June 26, 2012 The Great Northwest

The Liberty Gazette

June 26, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: This year the Sport Air Racing League is sanctioning three races in the Pacific Northwest, giving us ample opportunities for scenic trips. The Great Northwest Air Race in Ephrata, Washington would bring us close enough to visit one of Linda’s sisters in Bellingham, and my mom and sister in Salem, Oregon. Rounding the southern end of the Rocky Mountains, circumnavigating thunderstorms and forest fires, we didn’t get as far the first day as we’d hoped due to a vacuum pump failure, which affects a couple of instruments. But good fortune was with us over Midland. There happens to be an aircraft mechanic there and he happened to have a vacuum pump. The two-hour delay was just short enough that we were able to get back in the sky before a big dark storm moved in. A hotel in Safford, Arizona would get our business that night, because we couldn’t quite make it to my brother’s house in Boulder City, Nevada. But we did stop in for a quick visit the next morning before continuing north through the Basin and Range region along the Nevada-Utah line, a tailwind scooting us by "Area 51" on the left and the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats on the right. Linda was amazed with the beauty of our next fuel stop, Twin Falls, Idaho, a farming community that from the air looks like a landscape artist’s dream.

Linda: Boulder City to Twin Falls was my leg to fly. Soon after departure our flight provided excellent views of Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, the Salt Flats, and Wheeler Peak as we flew by Great Basin National Park. But before this leg was over we encountered considerable turbulence in the mountains. So much so I had to throttle back because strong bumpiness can be bad for the airframe. Updrafts sent us climbing unintentionally, then downdrafts answered with equal force. We got the little Cheetah up to almost 13,000 feet and the new engine performed exceptionally well. Climbing over mountain ridges we darted left and right to avoid building thunderstorms, and when we could finally see flat land ahead I felt some relief from the work it had been keeping the airplane shiny-side-up. The small hill between us and the Twin Falls airport eclipsed the view of the runway, but we knew it was there, just beyond the hill. I couldn’t help but chuckle when a pilot a few miles ahead of us radioed the Twin Falls tower and explained he would circle back around because he’d flown over it without seeing it. Must have been that hill.

Mike likes mountains and desert; I like farmland, and this trip offers dazzling scenery of both. Twin Falls is home to that part of the Snake River where Evil Knievel did one of his stunts many years ago in a rocket-powered motorcycle. The river’s carvings into the earth have created a spectacular image. Twin Falls is indeed a pretty place – the kind that could make a writer conjure up an dramatic tale, or a painter sit for hours on the hills to try and capture it’s striking beauty.

Mike: Catch up with us here next week, and we’ll share more about the ups and downs of our journey west. Until then, blue skies.
www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

June 19, 2012 Rocket Man part 3

The Liberty Gazette

June 19, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: The Commemorative Air Force took note of Mark Frederick, the highly skilled airplane guy we’ve been telling you about when once upon a time the piston rings in the B-25 "Devil Dog" were put in upside down, and nobody knew what was wrong with the airplane. Mark knew, and now as Chief Maintenance Officer and pilot of that B-25 he travels the country doing air shows, which allows him to meet lots of interesting people.

Mark: I was at Dyess Air Force Base for an air show. It was really hot. I was wiping off oil when over my shoulder I see a guy walking over with a cane coming straight at me. He reaches out and touches "Devil Dog" – like a tombstone. I came to learn that this man had been interred by the enemy in World War II at about the age of 10 or 12. His dad would send him out with white wash telling him to paint the rocks a certain way. He remembers looking up every time these blue B-25s flew over but didn’t learn until years later when one of the pilots who had flown them returned and explained that the rocks gave course, direction and distance to the targets. Aborigines found out where enemies were and helped the American pilots. Then he said to me, "These blue airplanes saved my life."

Linda: Nobody warned him about the stories he’d hear. While standing in front of the airplane at Oshkosh last year, a man came up and said, "I used to fly these things." When Mark asked, "How’d that go," the man shook his head, "It didn’t end well. We hit the water about a mile and a half from the beach." This was the co-pilot and he and the pilot survived but not the rest of the crew. He declined Mark’s offer of a ride; the memory was harsh.

