NY Times GA feature

The New York Times today has a feature article on general aviation and
the
quest for burgers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/tr.../26burger.html

On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:22:32 -0700, xxx wrote
in .com:

The New York Times today has a feature article on general aviation and
the
quest for burgers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/tr.../26burger.html

It sure paints personal aviation pilots as elites who clog the NAS to
feed their whims:

That probably explains why most people who fly small planes are
middle-age to elderly men who have money to burn. Planes can cost
anywhere from $20,000 for a decades-old Cessna to well over $1
million for a speedy turboprop. And jets? Forget about it.

BUT the hamburger hunt has changed since the 1970s. The number of
student pilots is less than half the level of 1980, Mr. Dancy
said, and starting in the 1990s about two small airports have
closed each month, mostly because of encroaching real estate
development.

Even so, there is still a sense of romance and freedom in flying
small planes, concepts long divorced from commercial travel.

You might sense it while sitting at the softly lighted bar at
Jonesy’s at Napa County Airport, where Judy Padis, who splits her
time among the California towns of Napa, Danville and Palm
Springs, and her party were boarding a Pilatus turboprop after a
day out in the wine country.

“We all have all the homes we want,” Ms. Padis said. “So we
decided to get a plane.”

Jonesy’s is no greasy spoon. On any weekend many millions of
dollars’ worth of Bombardiers, Gulfstreams and other private jets
are parked wing to wing outside the restaurant.


I doubt the piece will garner admiration of GA from airline passengers
suffering through delays.

Larry Dighera writes:

It sure paints personal aviation pilots as elites who clog the NAS to
feed their whims ...

It's mostly correct. That's how the demographics look. That's also why
private GA is withering.

I doubt the piece will garner admiration of GA from airline passengers
suffering through delays.

I don't even think GA is on the radar for airline passengers. The article
portrays GA as a hobby for quirky, rich geeks, and they just don't make a dent
in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing 737s on grass strips.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Larry Dighera writes:

It sure paints personal aviation pilots as elites who clog the NAS to
feed their whims ...

It's mostly correct. That's how the demographics look. That's also
why private GA is withering.

no, it isn't.



I doubt the piece will garner admiration of GA from airline
passengers suffering through delays.

I don't even think GA is on the radar for airline passengers. The
article portrays GA as a hobby for quirky, rich geeks, and they just
don't make a dent in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing 737s
on grass strips.


Yes, they are.

I've done it.


Bertie

On Oct 27, 6:33 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
don't make a dent in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing 737s
on grass strips.

Yes, they are.

I've done it.

Do tell. It'd have to be a pretty hard packed grass strip I'd have
thought?

James Sleeman wrote in
oups.com:

On Oct 27, 6:33 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
don't make a dent in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing 737s
on grass strips.

Yes, they are.

I've done it.

Do tell. It'd have to be a pretty hard packed grass strip I'd have
thought?



Yeah, it was. The airplane had low floatation tires, a gravel shield around
the nosewheel and vortex killers under the engines. It was a -15 powered
200.


I won't say where, but there is a lot of oil there...

Bertie

On Oct 27, 7:54 pm, Richard Riley wrote:

I've seen one operate on gravel, I haven't seen it on grass.
http://www.b737.org.uk/unpavedstripkit.htm


Learn something new every day. Looks like they just about need to
rebuild that runway every day too!

Richard Riley wrote in
:

On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:31:19 -0700, James Sleeman
wrote:

On Oct 27, 6:33 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
don't make a dent in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing
737s on grass strips.

Yes, they are.

I've done it.

Do tell. It'd have to be a pretty hard packed grass strip I'd have
thought?

I've seen one operate on gravel, I haven't seen it on grass.

Well, it'd be a stretch to call it either, really!

Actualyl some of the paved strips we operated off of there were worse thna
the unpaved ones.
One was paved on half it's length and the bump you got when you hit the lip
in the transition was bone jarring. It wasn't as bad as th pothole shortly
after it, however.

Bertie

Richard Riley wrote in
:

On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:31:19 -0700, James Sleeman
wrote:

On Oct 27, 6:33 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
don't make a dent in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing
737s on grass strips.

Yes, they are.

I've done it.

Do tell. It'd have to be a pretty hard packed grass strip I'd have
thought?

I've seen one operate on gravel, I haven't seen it on grass.

http://www.b737.org.uk/unpavedstripkit.ht

Intersting site, but the screens inside the wheel well were on all -200s
of the period. They aren't for gravel protection, they are to protect
the hydraulics in the event of a tire burst. If they are badly
disturbed, there's a warning in the office to say so. Later ones didn't,
but on those, most of the hydraulics and the aileron actuator were
forward of the wheel well bulkhead.
the gravel deflector on the nosewheel is huge compred to the one we had.
Our's retracted inside the wheel well, unless i'm remember ing it wrong.
I have a pic of the airplanes somewhere.
It doesn't show the vortx killers under the nacelles. They looked like
long pitot tubes that stuck out a couple of feet in front of the intakes
and used bleed air in some mystical way to keep dust from coming into
the engines. They may have workedm but you could shave with a fan blade
after six months of operaton in fine dust and sand.
I never even noticed the fence on the ends of the flaps, though. We
might not have had 'em. and the 1.8 EPR they mention is considerably
more than idle! We didn't worry too much about fod from reverse. It
wasn't as bad as hitting something landing on a hot day at max landing
weight on a short runway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8LICWf1QZY


eah, landing in the snow with those -200s was even more fun. the sleeve
reversers on most airplanes just blow snow sideway, but the bucket on
the 73 blew it all out in front fo you and to the sides, f there was no
crosswind. If there was a strong crosswind, you were blind.


Bertie

"James Sleeman" wrote in message
oups.com...
On Oct 27, 6:33 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
don't make a dent in the nation's air traffic. Nobody is landing 737s
on grass strips.

Yes, they are.

I've done it.

Do tell. It'd have to be a pretty hard packed grass strip I'd have
thought?


Many years ago, the AP ran a story on a 737 dead stick landing in the south.
Perhaps Mississippi, Louisiana? It think the pilot put it down on a levee or
something if I recall. The photo showed the main gear buried to the top of
the tires, without folding the gear. That pilot was both very lucky, and
very good. It think all souls walked away. I still can't imagine it.