Letters

Cross-country reflections

We just read Stephen Coonts' article " Reflections on a Cross-Country" (March Pilot) and wanted to tell you that we have experienced the same feelings while flying at night across the country.

Flying at night is truly special, as Coonts' wife said, because it seems to bring out a sense of awareness of being and intimacy. It's like being there and watching at the same time.

As frequent cross-country travelers, my wife and I (both pilots) also like traveling at night because it is safer and much easier to get around; also, ATC isn't nearly as busy.

Eugene AOPA 053856 and Holly Perri
Phoenix, Arizona

"Reflections on a Cross-Country" was excellent, and the timing was perfect. In fact, my wife read it first and recommended it to me. She is not a pilot; however, after 37 years of living with me, she has finally adjusted to flying with me — that is, as long as the trips are not more than two to three hours long and the destination is the home of one of our three children.

I have been planning a business trip to New Mexico this spring and had finally convinced her that we should go in our 1969 Cessna Skylane. Your article reinforced her willingness to make the trip. Thanks again for a great article and for stimulating my wife's interest in flying.

Jon Wyatt AOPA 153777
Radford, Virginia

Many thanks for poking in the glowing embers of my memory banks and fanning up a wonderful flight I made in 1955, with a lovely young blonde lady, from Boeing Field to Ellensburg and back for the rodeo. We enjoyed the performance to the bitter end, as others had to leave in their cars to get back to Seattle. We flew at 11,000 feet, the Cessna 120 clawing to maintain altitude, and watched the long rows of cars below on the rubber-band-wide I-90. We landed at Boeing Field in the late dusk, runway lights already on, and had soup at her house. The memory of that flight is a treasure. We never pursued the relationship, but that's another story.

Also, be advised that Coonts is not the only one to exit an airliner with a stiff neck and flattened nose — I always insist on a window seat myself.

Charles Lindenberg AOPA 122479
Friday Harbor, Washington

Defending general aviation

I just finished reading Phil Boyer's " President's Position: Clinton's budget" (March Pilot) and have concluded that representation before our government to protect our pilot freedoms is the most important service I receive from AOPA.

With Washington continuously trying to take our money while at the same time taking away access to the airspace, only a focused effort from an organization like AOPA stands a chance against such a Goliath. I hope that AOPA can partner with other organizations to form a truly formidable front against this latest travesty from the president (of the United States).

David Cushman AOPA 537482
Lake Zurich, Illinois

Forty years and climbing

Congratulations on 40 years spent publishing the finest aviation magazine in the world. Since the early 1960s, I've watched both the organization and the magazine continue to develop, and I am proud to belong to a group of professionals who have become the spokesperson for and defender of general aviation.

Les Brown AOPA 614723
Norway, Michigan

When reading your nostalgic article " Look Who's Forty!" (March Pilot), I couldn't help mentioning that I was the author of the very first "Never Again" article, called "I Lived Through a Graveyard Spiral." It was truly a story of "horror and stupidity," in your very apt words.

I must have learned something from my experience, for I am still an active pilot. My 30-year-old son Ty and I share a Piper Cherokee Six that rolled off the line a year before he was born. Two-Niner-Whiskey has been in our family for 27 years. This year I celebrate my fortieth year of marriage with Carol, my fiancée of 1958 for whom that Cessna 140 of the graveyard spiral was named. Along with our four kids, we have flown our family airplane to all of the lower 48 states and all of the Canadian provinces. Our most memorable trip was our flight to Alaska. Ty has flown through the Bahamas with a buddy. All of our flying has been safe and successful, and we have yet to scratch an airplane.

My flight instructor advised me to join AOPA when I won my wings in 1954, and I have been a devoted member ever since. I've read every issue of AOPA Pilot. Can't wait to see what the next 40 years' issues will be like!

Don L. Taylor AOPA 111238
Waukesha, Wisconsin

Congratulations on AOPA Pilot's fortieth anniversary. I have all of the issues in my personal collection, along with most of the issues of Flying that contain the AOPA insert. I soloed in 1956, so it is fun to thumb back through the old issues and recall the aircraft and events that span my years as a pilot.

I enjoyed Tom Horne's article "Look Who's Forty!" but he does make an incorrect assumption when he states, " AOPA Pilot is the only aviation magazine to have its own full-time photographer." Since the late 1970s the Experimental Aircraft Association has employed a minimum of two full-time staff photographers for Sport Aviation and the other four aviation magazines we publish. We currently have four full-time photographers on staff.

