Letters

King of the sky

I recently read " The Old Bamboo" by Rick Durden (September Pilot). The T-50 is credited with fulfilling a lot of roles and accomplishing its fair share of missions. However, one role for which the T-50 was not credited in the article was that of "customer acquisition tool" for future general aviation pilots.

As a young boy growing up in Denver, I would sit glued to the TV to watch Sky King fly his trusted T-50, named Songbird. The program conveyed the real spirit of general aviation — the freedom of flying one's own airplane, whenever and wherever one wanted. Although the T-50 was later replaced on the show by the sexier Cessna 310, it was the Bamboo Bomber that sparked the desire in me, and I'm sure in many others, to someday own and fly my own airplane. If there was a way to quantify how many others were influenced by the T-50, we might find that the T-50's most important role was, in fact, on TV.

Joseph D. Favole AOPA 911558
Howell, New Jersey

I can't be that old, can I? A whole story on the Bamboo Bomber and not one mention of Sky King? (The pre-Cessna 310 Sky King of course.) This television epic played a large part in the beginning of my love affair with airplanes. I hope Rick Durden's story also evoked pleasant memories for other readers.

Robert Shedlin AOPA 357165
New York, New York

I just read Rick Durden's article on the Cessna Bobcat, and was pleasantly surprised by the sidebar about the airport at Empire, Michigan. My fiancée and I have vacationed there several times, usually pitching a tent at the campground just up the road from the airport. The airport always looked like one of those nice, neat, out-in-the-woods places, and it is gratifying to know it is being updated and cared for. Durden calls it "picture-perfect," and he's right; I couldn't think of a nicer place for this sparkling Bobcat.

Brian Moehring AOPA 1128536
Redford, Michigan

Engine overhaul blues

I take exception to one portion of Tom Haines' excellent article "Grounded" (" Waypoints: Grounded," September Pilot. My experience has shown that oil analysis is next to useless. I have a Beechcraft Duke with a pair of Lycoming 385-hp engines. Two hundred hours after I had both engines factory overhauled, the right engine needed replacement (a cylinder came off). Oil analysis always showed the older left engine to be in perfect condition, even though it used far more oil than the right engine.

Oil analysis of the new right engine showed very high aluminum, iron, and copper content, but it used half the oil the left engine used. With 800 hours on my left engine, oil usage went way up. Compression was great as was the oil analysis. Oil analysis of the right engine, with 600 hours, still showed very high metal content but little oil usage.

So, according to oil analysis, my left engine was fine. The right engine should have failed by now according to the oil analysis but it just keeps on humming. Oil analysis is next to useless. Look at the filter and oil usage — that is the ticket.

Frank Singer AOPA 131549
Huntington Beach, California

I've always enjoyed Thomas Haines' articles, but this last one was even more close to home. As it seems true that misery loves company, I thought I'd share my own "grounded" story.

My co-owner, George, and I purchased our Piper Comanche PA24-180 in July 2001. George was personally involved in the prepurchase inspection and felt that the A&P was thorough and honest. (However, in retrospect, it was probably a mistake having the evaluation done by the same A&P who had given the airplane annual inspections for the past several years.) In any event, he missed the AD on the impeller blades of the oil pump — the deadline was June 2001.

So July 23 of this year, one year and 220 happy hours later, when the airplane went in for its first annual inspection in its new home, our local A&P made the sad discovery that the AD had never been complied with. We were dealing with a high-time, old engine, so we decided it was also time for a new engine. Unfortunately, we were grounded by the AD and could not fly until the new engine was ready.

The factory-overhauled engine was ready around the last week of August. Alas, the engine wasn't shipped out until we tried to track its progress a week later. Then we found out that only two tubes in the engine mount were usable. The supplier had no replacements but instead had to rebuild them using ours as the model. When at last we had the engine mount in place and were ready for the new engine, our hopes were dashed when the A&P couldn't get the engine to mount with the fuel pump. The engine mount had been rebuilt incorrectly.

So now we're wondering when we'll ever fly again! The one consolation is that when it is finally done, our airplane will be a better, safer, and more valuable aircraft.

Phil Role AOPA 1358617
Sandpoint, Idaho

Beech Baby

Thank you for bringing my baby back to me via the pages of the September issue of Pilot (" Budget Buys: Beech Baby"). A "Beech Baby" myself, I learned to fly in a Skipper many moons ago, and went on to earn bunches of hours flight instructing in that sweet bird.

A roomy cockpit — you bet! You can land her on a dime, and although she climbs like a lead sled on a hot day, she'll always hold a special place in my heart. There's not a single Skipper to be found in my region anymore, and although I've moved on to her big sisters from Bonanzas to King Airs, I'll always miss the back-to-basics Skipper.

MayCay Beeler AOPA 849322
Greensboro, North Carolina

I enjoyed Thomas Horne's article on the Skipper in the September issue. If there was ever a good little training airplane that was under marketed, it's the Skipper. It was roomy and comfortable, had benign handling qualities, fabulous visibility, no operating limitations that interfered with training, reasonable performance, and could legally lift two realistic-sized adults. It also had a full IFR panel and an honest four-hours worth of gas.

I remember going to a Beech Aero Club shortly after the Skipper's debut (as a pilot examiner, I thought I'd try one out before a Skipper-borne applicant appeared for a checkride).

The receptionist and all the flight instructors with whom I spoke, made comments like, "Wouldn't you rather fly that Bonanza out there?" "The Skipper is pretty slow and cramped." It didn't take much of that before Aero Clubs' Skippers were gathering dust in the back row. Beech scuttled the program after only three years, and probably turned away a lot of customers who could have started in Skippers and moved up through Musketeers, Sierras, and Duchesses before climbing into the flight levels in the company's bigger (and more profitable) iron.

I wonder what would have happened if those Aero Club people had acted excited to have a customer come in and want to start flying in a Skipper.

John W. Hazlet, Jr. AOPA 292095
Pasadena, California

Loaded

I read Bruce Landsberg's article, in the September issue of AOPA Pilot (" Safety Pilot: Loaded") because I have been doing aircraft weight and balance engineering for 37 years. Without all the loading information (center-of-gravity data and limits along with the weight data) on the crashes cited, it would be difficult to claim that these crashes were the result of being overweight. Each of these aircraft was over the limit, but less than 10 percent. Each of these aircraft has a 50 percent safety factor and they can all fly pulling positive Gs. Even being overweight, they should have flown unless there were other factors involved. I would speculate that each of the aircraft was far outside the CG limits, and that was the cause of the crashes — not being overweight.

Because the article does not emphasize the center of gravity issue, it gives pilots the false impression that if you are within your aircraft weight limit you will be OK. The limits are the limits and should not be exceeded, but if you exceed the CG limits your chances of surviving are a lot slimmer.

Thomas Oole AOPA 506114
Springboro, Ohio

Flying New York

I enjoyed the article " Flying New York: It's a Wonderful Town," by Chris Hawley (September Pilot). The article was not only informative about where to go and what to do when flying down the Hudson River Corridor, but it also provided a great deal of aviation history to help the reader get the big picture. It was a nice relief from the usual media coverage of September 11.

Kristena Jones AOPA 3571676
Sullivan, New Hampshire

Errata

An article about the American Champion Super Decathlon in the October Pilot ("Avalanche!") said the wing ribs are made of wood. They are metal.

A diagram accompanying the article " Turbine Pilot: CFIT Claims a Lear," (August Pilot) was misleading. The crash site was located on the 241-degree (inbound) course, about 1.2 miles right of course at a DME distance from the VOR of about 16.2 nm.

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