Then there was the man who was shot down so many times over the water that the military had him come teach how to ditch B-25s. And the time in Ohio at the 100 year anniversary of the Wright Brothers, when an elderly man accompanied by his son approached "Devil Dog" with great purpose. A nearby fellow crewmember pulled out a camera and started recording: this guy had been on the island of Corsica in World War II. "He’d flown all the B-25s," says Mark, "and the one with the cannon in front was his favorite."

Mark has this kind of "sixth sense" about the WWII era, the airplanes and their pilots, which brings a unique depth to meeting the few veterans left. It’s more than gratitude. "They’d lost a lot of bombardiers," says Mark as he reflects on his visit with the old pilot in Ohio. "A World War II re-enactor reached out to him, helping him re-live some life-changing moments, and his son was there hearing it for the first time."

Don’t even try to get that lump out of your throat.

Mike: Of course Mark is taking the B-25 to Oshkosh next month for the world’s largest fly-in. But this year, on the way, he’s hoping to convince the crew, and other warbirds, to join in the AirVenture Cup race. "Yes," says Mark, "I’m trying to race a B-25. I don’t know if anyone has ever done that."

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

June 12, 2012 Rocket Man part 2

The Liberty Gazette

June 12, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Hope you caught last week’s edition of Ely Air Lines. We’re on part two of a series on the Fredericks – Cheryl and Mark, a/k/a "Rocket Man."

Building his reputation as an expert airplane builder, Mark and his "Team Rocket" saw sales of the quick-build F1 Rocket soar to 175 to date. Mark doesn’t just build, fly, and teach in airplanes, he races them too. For years the world’s second largest fly-in, Sun n’ Fun, held each spring in Lakeland, Florida hosted an arrival race called the Sun 100. Mark, having finished his first airplane, an RV4, headed to the Sunshine State and entered the 1992 race.

Racing can be addictive. The Fredericks continued to participate in the annual event, racing Mark’s latest airplane at the time, until organizers ceased hosting the race. Somewhere in the middle of the life of the Sun 100 Mark hosted a race closer to home, the Texas 100, at the 1996 Georgetown Air Show. He designed the 100 mile three-turn-point race in the same format as the Sun 100, but designing it didn’t make him immune to navigational mistakes – he went off in the wrong direction in his own race! Mark laughs remembering, "The first four airplanes off the ground followed me because they figured I knew where I was going. The fifth guy said something on the radio and then I noticed things I expected to see on the ground were not where they were supposed to be." He got back on course, and the race became a hit.

Linda: By 2006 Team Rocket had been formed, kits had been sold and built and there were enough Rockets flying to host a gathering, so the race became known as the Rocket 100. That led to the birth of the Sport Air Racing League, now in its sixth season and enjoying incredible growth and acclaim nationwide.

Meanwhile, in 2003, Mark started testing his skill at the famed Reno Air Races. "It’s very different," he says of closed-course oval air racing. "I call it uncooperative formation flying; it’s the strangest thing to fly formation with guys who don’t want to fly formation. You still have to be predictable, but it’s incredibly exciting." The strategy is intriguing. Flying down "The Valley of Speed" they’re really moving fast and that’s where airplanes that are faster in a straight line will do well. Others, like Mark’s airplane, are faster in the turns, which are hard to find at high bank angles so they use objects on the ground to aim for the right spot: "There was a desk on the ground and some discussion about which side of the desk to fly on. It turned out we were supposed to fly right over it, then point toward a corner in the fence. The hawk on Pylon 7 seemed to enjoy watching us whiz by."

Fellow air racer Tom Martin says this sport is like golf: you’re racing against others, but the main thing you’re doing is improving your score each time. Mark loves the camaraderie and says, "I don’t have to be the fastest, but if an F1, one of my airplanes is, that’s just as good."

