New USAF Designation - Cirrus T-53A

Heads up, NIFA competitors...there's a new USAF aircraft to study. The Cirrus T-53A:

As Flying Magazine reports, the USAF Academy will start taking delivery of 25 aircraft this summer, and deliveries will continue through 2012.

USA Today Does it Again

It's always been apparent that USA Today's primary motivation when covering aviation-related stories is fear mongering and sensationalism. Today's coverage of a plane crash in California demonstrates that their reporters don't even let official sources stand in the way of a sensationalist headline:

USA Today - Your coverage and your reporters are a shameful embarrassment to the journalism community.

Starships For Sale

If you're in the market for a Beechcraft Starship, you're in luck - two of the five in active service are presently on the market.

The first, N8285Q/NC-50, is listed for $1,400,000 in Washington state. The airframe has 2695 hours, and the seller points out that the "jet quiet" cabin is a third larger than a King Air 350 at 2/3 the price.

The second, N8244L/NC-29, is listed for $1,600,000 in Oklahoma City. It was a marketing plane for Beechcraft that was featured on many magazine covers stories and in many articles. It is the only Starship with the original factory N number. The airframe has a higher total time (3985 hours), but you won't care, because included in the sale is NC-43, a parts aircraft sans engines.

But wait - there's more!

The seller is also including "plenty of tires" and a third set of props. He/she also points out that Starfleetsupport.com has parts and support available to Starship owners.

If you love the Starship but can't quite swing the cash for one of these examples, be sure to explore Bob Scherer's site. There, you can find downloadable flight manuals, parts catalogs, wiring diagrams, and all kinds of historical information.

I also recommend picking up a copy of The Starship Diaries, by Dallas Kachan. It's a fictional account of a very successful Silicon Valley resident who purchases a Starship and then "slowly meanders around the planet with no fixed route, and no fixed return date."

Study: Fast Food Enhances Pilot Performance

In what appears to be a link between our nations fast-food addiction and our aviation safety record that is second to none, unhealthy foods have been shown to enhance pilot performance.

As reported by Ultra Fitness Dynamics, a University of North Dakota study has shown that "commercial airline pilots who ate a diet that was high in fat or carbohydrates performed significantly better on a flight simulator than did pilots who ate a diet high in protein."

The report went on to describe that cognitive function and sleep were also enhanced with such a diet.

The implications are clear - when you board your next flight, you want to see your pilots straining their waistbands, smacking their lips, and covered in grease.

And while no operator-specific correlations have been linked to the study, the Yum! Brands senior management team can likely rest assured that they are in good hands:

MyAviation.net:

Photographer © James Richard Covington

Royal Navy Dubs New King-Air Trainers "Avenger"

Having retired their 30+ year-old Jetstreams, the Royal Navy will soon be taking delivery of their replacement - converted Beechcraft King Air 350ERs:

What's interesting about these aircraft from a NIFA/Aircraft Rec perspective is their name. Soon, a King-Air 350ER in Royal Navy colors will be an "Avenger".

Aviation Coverage in the Media

Oh, US media...when will you learn to check your facts when covering aviation stories?

Another example, this time from Fox News:

The media's lack of attention to detail is not limited to aircraft identification. It seems that every time a 737, A320, or regional jet has an issue in the air, the media soon starts talking about how the aircraft in question is dumping fuel. A capability, of course, that the aforementioned aircraft models lack. And it's not uncommon to witness a reporter bash corporate aviation, claiming that corporate pilots are "less experienced" and undergo less training than their airline counterparts.

I never notice this level of blatant disregard for accuracy in non-aviation coverage. But in the world of aviation, it seems that the opportunity for quick sensationalism trumps the opportunity for disciplined reporting.

The problem is not that reporters speculate, sometimes incorrectly, at the content of aviation-related news. Speculation can be constructive. The problem occurs when reporters either present this speculation as fact, or fail to specify that it is, in fact, speculation.


Example:

An airplane crashes. You're the reporter. You vaguely remember hearing your neighbor's stepcousin-in-law mention that this particular airline flies Airbus L-1011 aircraft.

Which do you report?

A) An airplane has crashed
B) An Airbus L-1011 has crashed

Far too often, reporters choose the equivalent of B and either present it as fact or fail to clearly specify that it is speculation.

