God bless the tricycle landing gear. Healer of minor discrepancies.
OK, I finally looked at the Alef Model A flying car. Definitely not what I expected. It rotates sideways on it’s longitudinal axis and flies 90 degrees to that axis. Air flows through the vehicle and the left and right sides of the car act as wings in this configuration. The passenger compartment gimbals to match both rotations. It’s like a tailess biplane.
Does anyone know why the 380 main gears land on the front set of tires first? I’m not sure it matters which set of tires hit first but there must be a reason behind it.
Probably for the same reason French helicopters’ rotors turn the wrong way. 
It’s happened again:
And see:
It grates on my nerves that anything smaller than a 747 is called a small plane. And it’s not the size of the plane that is in question so much as how they lump 300 mph turbo-props in with 172’s.
That was a fast, complex airplane that she landed by herself. Good on her. The owner should take some metal from one of the bent props and make her some serious jewelry or some kind of memento. Maybe a frame for an honorary first solo flight. Or a nice slice of the prop all polished up with an image of the plane model she flew engraved on it. It would make a nice trophy sitting on a shelf.
Well that just means they stuck the engine in backwards. They have an independent streak in them.
Not the wrong way, metric!
Yeah. There’s US standard “clockwise” and there’s metric standard “clockwise”. Ne’er the twain shall meet.
Today is July 19, the 34th anniversary of the crash of United Flight 232.
That’s an amazing story. I have a videotape somewhere of Captain Haynes giving a talk about it.
In other aviation news, the FAA has released the initial form of the regs for air taxis. And yeah, there won’t be thousands over cities ar a time. For now, they each will have to be under ATC control with typical Class B/C airspace rules. Flights will only be allowed to take off and land at approved heliports and eventually VTol ports, but no ad-hoc taking off and landing from homes or streets.
And a pilot with a license will be required in every one. The pilots will require a type rating for each one they fly, and will be regulated under Part 135. They expect them to be VFR-only.
It sounds to me like the FAA sees these as an extension of helicopter-style mobility between fixed vertiports. There won’t be so many that ATC can’t handle them all with current systems. The use case they probably see is simply to ferry people from an airport to downtown to a heliport on a high rise or something. They will also be developing fixed routes for these things once the vertiports or other defined infrastructure is in place.
So no thousands of electric airplanes easing congestion. Just another airport taxi service until at least after 2028 when the next phase of regs is started.
It actually seems pretty restrictive. VFR-only means it’s not a reliable service and will only be available when the weather is decent. And if it’s landing inside a city on a vertiport, I’ll bet there will be some fairly low wind limits.
In the new regulation topic, FAA released a NPRM (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) for sport pilot updates:
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2023-14425.pdf
Have only skimmed the first 40 pages out of 318, really opens up the kinds of airplanes that can be operated under light sport rules. Up to four seats, no max weight limit, up to 250 KCAS airspeed. Does keep a max clean stall speed of 54 kts which sets a minimum wing loading. Seems like that includes just about all of recreational airplanes with the exception of some high performance aerobatic or racing types.
Also opens up the category to electric, turbine engines and “powered lift” for those overgrown quadcopter things.
Would allow flying even an RV-10 with a sport pilot license (with only one passenger and a controllable propeller endorsement).
I bet they wanted to announce this at Osh, with the official release date as Jul 24.
WOW. That’s a huge change in sport pilot rules.
Do have to make a small correction, I misread the flaps stall speed as clean, so a RV-10 (or indeed my RV-8) is just a touch to fast to qualify.
A 172 with one person and plenty of baggage would fit easily.
All aboard! Well, no… only some.
Well, there is this outfit in the USA which is not that exclusive, but is still offering the “not quite bizjet” experience for a premium, but not insanely premium, price. JSX | Book Non-Stop Flights & Airfare*
If you don’t want to read 318 pages, a summary of the light sport proposed rules:
A very good friend of mine flies them from the Bay Area to Vegas all the time. She loves them, and the experience. Says it’s well worth the freight.
There are turboprop Grumman Mallards – why not a turboprop Catalina?
I only need to win the lottery twice (once to buy, and a second time to pay for fuel/maintenance)
Brian