The Commemorative Air Force took note of this highly skilled airplane guy and asked him to join as Chief Maintenance Officer and pilot of the B-25, "Devil Dog." We’ll pick up there next week.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

June 5, 2012 Rocket Man part 1

The Liberty Gazette

June 5, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We spent some time recently at the world headquarters of Team Rocket, the company that developed the F-1 Rocket, a very fast two-seat experimental airplane. The F in F-1 stands for Frederick, as in Mark and Cheryl Frederick, who live on their air strip they’ve named Macho Grande.

Mark was born with airplane-shaped genes, his earliest memories are of sitting on his dad’s lap in a Champ in their hometown in Ohio. Two uncles flew in the service, one flying "the Hump" and the other in a C47, and by age six he knew nearly every airplane that existed. So while it might have been only natural Mark would grow up to be such a highly sought-after airplane builder, he says it was really never planned that way. As a young adult Mark moved to Texas taking a job in sales, but he’d always wanted to build things, so when the sales job didn’t work out he went to a cabinet shop to see if they needed any help. The boss said if he had a tape measure he could start in the morning. Unfortunately, his 10’ tape measure wasn’t quite what the boss had in mind, so with a 25’ tape came, "It’s coming out of your paycheck." Fortunately, though, Mark did well. Within six months he was running a crew and had a company truck.

Mike: The back injury that ended a budding cabinet-making career freed him up to go in to aviation full time. His father, a dentist, suggested he start a flight school – that’s when the Kitty Hill Flight School, in Leander opened. The school did well, but with tough economic times the flight training business slowed. He’d long admired a great-uncle, whom he’d only met once at an airshow in Marion, Ohio, who had built a biplane; and found inspiration in the stories he’d heard of women building airplanes during World War II. Surely if these people could do it, so could he. Working with Formica is a lot like working with aluminum, and he’d worked with miles of Formica in the cabinet business. So he began with a kit, to build a small experimental airplane called a Van’s RV-4. One day Rob Vajdos, one of the foremost experts on Stearmans, stopped in at Kitty Hill for fuel. Impressed with Mark’s work, that one chance meeting led to Rob asking Mark to help a friend build his RV-4, which led to another, and another. Somewhere in that chain Mark’s dedication to perfection and great rapport with customers got him noticed by world record holder Bruce Bohannon, who asked him to build an airplane that would break all records in the "time-to-climb" category. The deal was sponsored by Exxon from 1999-2006, and the "Flyin’ Tiger" built by Mark Frederick, is still a world record holder.

Mark was also building the Harmon Rocket for people who had bought kits from John Harmon. After building somewhere between 11-15 airplanes, making notes about the process and how to improve it, he realized customers needed an assembly manual. That idea sparked the formation of Team Rocket, now with 175 quick-build kits sold. In fact, when the manufacturing firm asked how many he wanted to build, Mark says he thought he was sticking his neck on the line to say 50. But 48 sold the first year as word continued to spread about Mark Frederick, a/k/a "Rocket Man," bringing air racing into his future. We’ll pick up there next week.
www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 29, 2012 Fly-in Camp outs

The Liberty Gazettte

May 29, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: One of my favorite photos of those I’ve taken myself is of a yellow Piper Cub snuggled up to a tent along a grass runway in the misty morning sunrise. I took that photo at the first annual Ranger Fly-In, one of several very popular Fly-in/Camp-outs.

Mike: Being a backpacker and climber accustomed to carrying a load on my back, I find that this kind of camping fits well with the camping-by-airplane mentality. Weight is always a consideration – though I did dream about converting the DeHavilland Twin Otter I used to fly into what I called a "Winged Winnebago" complete with car in tow. The Twin Otter has such great short take-off and landing capabilities that it could be shoehorned into the shortest of strips, with a huge cabin and payload to boot. I find it an interesting concept that still begs for development.

