Happy 7/27!

"Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom" (will-alib)
07/27/2020 at 09:51 • Filed to: None

... to the guy in the Aerostar about to get his doors blown off in a race.

DISCUSSION (19)

Ash78, voting early and often > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 09:58

I spent about 20 hours in an Aerostar one summer, around 1989 (age 11) . Took it across the US, mostly to 4-5 smaller airports in CO....Cortez, Montrose, Telluride, Leadville. Western CO at low altitude is phenomenal. I spent almost all of it in the right seat, learning to navigate and call out radio frequencies to my dad.

PatBateman > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 10:06

Thank God there’s no 7/37, amirite?

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > PatBateman
07/27/2020 at 10:17

It does limit my aviation-themed posting somewhat..

jminer > Ash78, voting early and often
07/27/2020 at 10:18

That sounds amazing!

PatBateman > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 10:19

Let’s face it: there wouldn’t have been a good post for July 37th anyways.

ttyymmnn > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 10:21

N7001U: The Museum of Flight’s airplane was the first 727 ever produced. Following the conclusion of Boeing’s flight-test program, it entered regular passenger service with United Airlines. On March 2, 2016, this aircraft made one last flight from the Museum’s Restoration Center to Boeing Field where it is on permanent display in the Aviation Pavilion.

ttyymmnn > PatBateman
07/27/2020 at 10:22

I read recently that the MAX may return to service by the end of the year. Considering how 2020 has gone so far , I think Boeing should wait until 2021.

ranwhenparked > ttyymmnn
07/27/2020 at 10:23

Considering how much the timeline has slipped already, they probably will wait until 2021, whether they want to or not.

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > Ash78, voting early and often
07/27/2020 at 10:25

I bet the view over CO is amazing. It’s a fast airplane with a kinda spotty rep earned by pilots who didn’t stay proficient. I have some time flying a 600 (the slow one) and thought it was a good airplane. Somebody did a jet conversion ten years ago which never developed into an approved mod.

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > PatBateman
07/27/2020 at 10:31

Yep. Nothing good ever happens on the 37th anyway.

Ash78, voting early and often > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 11:08

It was definitely a little on the unforgiving side, from what I heard . Thankfully, my old man soloed on his 16th birthday and had about 3,000 hours in GA aircraft at the time, so we weren’t too concerned. The biggest issue at lower altitudes in that terrain is all the microclimates and wind shear that can catch you off guard. But it was all VFR...and one of the quickest piston-powered craft you could find.

Biggest memory of all: Using about 80% of the runway at Leadville on takeoff. Turbochargers to the rescue!

My X-type is too a real Jaguar > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 11:27

It was so much fun boarding through the reart stairs on People’s Express

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > Ash78, voting early and often
07/27/2020 at 12:09

IIRC t he pressurized Aerostar 702P is still the fastest piston twin with a 260kt cruise. Did dad own the plane?

Ash78, voting early and often > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 12:14

Nope, never owned — but he worked mid/senior level jobs at Piper for 20-something years, which came with some side benefits like “borrowing” various fleet craft and only having to pay for fuel. Sometimes not even that...for example, if unsold/undelivered inventory was sitting around, it would periodically need to get used just to keep everything moving. Those were just local, this was one of our only cross-country flights as a family.

Another was taking a Cheyenne 400 (400kt cruise, 41k’ ceiling, turboprop) up the east coast to a few fly-ins and static displays. It was pretty cool.

Just found this — 1986, Lock Haven PA (original Piper HQ). So purple. I’m in green:

Kinja'd!!!

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

And if you search the N number, it was sold to a Colombian airline the following year. I can’t paste (Kinja) , but there’s a pic on AirHistory.net

Darkbrador > Ash78, voting early and often
07/27/2020 at 12:35

Colombian “airline” ... hmm.

Ash78, voting early and often > Darkbrador
07/27/2020 at 12:38

I’m sure everything was on the up & up, and the fact that the plane was decom m is sioned in 1989 was just an unfortunate turn of events...

Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom > Ash78, voting early and often
07/27/2020 at 14:49

THAT is a cool gig! I know the Cheyenne pretty well, having flown the I and IIIa previously. Just one nit - the “400" in 400LS stood for mph cruise, not knots. Still fast @ around 350kts and that thing had ramp presence for days with those huge Dowty props.

PatBateman > ttyymmnn
07/27/2020 at 14:56

2021 sounds like a damn fine year to put those planes back in service.

Ash78, voting early and often > Turbineguy: Nom de Zoom
07/27/2020 at 15:10

Yep, I basically grew up with Navajos and Cheyennes as “the big planes,” which is why riding in something like a commercial Dash-8 never scared me like it does a lot of people.

My dad was heavily involved in all phases of the Cheyenne, mostly in marketing and sales at the time (regional airlines, Flight Safety, etc) .

T he same summer the pic above was taken, he and his copilot set a turboprop speed record in a similar one — it still stands for its weight class (Newfoundland-Iceland-Ireland-Paris only stopping for fuel). It was part of a 6-week European roadshow he did. It was the only time he legally had to carry a raft and survival suit on his way to a demo.