I’m about 3/5ths of the way through this video. General Aviation is always like this. Money is tight. When an emergency comes up, the mechanics and ramp personnel have to fix it.
The Electra is an odd plane. Some genius aviation engineer decided that they’d design a four-engine turboprop that relied on electricity for all of the peripherals (hence the name of the aircraft).
Instead of a hydraulic system to raise and lower the gear and manipulate the flaps, ailerons, rudder, and elevators, electrical servos would be used. No more of those leaking hydraulic systems. Yeah, sure, it’s all great until the plane gets hit by lightning in flight, and the only thing working are the engines. Or maybe the electrical generators on the engines go dead. Better to have hydraulic pumps on the engines running the servos for landing gear and flight controls.
The TCAS System (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) is great in congested airspace. There isn’t much aircraft traffic around the Great Slave Lake in the middle of winter. The government should have given Buffalo a variance on the TCAS requirement for a week. And that damned RCMP corporal giving the Buffalo rampy a $500 ticket for his vehicle registration two days out of date should be left outside, naked, in -20C for ten minutes or more to teach him a lesson. In the Great White North, everyone relies on each other.
The government of Canada could build a bridge over the McKenzie River. It could build an all-weather road to those Indian settlements. But it doesn’t. The area does produce mineral wealth.
Back in the 1980s, at Kenmore Air Harbor, the company had a contract with the US Navy. This contract kept the company afloat in tough times. The job was to pick up US Navy personnel at Keyport on the east side of the Kitsap Peninsula just north of Seattle. The Navy personnel would then be flown up to Nanaimo, British Columbia, on the east side of Vancouver Island. The US Navy had its torpedo testing range there in the Strait of Georgia. Those friendly Canadians are so accommodating.
One summer day at 4:30 PM, when I showed up for swing shift at the hangar, everyone was talking about the US Navy Lieutenant who left his briefcase on the Keyport dock. The US Navy had called KAH to ask if the briefcase was in the Cessna 180 seaplane. No. It was found on the Keyport dock. The briefcase contained Top Secret torpedo data. LOL! The Lieutenant was no doubt reprimanded.
I also heard through the grapevine that the nukes loaded onto Trident submarines aren’t kept at the sub base in Bangor on Hood Canal on the west side of Kitsap Peninsula. These nuclear missiles and torpedoes are kept in secure bunkers on an island in the San Juans. The subs are loaded and offloaded there. Don’t know if it’s true. Very hush hush. For all I know, those Trident subs carry beer in those missile tubes.
General Aviation is a crazy business, but interesting as can be.
TJM
Timmy Tae's Thoughts 