That is the problem with the media. It amounts to a severe lack of discipline and professionalism. Qualities that, in most other professions, would justifiably lead to termination.

History - Tupolev TB-1 Lands in Dearborn, Michigan

It's amazing what one can find in forgotten boxes in the attic. During a recent move, I uncovered this framed news clipping, given to me by a relative:

As the Milwaukee Sentinel reported on October 29, 1929:


The four flyers of the Russian plane, "Land of the Soviets", were greeted Monday by Henry Ford after their arrival from Chicago at the Ford Airport at Dearborn. The automobile manufacturer congratulated them on their achievement in conquering the storms of the northern Pacific ocean and placed the facilities of his airport at their disposal.


The Soviet airmen were guests of the engineering department of the Ford Motor Company at a luncheon in the engineering laboratories.


Monday it was announced they would continue the tourney to New York Wednesday morning. Meanwhile they will be feted by various Slavish organizations of Detroit. They will be presented with ten farm tractors which will be shipped to Russia to be used in cultivating the soil of the soviet union.


More than 5,000 persons were at the airport when the plane arrived.

Cessna T-128T Caravan

It seems there could be a new military designation for the Cessna Caravan. Flightglobal reported that Cessna has won a USAF counter-insurgency contract for six Cessna T-128T and 26 Cessna 208B Caravans to be delivered the Afghanistan air force.

While the designation may be new, military Caravans certainly are not:

(images courtesy USAF)

Mystery Prop

I need help identifying this propeller. It was originally covered in a black rubbery coating. That coating was stripped off, and this is what it looks like now:

Any guesses as to what aircraft type it might have come from?

Waco RPT

Now that the 2011 Nationals test has been revealed, I can share my Waco RPT photo shoot. The RPT competed for a US military contract in the early 1940s and lost. The sole example was originally built with an open cockpit. A later owner added the canopy. The aircraft has only 85 hours total time and has rarely ventured out of a hangar. It is currently offered for sale on Controller.com for $57,900.

Prior to spring of 2011, only one or two photos of the RPT existed on the web. This was one of them, shot at Oshkosh sometime in the 1970s or 1980s:

After tracking down the owner, I managed to get permission to do a full photo shoot. It can be seen here.

Railroad 737s

Let's face it - airports aren't becoming any friendlier toward photographers. Carry a DSLR up to an airport boundary fence, and you'll be descended upon and discriminated against faster than you can say "civil liberties". But there are still a few places where you can photograph brand-new 737s without being treated like a felon.

Seattle is one of those places.

Take a walk down 20th Avenue West over by Interbay, and you will occasionally run across views like this:

Here's the Google Street View link.

You can also get some decent shots from the other side of the tracks. Just head to Interbay Golf Center on 15th Ave West:

And always travel with your camera. As Airliners.net photographer Dave Lednicer demonstrates HERE, you can find the 737 fuselages enroute between Wichita and Renton.

In Pursuit of Jane

As NIFA Aircraft Rec competitors know, Jane's All the World's Aircraft is the official source for judging.

As NIFA Aircraft Rec competitors also know, those big fabric-bound books can be horrendously expensive.

A few years back, I hit the jackpot. Just before driving through Chicago enroute to family Christmas in Michigan and on a whim, I performed a certain Chicago Craigslist search. Turned out, a small library was interested in selling their huge collection of used Jane's yearbooks for what amounted to about $10 each.

A quick phone call and a few hours later, this was the result:

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have scored a collection that includes half of the 1950s, almost all of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and some of the 1990s. But it actually wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

With patience, you can find darn cheap used examples on Amazon. $15-20 is not an uncommon price for editions from the 1960s through the 1980s. But anything newer than 1995 tends to become disgustingly expensive.

Today, I discovered that, for some reason, the 2001/2002 edition is unusually inexpensive:


2000/2001 - $127
2001/2002 - $18
2002/2003 - $130
2003/2004 - $438
2004/2005 - $130
2005/2006 - $629
2006/2007 - $694
2007/2008 - $880
2008/2009 - $915
2009/2010 - $965
2010/2011 - $1972

If you'd like to take advantage of the deal, here's the link.