In 1939, Franklin Roosevelt was the first sitting president to recognize GA, according to AOPA president Mark Baker. This year also marks the 85th anniversary of AOPA, an organization created to support GA.

The National Celebration of GA Flyover will be broadcast live on AOPA’s YouTube channel with commentary from longtime “AOPA Live This Week” host Tom Haines and journalist Miles O’Brien. The pair will be on a rooftop providing commentary as aircraft fly overhead. 

Haines noted that he’s spent a good bit of time researching the participant airplanes and was impressed to learn of their rich history.

Logistics

Mike Ginter, AOPA vice president of airports and state advocacy, will serve as the air boss for the event. Ginter said that all the aircraft will be strategically launched from Frederick Municipal Airport (KFDK) in Maryland—the home of AOPA—beginning at 11:30 a.m. EST on May 11. 

The aircraft will be expected to fly at 90 knots at an altitude of 1,000 feet, ensuring they are visible from the ground and online. 

“The goal is to get aviation outside of the airport fence lines,” Ginter said.

For those who won’t be in D.C., pilots are encouraged to organize watch parties at their airports.

Sixty aircraft, representing 20 different chapters of GA, are scheduled to participate. The aircraft and pilots, most of whom are the aircraft owners, were selected months ago.

Baker will be leading the parade, flying his Beechcraft Staggerwing 17, an aircraft synonymous with the golden age of aviation. The round-engine Staggerwing biplane was one of the first to feature an enclosed cockpit. In the 1930s, it was the choice for executive transport and air racers.

“It’s going to be a special time for AOPA and for general aviation,” Baker said. “What a sight it will be to see the history of general aviation flying over the National Mall, as GA has given this nation so much over the past many decades. AOPA is uniquely positioned to plan this complex event and execute it safely and professionally.”

Among the aircraft planned to appear are a WACO UPF-7, Douglas DC-3, a Grumman Albatross, one of the only two Beechcraft Starships still flying, a Robinson R44, and a Piper M700 Fury certified this year.

The flyover will also feature an appearance by the Titan Aerobatic Team.

Parade Route

Washington has some of the most restricted airspace in the country. More than 11 agencies, including the FAA, air traffic control, TSA, and U.S. Secret Service are coordinating for the event, which will include flight in Prohibited Area P-56. The restricted airspace was created after 9/11. 

The route takes the aircraft past the Lincoln Memorial, down Independence Avenue, and past the Washington Monument.

GA, By the Numbers

Parade aircraft were selected to showcase technological advancements in aviation and demonstrate the ways GA has improved its safety records over the years.

According to AOPA, the GA industry enjoys the safest record ever due to better aircraft, navigation systems, flight training, and better, more engaging ways to stay proficient. General aviation aircraft fly more than 26 million flight hours each year, including about 30 million takeoffs and landings.

AOPA officials said they hope the event will help spread the word that general aviation often comes from small towns with small aircraft manufacturing facilities, such as Yakima, Washington; Vacaville, California; and Vero Beach, Florida. 

More information on the event, route, and planned aircraft can be found on AOPA’s GA Flyover campaign website.

The post ‘Parade of Airplanes’ Over Washington to Celebrate 85 years of GA appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The “Twin Cat” of the late 1970s and early ’80s was one such example. A development of the 1950s-era, purpose-built Grumman Super Ag Cat biplane, it replaced the Ag Cat’s single 600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 radial engine with two 310 hp Lycoming TIO-540 flat-6 engines.

Rather than being offered as a complete, factory-built aircraft, the Twin Cat was a modification offered in the form of a supplemental type certificate (STC). The Twin Cat Corporation targeted Ag Cat operators wishing for more easily serviceable engines with increased overhaul intervals and multiengine redundancy, and the company offered to travel to the customer for on-site modification of their Ag Cats.

The company had some impressive experience at the helm. The president had overseen the development of a turboprop conversion of the Grumman Albatross and was assisted by the former chief test pilot at the general aviation division of Rockwell International. Most of the test flights were flown by Herman “Fish” Salmon, retired chief engineering test pilot of Lockheed. Salmon had conducted spin testing of the P-38 Lightning and had flown the first flights of the L-188 Electra, P-3 Orion, YF-104A Starfighter, and XFV-1 turboprop VTOL fighter. 

When designing the Twin Cat, one of the top priorities was to minimize asymmetric thrust in the event of an engine failure. The team did so by utilizing an unconventional engine layout in which the engines were mounted on either side of the nose with only approximately 3.5 feet between the propeller tips. The engines were also canted slightly outward to further minimize the effects of asymmetric thrust during single-engine operations.

The company touted benefits beyond the engines’ 2,000-hour TBO and better parts availability. While the engines were rated at 310 hp each, a sales manager said in an industry presentation that they derated them “with a pencil” and that the full 350 hp was available if needed. The Twin Cat’s total fuel consumption was the same as that of the single-engine radial Ag Cat. They also claimed the new layout improved forward visibility, prop clearance, and spray dispersion. 

When the time came for flight testing, the team got to see whether the new design could deliver the performance that backed up predictions. While the Twin Cat’s empty weight was the same as the Ag Cat’s, at 3,500 pounds, the maximum takeoff weight was 2,000 pounds higher, at 6,500 pounds. A load jettison function enabled the pilot to dump 2,000 pounds of payload if needed.

The new engine layout worked. With both engines operating, the Twin Cat’s takeoff distances were approximately 20 percent shorter than the Ag Cat. Asymmetric thrust was so effectively minimized that a sales manager claimed the Twin Cat could even take off with one engine shut down and then climb at 400 feet per minute at sea level. The company marketed this feature as a useful solution to ferry an aircraft with an inoperative engine to a location where maintenance could be performed.

