California Mayor Who Compared Trump Supporters to KKK Dies in Plane Crash

There’s a Reason the Beachcraft Bonanza is called “The Fork Tailed Doctor Killer”.

Yes, I have heard that nickname as well. To be kind... Beachcraft have traditionally been the Cadillacs of General Aviation aircraft, where Mooney's are more like the sports cars.

We live on a small airport...he neighbor two doors down has a Bonanza that he never flies, because he has gotten too old to handle it. Our next-door neighbor has a tricked out Mooney, with a powerful engine and speed brakes. We have obstructions, he has to do a dog leg and skim the trees to get it on the ground half way down the runway. When he had a Warrior, he flew it all the time. But the one time I went flying with him he was white knuckling the Mooney and he hardly ever takes it out after spending over $200,000 on it.

I've never been in a Mooney. Got to fly a Bonanza once as a kid with just a few solo hours in a 152. It felt disconcerting to me, like a light car on ice that had a barely perceptible fishtail. The owner said you got used to it. Other than that it didn't seem tricky. Of course I wasn't doing mucb beyond straight and level. Incidentally, my FBO was Monmouth Illinois. It's the oldest airport in the state. John Livingston ran it for years and my grandfather flew with him a few times. I have a picture of him by a plane that I think was owned by Livingston. It appears to be a Waco with a Hispano Suisa V8. Galesburg, 12 miles away, has the biggest Stearman fly in in the world.

The next door neighbor on the opposite side of the guy with the Mooney is an aircraft mechanic who owns an N3N which is a very similar aircraft to the Stearman built to Navy specs. They are more rare and he takes great pride in it, although other than the paint scheme I would have a hard time telling them apart.

We have a couple Stearman’s on the field and my wife points them out and we have this conversation repeatedly, “Mike is out flying again today.” I reply “I don't think that was Mike.” “Yes it was!” Later I ask Mike, “Was that you flying your biplane this morning?” He replies, “No that was the Littlefields’s Stearman.” I reply, “I thought so.” “My N3N is up at our hangar in Concrete.” “Can't you tell the difference between a Stearman and an N3N?” Then he lists them for me, usually starting with the spar and airframe that were built out of aluminum, not wood and steel tubing.

https://notastearman.wordpress.com/specifications/n3n-versus-stearman/

I started out hang gliding, then got a homebuilt ultralight aircraft. My wife insisted that we get an airplane “she could go flying in too.” I have to admit that the ultralight and hang gliders and ultralight are still more fun in most ways, but if I killed myself in either type my life insurance won't cover me and my wife would try to kill me a second time.

My first aviation experience was a mil surplus parachute with several shrouds cut off at the back and a chunk of conduit and a pilfered swing set towed behind a 64 Plymouth. That ended when another guy fell out of it and broke both arms. I may be getting back in the air soon. I’m a BMW bike enthusiast and a friend of mine wants me to help him convert an 1100CC BMW twin to put in his Avid Flier. He’s offered borrowing rights as part of the deal.

My brother and I made various giant kites growing up that we tried to tow aloft with our tractors. None were successful until I bought a used hang glider that we could tow behind our ski boat.

This is a picture of a skypup ultralight similar to ours. We have a Rotax 277 with a composite ground adjustable pitch prop to tune the performance. It has a tachometer and an exhaust gas temperature guage, and no airspeed indicator. I used to wear an altimeter watch and sometimes bring along hang glider instrumentation for vertical speed.

We belonged to a club that went from ultralights to experimentals, to classic planes. I have a lot of amusing stories from back then.

[I have been trying to find out what type plane it was. Doctors are notorious for buying airplanes that require a higher level of skill than what they posses. One of our doctor friends crashed his plane, both he and his wife walked away. But after destroying a beautiful vintage aircraft mostly due to incompetence, he just bought another more powerful airplane. Fortunately he seems to have lost the flying bug at this point. ]

Do they not get enough training, or are they determined to show they can learn to fly the way they learned to ride a bike, by falling repeatedly?

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