Payson, Arizona, right below the Mogollon Rim (otherwise known as the Tonto Rim if you read Zane Grey novels), has a fly-in campground at the local airport. Its 12 campsites take advantage of some of the prettiest country I’ve ever seen. California’s Kern Valley Airport and Lake Isabella in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains are a couple of other scenic areas catering to the flying camper. The historic town of Columbia, in California’s famous Gold Country has a camping area on its airport within walking distance of the old, picturesque downtown district. Or, for "roughing it" the Idaho back country offers some great spots to fly into and camp.

Linda: They say it was a starlit evening about a decade ago when a small group of Montana pilots sitting around a campfire on a backcountry airstrip shared their concerns about the future of these little airfield gems. One of them, John McKenna, wrote that this group had experienced "the rare opportunity to enjoy the combination of flying and stopping off in places that have little in the way of conventional aviation facilities." No FBO, no nearby motel, "not even the old Buick courtesy car," says McKenna. "But there was the smell of pine trees, cowboy coffee, wood smoke, the distant howl of a coyote and the flicker of fire light." They knew these places were special and that someone needed to protect them. They formed the Recreational Aviation Foundation – hard workers committed to the cause, without room in their vocabulary for the words "You can’t do it." I appreciate that.

Mike: Back country airstrips are recognized as an appropriate use of National Forest System lands. Other recreational facilities require hundreds of miles of roadways, but airstrips are low impact requiring minimal disturbance of the natural landscape, while serving as internal trailheads for remote areas. In 2009 the U. S. Forest Service signed a directive acknowledging the history of aviation use and airstrips on forest service lands, began inventorying landing facilities and dedicating efforts to maintain them in support of aviation. Earlier this month, the governors of Minnesota and Vermont signed bills adding aviation to their respective state recreational use statutes, becoming the 15th and 16th states to do so, thanks to the efforts of the Recreational Aviation Foundation.

As summer approaches, the largest airplane camping event is on the horizon. AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin will host thousands of fly-in visitors and campers as it does every year, showing how campgrounds at publicly owned airports offer another way for communities to draw business to them using their airport.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 22, 2012 Aviation Education

The Liberty Gazette

May 22, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: It’s been nearly five years since the FAA extended the mandatory retirement age for airline pilots from 60 to 65. Now the thousands of airline pilots who were close to retirement then will be leaving the cockpits of major and regional airlines, both passenger and cargo, creating a surge in the need for new pilots. Regional airlines are already seeing a diminished pool of qualified applicants, and the competition has some companies offering significant signing bonuses.

Many newly retired pilots will go on to fly for corporations, charter services, or on-demand cargo companies. Some will teach flying, some will retire to their own hangar and maybe a low-and-slow Piper Cub, or build an airplane of their own – maybe an RV. I can’t imagine any pilot walking out of the cockpit and the industry altogether, but that’s just me. Occasionally, I suppose it happens.

If you or someone you know is interested in flying for an airline there are some great schools I’d highly recommend: Purdue University (Indiana), Embry-Riddle (Arizona and Florida), and the University of North Dakota are some of the top schools offering professional pilot degrees, Bachelors and Masters. Embry-Riddle also offers doctoral Degrees in Aviation and in Engineering Physics. In the Great State of Texas we have a couple of Embry-Riddle campuses without the flight training part, so anyone interested in one of many other areas of the aviation industry are well served. Often called the "Harvard of Aviation Schools" Embry-Riddle has plans to open a third flight training campus and Houston’s Ellington Field is one of two locations being considered.

Linda: There’s also Texas State Technical College (TSTC) in Waco, and they just cut the ribbon May 3 on a new 82,000-square-foot, multi-million dollar facility, the Col. James T. Connelly Aerospace Center.

TSTC has long had a strong aviation program, offering five different tracks: aviation maintenance (airframe and powerplant mechanics), aircraft pilot training, avionics, aircraft dispatch, and air traffic control. They now have state-of-the-art classrooms, labs and flight simulators. The building also includes a public airport terminal adjacent to the TSTC Waco Airport.