In the air, the maximum cruising speed was 130 knots. By canting the engines slightly downward, the stall speed was remarkably low, at a claimed 49 knots for power-off stalls and 43 knots for power-on. A brochure claimed that the Twin Cat had “no V_MC,” which would have enabled flight all the way down to stall speed without controllability concerns. 

One account of the airplane’s flight characteristics suggests that it needed more refinement, however. It reportedly lacked any kind of rudder trim, and with an engine shut down, a pilot claimed he ran out of rudder and had to reduce power on the good engine to maintain control. It’s unclear whether the company planned to introduce rudder trim in future aircraft.

In the end, only three examples of the Twin Cat were rumored to have been completed and flown, and few photographs exist. One reportedly crashed, and the others presumably returned to their original single-engine configuration when the company decided against pursuing the concept any further. 

The post The One, Brief Life of the Twin Cat appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Calling all Parrot Heads: There is a petition floating around to rename Key West International Airport (KEYW) in honor of Jimmy Buffett. 

Buffett, a well-known musician, aviator, author, and activist, died on the evening of September 1, 2023, surrounded by family, friends, music, and dogs. He was 76.

• READ MORE: Musician, Pilot Jimmy Buffett Remembered

Buffett began his music career in Nashville but eventually migrated to the Florida Keys. The island lifestyle fueled his music, and symbiotically, the money from the music paid for his flying lessons. He owned and flew several aircraft, including Falcons for touring and amphibious aircraft for hopping around the Keys. His most recognizable aircraft was a Grumman Albatross, the Hemisphere Dancer, which was a much-anticipated visitor to airshows such as Sun ‘n Fun Aerospace Expo and EAA AirVenture.

Buffett’s music was as much a part of aviation events as sharing stories of his first solo.

• Bucket List: Journey to the Keys

The petition to rename Key West Airport in honor of Buffett surfaced on September 4 and, in a single day, gained close to 4,000 signatures. 

Buffett would not be the only celebrity to lend his name to an airport. There is John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California (KSNA), and Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California (KBUR).

Plane & Pilot reached out to the airport sponsor, but requests for information were not answered by the close of business Wednesday.

The post Petition Seeks to Rename Key West International After Jimmy Buffet appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

I immediately fell in love with the place, its warm summer temperatures, sunny blue skies, and—the best—its people. Friendly, welcoming, happy people! I made many new friends and kept returning every summer, always mentioning to those I visited that I wanted to move here someday. And my friends—being good friends, kept telling me—”you better visit in winter first.” Temperatures in Minnesota range from the 80s (Fahrenheit) in summer to the low 10s during the winter, and in the north can go even lower.

During the winter, the land of 10,000 lakes becomes the land of 10,000 frozen lakes.

I finally moved to Minnesota this year, just as winter started. As the temperatures started to go down, I was already wearing a sweater while the thermometer showed 50 degrees F. While wearing my best warm clothes, I could observe some strange behavior among the locals: they were still in shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. What is wrong with you people? It is cold! 

Without knowing it, Minnesotans were showing me how resilient and adaptable they can be and, at the same time, how they squeeze the fun out of any sunny day. And that is how flying is approached by the locals in love with it.

In summer, you will see a lot of wheels left at the hangar, and airplanes become taller in their floats. As soon as those lakes start to freeze, the floats are removed, and straight skis are installed. Any day over 32 degrees F feels like summer, and people will run to the airport with shovels to remove the snow in front of the hangars, and fly in t-shirts.

One of those adaptable Minnesotans is Paul Jackson, owner of the Jackson Seaplane Base in northern Minnesota (MN61), a small seaplane base with a hangar, dock, and cabin. It’s an excellent place to take a break or escape from bad weather—or make an emergency bathroom stop—last time to pee before Canada! So what do you do when your “runway” freezes during the winter? Easy, you start a ski fly-in.

Jackson, a retired airline pilot, started his Ski Fly-In eight years ago. Pilots will do anything for free food, so he began by offering those who flew in a bowl of chili. Eight brave pilots showed up to that first meeting, which quickly snowballed to up to 70 airplanes in the following years.

This year’s weather couldn’t be better: a gorgeous sunny day, temperatures in the 30s, and a packed-solid snow runway. For those without skis but at least 850-series tires, there was an option to land at the snowmobile trail that was rock solid, at least until I left the trail to taxi back and got stuck in the snow with my Cessna 170. Good thing I had a crew onboard that quickly jumped to the rescue, pushing the 170 to better footing.

All kinds of taildraggers (and a brave Cessna 172) showed up to enjoy a warm meal provided by Steve, Kathi Schwister, and TrickAir Skis. Cubs, Luscombes, Huskies, Cessnas, and Andy Brown’s spectacular Beaver, complete with a crew of six—all landing on the frozen Horseshoe Lake with around 17 inches of solid, thick ice.

This was my first landing on the snow and with big wheels (850s). I talked with Paul several times to confirm that this was safe, and he told me, “go for the snowmobile trail, and you will be fine.” Ski flying is not for the faint of heart. Based on a recent fly ice-fishing trip with three other airplanes, I can tell you it is 90 percent hard work and 10 percent fun. The 10 percent fun is celebrating with your friends when you finally manage to start the engine or unstick the airplane from the frozen slush. While it is hard work, it is also definitely rewarding and one of those bucket list items that every adventurous pilot should try.

My day ended in a spectacular way doing an air-to-air photo session with Andy’s Beaver, and as he tells me, “the key to Minnesota winter is to find happiness in the suffering!” And they know how to do that.

You know that you will be with people who love flying when their airplanes are on skis, and this fly-in is proof of that. Until next year!

The post A Ski Fly-In Helps in Finding Happiness in the Suffering appeared first on FLYING Magazine.