My best as you and your staff begin the next 40 years of AOPA Pilot.

Jack Cox AOPA 245279
Oshkosh, Wisconsin

The author is editor in chief of EAA's publications — Ed.

Treating the symptoms

I read with interest your article in " AOPA Action" (March Pilot) concerning the backlog problem at the FAA regarding special-issuance medicals.

The FAA's proposed solution of requiring data 90 days in advance versus the current 30 days appears to be addressing the symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself.

The FAA should review its requirements for special issuance of medical certificates, and if it finds them to be appropriate, it should staff accordingly to handle in a timely fashion the resulting volume caused by its requirements.

John J. Gangloff AOPA 927745
Greensboro, North Carolina

The case for supporting airports

AOPA's new Airport Support Network (" President's Position: Airport Support Network," February Pilot) is another example of AOPA's unwavering efforts to help educate AOPA members and support general aviation against the continuous onslaughts upon our airport network.

Our plight at Lost Nation Airport in Willoughby, Ohio, is very similar to what Phil Boyer described in his article. We are one of the many airports under attack, and when the politicians announced their plan to close Lost Nation in January 1997, we didn't even have an existing user group. We acted just as Boyer described, calling AOPA and asking what the association could do for us. And it did a lot. Staff came to our support at every turn. But we should have been alert to our plight much sooner. The signs were all there. There was no political support for the airport; the 400 acres look more valuable as light industrial manufacturing than as a base for 70 airplanes.

If you fly out of your local field and you aren't a member of the user group, join. Get involved enough to lend some support because local airports need all the support they can get. If you don't have a user group, you'd better get one started. Complacency is a recipe for disaster.

Our battle is far from over at Lost Nation, and as I write this, our situation is far from certain. If you don't think that it can happen in your backyard, think again.

Jack Thorp AOPA 1248460
Gates Mills, Ohio

Power and pitch

Barry Schiff's " Proficient Pilot: Power and Pitch" (March Pilot) is an excellent article with respect to operations on the back side of the power curve. However, I'm not in agreement with the last three lines: "If ever there was a powerful argument to use power to maintain altitude and pitch to maintain airspeed, this is it."

If the descent path is controlled with power and airspeed with pitch when approaching to land, as Schiff would have us do, then to survive a pilot must without question be an expert on back-side-of-the-power-curve operations because he will unwittingly find himself in this realm all too often.

In 22 years of flight instructing I have become a very strong advocate of pitching to the approach path and using power to control airspeed. I started out the other way but was fortunate enough to have a flight instructor along the way who changed me. The advantages of this method compared to the method of pitching to airspeed and powering to altitude are too numerous to mention here. But one thing is assured: A pilot won't end up on the back side of the power curve sinking or spinning into the ground.

Rodney G. Phipps AOPA 621464
Melbourne, Florida

The wonder of it all

Reading Mark Twombly's " Pilotage: Back into Space" (March Pilot) about John Glenn's return to space to finally enjoy the true wonder of it brought to mind an experience that I had. My last supervised solo in the Robinson R22 was at little Tew-Mac Airport in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. It was a spectacularly clear late fall day. So far, each flight had been tinged with the fear and anxiety of the new student pilot. As I lifted off the end of the runway, I looked down and saw some migrating ducks resting temporarily in a small marsh. All of a sudden my spirits soared with the rise of the helicopter and I said to them in my mind, "Here I am now, one with you — free to fly." What a feeling!

Now, a few short years and several hundred hours later, this past weekend I chanced to look down as I passed over Tew-Mac Airport on my way to do an aerial photo shoot. I recalled the thrill of that early solo flight and was saddened to see great mounds of dirt and large homes rising where once the birds had rested and I had found my wings.

Anne R. Umphrey AOPA 1161132
Concord, Massachusetts

Twombly's puff piece in the March issue was a real stomach-turner. Glenn has become just another hack politician who is being paid off at taxpayer expense by the highly politicized folks at NASA. The payoff is in return for Glenn's obstructionism during U.S. Senate hearings a few months ago.

John I. Jenkins AOPA 619386
Alamogordo, New Mexico

Erratum

There was a typographical error in the 1996 Aviation Fact Card that was included in the April issue of Pilot. The correct number of active general aviation aircraft in 1986 should have been 205,300.

We welcome your comments. Address your letters to: Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701. Send e-mail to pilot@aopa.org. Include your full name, address, and AOPA member number on all correspondence, including e-mail. Letters will be edited for style and length.