It was another slow week for flying this week. Today I finally completed enough other work to free up time to go to the airport, but today it is just not worth the risk…  AF1 is arriving in Reno today and we have one of those wonderful TFRs in place around the area. Although the times are published when the TFR will be active, I just do not trust the timing. If the flight is running early or late, the TFR can change with little to no warning.  Your license won’t be safe until he has left and is well out of the area.

The TFR notice has been up on the front page of the Stead Users Association website for a week, but what do you bet that somebody busts the TFR anyway…

Here are some articles that you may have missed this week:

Wright Brothers Memorial Diorama

Kate Moran, one of Britain’s female airline pilots
This is from the Mail Online in the UK. Kate Moran graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in Aviation Technology. Now she is one of Britain’s youngest airline pilots.

Flying is Freedom
This is from the Beaver County Times in Beaver, PA. Clayton Smeltz has used a wheelchair since an accident injured his spine at 16 months of age. But it hasn’t stopped him from riding a dirt bike… or learning to fly…

Pilot recognized for 50 years of safe flying
This is from the Lehigh Valley (PA) newspaper. The FAA recognizes pilots who have completed 50 years of accident-free flying by awarding them the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award. Aircraft Mechanics are also recognized for a similar accomplishment with the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award. Laslo Zamolyi first flew for the Air Force, then for TWA amassing over 24,000 flight hours.

It was another poor weather week to accomplish any fun flying.  I guess you could have made a few flights during the early morning hours, say before 10 am, but the winds were picking up earlier than usual. The gusts were to 40 mph yesterday.

I only ran across a couple of articles this week – both having to do with the Piper Cub.

Here are some articles that you may have missed this week:

1946 Piper Cub

Cub County Caper
This is from Vindy.com in Youngstown, OH. Gordon Murry, a journalism professor at Kent State University, and Ron Siwik, a retired radiologist, are flying two Piper Cubs around the state of Ohio this month. They plan on making a 9-day jaunt around Ohio to visit all 88 of it’s counties. They will accept donations during their stops and hope to collect enough money to establish a scholarship for a needy Ohio family to send a child to college. Their planned departure date is next Sunday, May 13th.

Feeling Old?
This is from News Chief in Winter Haven, FL. Jim Torphy has a 1946 Piper Cub. On April 23rd he took it up solo to celebrate his birthday – his 90th birthday.

I admit it, I’m a sucker for a book with an airplane on the cover – especially if it’s an antique or WWII vintage airplane. I can’t remember where I first saw this particular book, but do I remember making a mental note to buy it. Last week I had breakfast with a friend and he handed me a copy saying I’d probably enjoy the read. He had bought it, finished it and was passing it along. It’s nice to have friends like that…

Mitchell Zuckoff, the author, is a professor of journalism at Boston University. In this book he has produced a work of narrative nonfiction that is fast-paced, easy to read and an amazing story that takes place near the end of WWII in Dutch New Guinea.

On May 13, 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and WACs boarded a transport plane for a sightseeing trip over the jungle-covered mountains of Dutch New Guinea. Unlike the peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton’s best-selling novel Lost Horizon, this Shangri-La was home to spear-carrying tribesman, warriors rumored to be cannibals.

The flight was made in a C-47 named the Gremlin Special. It wasn’t a difficult flight but enroute to the valley it was necessary pass over a mountain range or two with peaks reaching as high as 15,000 feet. At that time the inner portion of New Guinea was uncharted – a blank area of jungles and mountains on maps, populated by island natives and pockets of Japanese soldiers still remaining after American forces recaptured the island. The valley that had become known as Shangri-La with its large population of natives had been only recently discovered by air and there appeared to be no navigable land routes in or out.

The sightseeing flight was, unfortunately, a short one that ended abruptly against the side of a mountain at the edge of the valley. Lost in Shangri-La is the story of the survivors of the crash and their efforts to remain alive long enough to be rescued. Zuckoff used interviews, personal photos and mementos, survivor’s diaries and journals and declassified U.S.Army documents to recount the amazing adventure.

This book is well worth reading, it’s a great story. It is available at Amazon.com through the affiliate link shown here.

No flying this week. It was actually rainy here for most of the week – a nice change for the high desert.  Everything is actually starting to turn green again.  Of course the cold front bringing the rain also brought below-freezing temperatures last night.

This weekend should be nice. Saturday is the Reno-area Safety Stand-down. Three hours of safety briefings  sponsored by the FAA Safety Team. Sunday might be a good fly-to-breakfast say, though.

Here are some articles that you may have missed this week:

Avro Vulcan 103. XH558

A C-46 pilot remembers
This is from the Charlotte Observer. Jeb Stewart, now 91 years old, had a chance to relive some old memories when Tinker Belle, possible the last airworthy C-46 visited the Charlotte-Monroe Airport.

Another last of its kind.
This is from SeattlePI. The Curtiss MF Boat was a Glenn Curtiss design from 1918, purchased by the Navy to be used to train pilots for flying the Curtiss F Boat. There is only one example of the MF Boat in existence – housed in the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL . Here is a list of the other aircraft that they have on display.

British Vulcan Bomber – yes, yet another last of it’s kind still airworthy
This is from the Yorkshire Post in the UK. Engineers had planned on flying the Vulcan Bomber as part of the renewal of it’s Permit to Fly  for this year’s show season, but were thwarted by low weather at the Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster. This is a short article but includes a video clip just under 3 minutes long.

And a Quiz Question:

What is unusual about the month of July this year? And just how unusual is it?

I received this DVD free as a volunteer to try products and write reviews for EAA’s Sport Aviation Magazine.

The DVD runs 62 minutes and is narrated by Hugh Downs a legendary broadcaster with multi-engine and balloon ratings.

Mission: Dawn Patrol is a video account of three pilots who flew aircraft of the Vintage Aero Flying Museum in Hudson, CO to the Dawn Patrol Rendezvous of WWI aircraft at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.

The photography is excellent and the story is punctuated with actual clips of the planes in action and biographies of the pilots who flew them in WWI.

The pilots in the DVD and the airplanes that they flew are:

1. Fokker DR-1 (Triplane) – Mark Holiday
2. Fokker D-VII – Dan Murray
3. Fokker D-VIII – Andrew King

These planes, WWI fighting machines, were designed to fly sorties about an hour long. This effort was to fly them 1100 miles to Dayton – and back. They had a chase plane and two vans following them with parts and mechanics. It was a monumental effort that has been documented beautifully – even the unfortunate landing accident.

If the DVD only documented the effort to take the planes to Dayton and back it would be worth your time to watch – with great air-to-air photography, comments by the pilot, and the addition of actual WWI movie footage, interviews and pilot biographies make it a valuable aviation history lesson.

I recommend this DVD to anybody who is an advocate of sport aviation and/or antique aircraft.  The link above is an affiliate link to purchase the DVD from Amazon.