Dr. Elton Stuckley, President of TSTC envisions the new Aerospace Center as "a hub of the TSTC Airport, not only for our students, but also for the general aviation and business aviation communities of Texas." These new digs give them enough space to offer proficiency and recurrency training for general aviation pilots and also for aviation professionals. They offer continuing education and the FAA-sanctioned aviation safety training courses. For the population at large their outreach in educational and community conferences impact far beyond the airport property lines, making the airport a very active community member with a significant presence. Historical displays in the new building honor the rich history of the airport and its importance to the local community, the nation, and the world.

The school’s industry partners – those who will employ graduates – will benefit from all this great stuff, meaning eventually we all benefit, because as you know if you read this column fairly regularly, airports are a vital community asset which benefit people who don’t fly.

With innovations in flight training and one of the most modern training facilities in the country TSTC is preparing to meet the pilot shortage head-on.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 15, 2012 Chet Peek's Jenny

The Liberty Gazette

May 15, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: On February 17, 2009 we brought you the story of a JN4-D "Jenny" at Kickapoo Downtown Airport in Wichita Falls, and the only two people permitted to fly it for its new owners, the City of Wichita Falls, David Martin and Tom Danaher. At a recent gathering of antique airplanes in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma we discovered another piece of this fascinating historical puzzle, a man named Chester Peek.

Born November 11, 1920, Chester served with the Army Air Corps in Europe during World War II. Upon his return to the states he and his wife Marian raised two sons while he worked as an engineer for a Frigidaire distributor designing commercial refrigeration plants throughout the Midwest. Chester later returned to college where he completed his Doctorate of Engineering and later became the head of Oklahoma State University’s MBA program, retiring in 1989. Mr. Peek has owned more than 31 different airplanes over the years, many of them he restored, including a JN4-D "Jenny". We met him when Linda struck up a conversation with him and his lovely bride at a table full of books he has written over the years.

Linda: Chester told us about Ray McWhorter, returning WWI Army barnstormer who bought a "new" surplus Curtiss JN4-D "Jenny" on July 29, 1919 for $4,650 from the Herring Motor Company in Des Moines. McWorter told them, "don't wrap it up boys, I'll fly it home the way it is," and he did. He flew that Jenny around the Midwest from his family farm in Iowa for more than two years as a barnstormer giving rides and aerial demonstrations like wing walking stunts at county fairs. In 1921 a mid-air collision during a wing walker exchange in rough air over Mason City nearly killed McWhorter. The plane was hauled to his farm where it remained in a barn for 50 years. In 1970, Ray McWhorter gave the parts to a man named Dean Gilmore, saying, "You know this old airplane is valuable and there isn’t enough money in the world to buy it from me. But I’ll give it to you because I really believe you’ll restore it." Thus began the 12 year restoration journey.

Dean Gilmore worked meticulously on the Jenny and had completed about 60 percent of the restoration when he unexpectedly died in 1982, a shock to his family and community. To settle his estate they had to sell the Jenny. The family placed an advertisement in Trade-a-Plane where Chester saw it, called and eventually when to see it.

He told us that all his life he had wanted a Jenny, and when he saw this airplane his heart just ached because he knew they could not afford it. He came home and told Marian about the airplane. She simply said, "If you really want a Jenny, this is probably going to be your only chance to get one." So they made the plunge and completed the work that Dean Gilmore started. The airplane took flight for the first time on October 6, 1987 with Chester Peek at the controls. His first passenger would be Marian.

The plane was eventually sold to the City of Wichita Falls, but Chester’s family’s name will forever be linked to the airplane. The entire story can be found in "Resurrection of a Jenny" by Chester Peek.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 8, 2012 A special jump

The Liberty Gazette

May 8, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: We heard some great stories over the weekend and they’re the kind too good not to share. The first is but another example of the generous nature we find often within the aviation community. You’ve probably heard of wounded warrior organizations and the good work done through them as so many veterans return home with serious injuries.

