Pilots, 'splain this....

[Zeke]

We have a lot of banner draggers around here, especially during the Gran Prix and during the summer. As a ground observer, it seems they fly at about half the speed of a normal single engine private plane while dragging some beer banner.

I said it "seems." The do take a lone time to pass over the house. And although they drone on and on, they don't seem to have a noisy supersonic prop as you pilots have taught me.

Is it the prop air under the wings that enables them to stay up at slower speeds? If so, why don't the other guys just take it easy over the houses instead of going supersonic with the prop(s) and annoying the hell out of animals and man?

BTW, this banner dragging is dangerous business. One guy died last year and a few ditched the banner on take off. I think the guy with the 5 planes left town. Not sure, but he ain't flying many these days.

[pwd72s]

Never thought of banner draggers...but dangerous flying in my neighborhood is done by the crop dusters....crazy indeed!

[Embraer]

I flew banners a long time ago...we'd be full power, just above stall speed, but we were high enough that the sound footprint wasn't too noticeable on the ground.

[fingpilot]

Really annoying, isn't it?

These guys are 'building time', believe it or not. Minimum wage, if any at all. They fly at stall speed +5, and check out the bikinis. They are not allowed to fly below a thou AGL, unless by special agreement, and not over any 'congregation' of people.

The only excitement is when they swoop to the ground to pick up the banner.... the rest is pretty boring.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Although I've never done banner-towing personally, my understanding is that they fly in the "region of reversed command". To explain this simply, it requires more power to fly more slowly in this region due to the aerodynamics involved (induced drag at high angles of attack).

If you look at most of the banner-tow guys, they're usually operating with all the drag devices deployed (flaps, gear, etc.) in order to put the aircraft in slow flight. This requires lots of power and is therefore noisy.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Know where I can sign up? I need to get some hours.

[Embraer]

One of my CKA buddies moonlights on his days off as a jump pilot for a mom-and-pop skydive operation. Talk about a deathwish....he's had 3 near-death experiences in less than a few months. Poor MX on the planes and a general disregard for safety. I guess he likes the rush

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Know where I can sign up? I need to get some hours.

I had this feeling a lot of them were owner/operators except for the one company. After 9/11, he just about went out of business due to the new restrictions. During the more prosperous period and low fuel costs of the mid '00's, he kept up. I just don't see that many these days.

Full power I assumed. The question was (second part) why don't the props make that rattle noise that the cowboys do? I mean the kind of noise a kid would make if he had a toy car or plane in his hand. YYYOOOOUUUUUWWWAAANNNNNNDDDDD!!!!!

[Embraer]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Although I've never done banner-towing personally, my understanding is that they fly in the "region of reversed command". To explain this simply, it requires more power to fly more slowly in this region due to the aerodynamics involved (induced drag at high angles of attack).

If you look at most of the banner-tow guys, they're usually operating with all the drag devices deployed (flaps, gear, etc.) in order to put the aircraft in slow flight. This requires lots of power and is therefore noisy.

yep, flying below L/DMax

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by milt

I had this feeling a lot of them were owner/operators except for the one company. After 9/11, he just about went out of business due to the new restrictions. During the more prosperous period and low fuel costs of the mid '00's, he kept up. I just don't see that many these days.

Full power I assumed. The question was (second part) why don't the props make that rattle noise that the cowboys do? I mean the kind of noise a kid would make if he had a toy car or plane in his hand. YYYOOOOUUUUUWWWAAANNNNNNDDDDD!!!!!

Because they have a fixed pitch propellor that even under full power, will not allow the engine to over speed. Different animals than the T6 you have been complaining about last week.

I like you Milt, but I am d@mn glad you are not my neighbor living next to my backyard runway or my shooting range or my MX track in the side yard.

[cgarr]

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

I like you Milt, but I am d@mn glad you are not my neighbor living next to my backyard runway or my shooting range or my MX track in the side yard.

Indeed: We could have fun with Milt where does he live?

