rides and some of them came back for their second rides which was
awesome. Also awesome and it was so great to see them so
excited and just ready to learn. And my second favorite part is just getting to
talk to everybody who shows up here about where they're from,
how they heard about Triple Tree and kind of just what they like to do.
I always love to meet new people and talk about airplanes.
There's another fly into Triple Tree September 19th through the 25th and even us old farts are
going to be welcome at that one. And by the way it's not only a ATC
The airlines are hiring in big numbers, they want pilots so badly that they're offering
things like sign on bonuses and four day work weeks.
And it's not just the airlines charter companies particularly helicopters with the EMS
And they're not just pilots either that they're
after mechanics, avionics, techs, flight nurses are all in demand.
You can read board on our website. It's really easy to see why everybody is in such
demand. FlightAware says US commercial traffic is way
above 2020 and 21 levels up 10% from last year.
Business Aviation is up 67% from 2020.
Now FlightAware defines business aviation as Turbine powered aircraft. But we
know that some 65% of all general aviation traffic - piston
general aviation traffic is for business or public service travel.
Uh here's a look at their daily snapshot and you can see in this that GA
represents about 37% of air traffic.
That's the piston G. A. Biz av is about 10%.
So that means at least on a given day today in the US
nearly half of all traffic it's a general aviation. And here's a great use of general
aviation last week. More than 120 GA
aircraft flew Special Olympians to and from the games in Orlando. Textron aviation sponsors
the Special Olympics airlift.
Now Cessna Beechcraft and Hawker owners all volunteer their aircraft for these delegations.
The cost of transporting athletes to the game is their number one cost.
And so it's it's a great honor and privilege for us to be able to call upon our customers
who so generously donate their aircraft their time and the fuel to transport the athletes.
We also are very fortunate to be able to call upon the industry.
And so we have phenomenal support from the FAA and other partners in the industry.
So it's just a beautiful opportunity to demonstrate how our aircraft,
how private aviation can benefit the public at large.
AOPA has donated aircraft and pilots to the airlift since 2014.
And the folks who fly say it's extraordinarily rewarding and we'll be back in a moment.
My name's Tom Row. I've got about 18,000 hours total time as a
pilot. There are certain things that you can see with
an onboard radar. Uh, and there's certain things you can't see.
And the nice thing about Sirius XM's weather product is that it adds another layer of safety
which, you know, really plays into the aeronautical decision making process.
For me, it it allows me to get a more strategic big picture when I'm going to go seven or 800
miles. You know, just facilitates decision making on a
long range spectra. The Sirius XM weather features that that I
engage in the airplane. Of course there's,
there's a selection the wind feature and the ability to work out route changes was centered
to take advantage of the wind is sort of a carryover from the airline days or in the Navy
when we always felt like we didn't have enough gas.
Being able to make gas literally by shortening the segment length.
The wind feature is, it's invaluable the number of dollars saved as a result,
I just don't think I can calculate it.
Hey, welcome back. The new Air Force One will likely look like the
old Air Force One.
Well, probably now you might remember that President Trump to create a new paint scheme
for the two 747-8s
that Boeing is modifying to replace the existing presidential fleet.
But Politico is reporting that the red and white blue scheme the former president asked
for would cause heat problems. You see that dark blue along the belly absorbs
so much heat that it will heat up the electronics and there's some pretty fancy
electronics in Air Force one.
In order to compensate for that. They would have had to do additional cooling
and that's going to drive up the costs.
Now the aircraft is being modified under a fixed cost contract and they're huge cost
overruns already. So Boeing is really sweating it and the White
House scrapped Trump's new paint scheme, the new look.
Well that's to be determined. But you know, I can tell you,
I always like the original colors. You know,
they started way back in the Kennedy administration and when I was living and
working overseas, it was really spectacular to see that aircraft arrive at a foreign ports.
Well, the White House reportedly will nominate a new FAA administrator soon.
The Seattle Times says it will be Phil Washington.
He's currently the CEO of Denver International Airport.
He doesn't have a lot of aviation experience. He was previously the CEO of the Los Angeles
metro bus and rail system, but he did retire from the army as an army command sergeant major
so he certainly knows how to organize and run things.
He was the lead of the transportation team for
the Biden transition. So that may explain why he's a front runner.
The White House hasn't commented or confirmed the report yet.
And here's something new from ForeFlight - the Sentry Plus.
Now it's a lot more than your standard ads-b
Yeah, it'll connect your iPad and show you your position and flight plan and near by traffic
and weather. You also get an AHRS for backup attitude
indication, but it also has a carbon monoxide sensor.
There's even a g meter in there for you folks who like to fly a little aggressively.
It's just under 800 bucks. It's available from Sporty's.
You know, I fly with the original Sentry and it really is a great tool in the aircraft. And
here's something else new. An electric Robbie. Tier one engineering tested
in all electric Robinson R-44 earlier this month.
It flew for about three minutes using the MagniX electric propulsion unit.
The company says it's working on an S. T. C. For the electric conversion.
Now think about this L. A. to Tokyo in one hour.
Well that's what Venus aerospace is promising with its hypersonic Stargazer,
it would take off with conventional jet engines then transition to rocket power.
They claim it will be zero emission rocket power Mach nine at flight level
170.
That's 100 and 70,000 ft. Now Venus is also planning to build a
hypersonic drone.
They've raised, I don't know, some $33 million bucks to do both - one million coming from the
government. I think they're gonna need a lot more before
they're done. (Gurgle noise) And there you have it.
Well, that's from our latest one of our latest videos posted on our Youtube channel how to
burp a Rotax 912
And by the way, we've gotten a lot of fun comments on the video.
So that's worth checking out.
And finally, what do you think about water skiing with your airplane?
You know, that's when you fly level with your tires just touching the water?
Good idea?
Stupid pilot trick?
Well, we got two experts to engage in a dogfight of opinions.
You can read both sides and decide for yourself who is right.
It's at the link in the upper right corner of the screen.
Me, I'm going to stay away from the water, but that's just me. And that's news brief for this
week. You've heard this before.
But what the heck? Please like subscribe and comment.
We'll see you next friday.