HALO for Freedom Warrior Foundation provides support for wounded warriors as they face challenges encountered during their rehabilitation, reintegration and healing process. They motivate, encourage, and afford opportunities these heroes might not otherwise have, lifting their spirits while reminding them that their sacrifices will never be forgotten. HALO (which stands for High Altitude – Low Open, a military parachuting term) hosted the Wounded Warrior Hog Hunt in Mineral Wells, Texas on April 12–14 this year. For this event a tandem parachute jump was arranged for a special warrior. They would be led in the jump by HALO president and double-amputee, Dana Bowman. At the last minute a change in plans threatened this very special program. Organizers asked Southwest Airlines Captain Alan Crawford to help so the event could go on as scheduled. Here’s what the good captain (and USAF veteran) told us:

Captain Crawford: I was invited to fly my Lancair Legacy, “Spirit of America”, painted in stars and stripes, in the opening ceremony. Two O1 Birddogs and five T-34s would fly formation flights. The parachute jump would start the event, then we’d fly various passes over the landing zone, then I’d fly the last pass at high speed to close the aerial program.

Dana is amazing. He opens the program skydiving into the landing zone with a large American flag attached to him and flowing. This particular day he was to open the show leading the jump, then immediately following him out the door a tandem jump had been arranged for Medal of Honor Recipient, Sgt. Leroy Petry, an Army Ranger. www.army.mil/medalofhonor/petry

Thursday night I learned the jump plane scheduled to take the three up Friday morning had cancelled. They asked if I knew anyone who could fill in. I thought of Bobby and AnnElise Bennett. I called Mighty Mouse (a/k/a Bobby Bennett – he has earned quite a reputation among pilots as one who can be called upon to “come to save the day”) and after explaining the situation I asked if they could make it to Mineral Wells with AnnElise’s Cessna 182, “X-Ray,” for a jump Friday morning. They said yes, and AnnElise flew in to Mineral Wells early Friday morning for the briefing and had the honor of taking these men up to 10,000 feet for the jump.

As usual, AnnElise and Mighty Mouse came through on short notice. Thursday night Bobby put the jump platform on X-Ray and had the plane configured for the jump. Friday morning AnnElise showed up and was able to pull off what I think was the jump of a lifetime for Sgt. Petry. I guess the most important thing is that whenever any of us have a chance to participate in a wounded warrior program, either donating our time or money, we should try and do it. What these young warriors have sacrificed for the freedom we have should not be forgotten. It was an honor to have met them.

Mike: Dana Bowman’s website is www.danabowman.com.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

May 1, 2012 UAVs

The Liberty Gazette

May 1, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: What does “drone” mean to you? What it means to a beekeeper differs from its meaning to a pilot. To a pilot it is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), and the present administration has mandated the FAA release more of these aircraft into the National Airspace System for law enforcement, military and commercial purposes over the next few years; as many as 30,000. These little boogers (actually varying in size, but as little as four pounds) can be programmed to fly a specific route, pattern, or they can be flown from a remote console.

When asked to comment on sharing the airspace with UAVs pilots have expressed concerns first on the grounds of safety and second on right-of-way and legal restrictions imposed on real pilots as a so-called way to deal with the safety issue. Pilots will tell you that theoretically we don’t mind sharing the airspace, but only as long as the UAVs have some means of “seeing” and avoiding human-piloted airplanes better than pilots can, with no additional restrictions. But that scenario doesn’t exist. Imagine remotely controlled vehicles, too small for you to see before a collision, entering your airspace without equal or even adequate ability to see you. Scary, isn’t it?

Smaller UAVs do not carry sophisticated equipment to see and avoid automatically and independently of their remotely based “pilots.” They are extremely hard to see and avoid (after all, they’re built to be stealth). And, scary as it is, some of the drone operators (seated firmly on the ground)are not even licensed pilots. What’s more, they’re more focused on buildings, borders, fences, and activities on the ground, displayed on a small screen.

