More from Burt Rutan

Thanks to Pacific Flyer, the inimitable aviation newspaper covering all things aviation for the west coast (and sometimes beyond), for tipping me off to Burt Rutan's new online project, www.BurtRutan.com. Seems Mr. Rutan is all set to write his autobiography direct to the Internet, a typically innovative thing for the guy to do.

I'm making my way slowly through some of the material already on the website. What a treasure trove! I just watched Burt's TED talk from 2006. I know TED talks are supposed to be punchy, amusing and insightful but, let's face it, not all of them are. This one is a doozie, however. I have only one quibble. Early on in the talk Burt puts up a list of "movers and shakers of the first 100 years of aviation." Mr Rutan wasn't on it. Well, that's very humble but methinks it's inaccurate. Burt Rutan is probably the most influential aerospace designer of the latter half of the twentieth century. Here's hoping that Elon Musk is the largest influence on aerospace in the first half of the twenty-first century. (Or perhaps Burt Rutan will do for the twenty-first century what he did for the twentieth. I wouldn't count him out yet.)

Out and about in North Carolina

I was on vacation in North Carolina last month, spending some quality time on the beach, doing a spot of fishing, a little kayaking, eating tons of seafood and generally having a relaxing time. As I am wont to do whenever I'm in a new area, I spent one evening surfing the Internet for local flying opportunities. Google maps' satellite view is pretty darn good for getting an aerial view of the beach you were just laying on, or the fishing spot you just discovered, but there's nothing like a real aerial tour to get a full appreciation of an area.

So, at 9 am one Thursday morning I drove out to KSUT - the most excellently named Cape Fear Regional Jetport/Howie Franklin Field Airport - with my girlfriend, her parents and her 7-year old nephew, for a pleasure flight up the coast to Wrightsville Beach, east of Wilmington. The tour route would take us over the house in which we were staying, at the southern end of Carolina Beach.

A portion of the Charlotte sectional chart, showing KSUT near the bottom and Wrightsville Beach to the northeast. (Click image to enlarge.)

Now, unusually for me, on this trip I didn't have my license, medical certificate and logbook with me, eliminating even the option of some left seat time. (Yeah, I'm one of "those" kind of travelers...) But no matter, because this day I wanted my girlfriend to get some right seat time in a Cessna, because she's flown in the front of a Great Lakes with me but never in a Cessna, and I would point things out to her nephew who would ride in the back with me; his first flight in a light aircraft.

We checked in with the front desk at Brunswick Air and introduced ourselves to Dennis Faver, our tour pilot for the day. We'd be in good hands. Dennis is a CFII, and a CAP squadron commander and check airman. Good enough for me!

Dennis asked what we had in mind and I told him about our experiences to date; me as a private pilot, my girlfriend as a flight attendant, and my girlfriend's nephew, Zach, as a total newbie. With that, Dennis led me back to his office to complete the paperwork. There I got my second surprise of the morning, as I perused the sectional chart hanging on his wall: a TRSA around Wilmington that I'd failed to recognize until Dennis mentioned it. Okay, so it's not quite as notable as spotting one of the Beatles (especially as there are only two of them left) but I'd never encountered a TRSA before. Still, I wasn't the pilot today so it was little more than a curiosity as Dennis explained where we could go and what we might see.

With the paperwork done we headed out to the tarmac where Zach got his first close-up look at a GA plane, a C172N. Brunswick Air's website and Dennis both told us that the plane was vintage 1978. Damn. It's holding up a lot better than I am, that's all I can say. Darn thing was immaculate.

Zach provides a 7 year-old scale to what's claimed is a 34 year-old Cessna, while Dennis Faver prepares the interior.

Role reversal: Zach's wearing the GB t-shirt, I'm wearing a Wrightsville Beach t-shirt. Jeez, tourists.

Winter flying

It's been raining on and off for the past month where I live. Actually good news because we need the water and it means we've now got some sort of ski season in Tahoe. I say "sort of" because it keeps on getting warm after it snows, so getting up there to the good stuff requires careful planning and nerves of steel to brave I-80 with snow/ice/slush and nutty drivers doing x2 or x3 the speeds I'll ever do, even with AWD.

The weather has been so variable I've not flown in March, I decided to take a break from flying (for skiing!) and save my pennies for later in the spring when the weather perks back up. I have a couple of people waiting for rides and I'm supposed to be practicing for aerobatic contests at some point, too. God only knows if or when that will happen. (Work just stuck a big dent in my May/June schedule.) Oh well, back in December and January the weather was stunning. Literally, tee-shirt weather.

Here's a flight I did with a friend, her first time in a small plane and her first aerobatics. Also my first test of two new GoPro cameras, which I plan to use a lot more later this year. I didn't include the parts where my friend was flying the plane but she was a natural! It was the end of January. What, two months back? It seems so long ago already!

An amphib taildragger LSA? Hell, yeah!

Just saw the Akoya from LISA Airplanes in France, a sweet-looking machine that has pectoral fins like a shark and otherwise looks like the illegitimate love child of a Seawind and the Bell X-1 (albeit with a tail wheel):

Another (better) video on Vimeo, here.

I've always adored the design, not to mention fun potential, of the Seawind, and I've been following the development of the Icon A5 pretty closely, too, along with probably most of the pilot population of the USA. The Icon was already on my "must go test fly" list, I'm putting the Akoya on there now. And the moment the Seawind 300C gets certified it's on, too.

Memo to float plane/amphib operators in Florida: as soon as any one of these three becomes available for instruction/rent, call me! I have a dusty ASES and a whopping eleven whole hours in a Maule M-7 on floats that needs refreshing. You park an A5 or an Akoya in a Floridian lake and I'm planning my next fly-cation immediately. And yeah, I'd be seriously considering it a "test fly." I can't justify buying one of these toys, but I can't justify a lot of my hobbies.

Memo to drug runners: Check NOTAMs

I am laughing so hard it hurts. First up, we have a Democrat president. He likes California. Unlike the last guy, he comes here often. So we get a lot of TFRs, right? It happens. So, if you happen to fly a plane in this fair state it's a really good idea to check NOTAMs for a sudden fundraising visit by a VIP. See that big red circle on the TFR map? Don't fly there. You will get escorted down by an F-16, if you comply, or shot down if you don't. Really, really don't fly in the red circles if you're hauling 10 kg of marijuana.

Got to be the best stupid criminal story of the past decade. Haha!