Linda: Reality is, they see life through a soda straw with limited situational awareness, poor visibility, and lacking maneuverability; shortfalls that make significant upgrades necessary for operating in the National Airspace System. How many UAV operators would be able to place an airplane in the Hudson River with no loss of life? They are not like real pilots, constantly in heads-up mode, scanning their surrounding for other real airplanes, controls within reach for immediate correction. What if the “kid at the console” has zipped out for a Coke or some other human moment? The kid's screen just goes blank, while the human pilot must get himself and his aircraft back to the ground in one piece. The drone doesn't care if things go wrong.

This is a big issue because public safety will be affected. The greatest danger may be if the UAV “goes stupid”, meaning the communications between the ground and the UAV are severed or interrupted. There may be nothing the operator can do to restore the signal once it is lost and eventually crashes. When communication is lost with the UAV it goes into a pre-programmed escape, not controlled by a human.

Privacy rights bring lots of questions too. If the drone sees your kid running a stop sign, will you hear about it? Will USDA use drones to see if you’re buying raw milk? What if someone uses a drone to spook your cattle or passes over your chicken shed and frightens all the birds that then stampede and smother each other? Can you shoot down a drone that flies over your deer blind? Can you use one to lure deer to your blind? Lots of questions, and for now, inadequate, dangerous answers.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com

April 24, 2012 Remembering the Doolittle Raiders

The Liberty Gazette

April 24, 2012

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Linda: Arriving Friday afternoon for Saturday’s Bluebonnet Air Race we pulled The Elyminator up to the fuel pump before tying down for the night. Reno air racer and airplane builder Mark Frederick complimented the new paint job – a racy red and white with black and white checkerboard wingtips and tail. Mark especially likes the words which grace the underside across the wingspan: Stuck in traffic? Admittedly, I now get a kick out of flying low over I-10 and other congested freeways. For Mike, it reminisces his early days flying over crowded Los Angeles freeways. Mark began inspecting our other modifications to The Elyminator, noticing we haven’t yet replaced the original blue and white interior, which happens to match the borrowed wheel pants. Soon others gathered around the airplane; each new arrival gets the same sort of review and its ample reason to stand around and shoot the breeze.

We tied down next to Mike Smith’s red Swearingen SX300, capable of over 300 mph. He’s in a different class of competition but there’s a running joke about us passing him. Since last year’s official Indy race t-shirt featured our Cheetah reaching the checkered flag ahead of Smith’s SX300, he suggested parking downwind of his airplane might blow some of his speed onto us. We’d love that – just four more mph to break the speed record for our class.

Saturday morning dawned with low ceilings and turbulence, making for some pretty bone-jarring jolts as we knocked around the 130-mile course at low altitudes. Usually this race includes Mark and Cheryl Frederick’s grass strip as the start-finish line, but they would be out of town this time on an important historical mission.

Mike: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor 16 B-25s carrying 80 men crammed the open flight deck of the USS Hornet and blasted off on a top-secret mission, led by Lt. Col. James H. Doolittle. They became known as the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders. It was the only time U.S. Army Air Force bombers had launched from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier on a combat mission.

Flying at wave-top to avoid detection, the bombers encountered only light fighter and anti-aircraft resistance. None were shot down. However, too large to return and land on the carrier, the bombers flew west to China’s coast where there were several suitable air fields. Weather and impending darkness made those good runways hard to find and most of the crews crash landed or bailed out. While the raid on Tokyo was not a widely technical victory, it was a morale booster during bleak times.

Remaining Doolittle Raiders are Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, co-pilot of B-25 No. 1, Maj. Thomas C. Griffin, navigator on B-25 No. 9, Lt. Col. Edward J. Saylor, engineer-gunner of B-25, No. 15, Staff Sgt. David J. Thatcher, engineer-gunner, No. 7 and Lt. Col. Robert L. Hite, co-pilot of B-25 No. 16. All but Lt. Col Hite attended the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders Reunion on the 70^th anniversary of the raid, at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio on April 18. B-25s gathered for a massive formation flight over Wright-Patterson. One of them was flown by our friend Mark Fredrick who just before our race buzzed us in “Devil Dog” (the U.S. Marine Corps B-25 variant) on his way to Ohio for the reunion.

www.ElyAirLines.blogspot.com