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Tim Hancock

Because they have a fixed pitch propellor that even under full power, will not allow the engine to over speed. Different animals than the T6 you have been complaining about last week.

I like you Milt, but I am d@mn glad you are not my neighbor living next to my backyard runway or my shooting range or my MX track in the side yard.

As one person, you couldn't possibly annoy me. If you ran a flight school out of your back yard, or shot your weapons for 12 hours a day, I'd be miserable. So would anyone else.

And, I wasn't necessarily complaining about the T6, but I did point out that he was definitely prolific in his ability to make a LOT of passes in and hour's time whereas the typical student can make 7 landings in one lesson. Historic aircraft are fun to see. Believe it of not, I go to airshows!

Now, to be sure, the banner draggers can be annoying. If I want to have a BBQ outside at my house, we just have to talk between flights or go inside. This can be for other situations as well such as multiple students in the air at one time. The frequency of take offs is pretty well saturated at 2 minute intervals with about 15 seconds of no talk on each take off. So that's 30 times an hour that we have to hold our thought momentarily. Not a good time to tell a long joke.

This does not happen all that frequently, and when it does, it's usually a bit earlier on Sat morning, not BBQ time. BBQ time might see a max of 15 flights plus the commercial aircraft. Still, even this is not regular. It's seasonal and based on the economic times.

I was born a mile from the airport. I'm still in my home town. When the airport was expanded during WWII, the reason was our defense as Douglas Aircraft was based at LBG. They said they would never use the airport for anything but military aircraft and the small amount of private planes that existed at that time.

Well we see where that went.

Now, the only thing I am against is the commercial use of an airport that is surrounded 360* by housing with a combined community population of 1M. Directly impacted by flight paths and noise are only about 25,000 people out of the million. There are 8 million more north of us that have a similar percentage of impacted residences from LAX. At least LAX has retrofitted 100's of homes with STC windows. LGB has never offered any assistance.

But, back to the "commercial" use. Say there were no flight schools or other commercial operations like banner draggers. I could live perfectly well with that. I know you have the right and freedom to fly just like the fuzznuts that ride Harleys with straight pipes. It's America, goddamnit, and let's do some recreating.

But, take your commercial business somewhere where you don't fly dangerous, inexperienced or unduly noisy aircraft over houses and schools. We don't watch the nightly news at 6, because quite frankly, we can't hear the TV for some of the broadcast.

Tim, you couldn't possibly have that much impact. But, if you were 100 Tims, you would not be my favorite person.

[fingpilot]

I'll tell y'all a not-so-funny story about a pilot I wanted to hire after a certain amount of time...

She was a CFII, and was building time anyway she could. Had everything right, was one of those natural aviators (or aviatrix, in this case). I was running a multiple aircraft flight department in Las Vegas (everything from LearJets to MD80's) and I had met her when I was running the Minnesota Northstars flight department. My insurance requirements were a min of 1000 hours, and 400 of that multi PIC. She didn't have that in Minnesnowta, but finally did have it when I saw her again in LAS. I made the descision to hire her (our third female in a flight department of 50+ pilots).

We, as usual, requested her records from the FAA as part of putting her folio together, and discovered that she had a FATAL accident on her record (disqualifying her from our employment, of course).

I called her in, and asked why she hadn't disclosed this on her app or, more importantly, to me.

She had taken a job hauling skydivers to altitude as a way of building multi-engine time, and it was turboprop as well. She said that one of the jumpers in her 3 month stint had a 'streamer' and had smacked the ground, but she had no notice beyond that. A call to the FSDO confirmed that as PIC, she was responsible for all of her passengers from takeoff to landing, even when they were not in the plane.

Was news to me, and to her as well. I heard, many years later, that she got hired by Mesaba, and eventually Nortwest, after she sued the company that had hired her and listed her as 'contributory' to the death of a guy that left her plane voluntarily.

So, avoid the jump business as a pilot unless you want to be responsible for every chain of events not under your control.

[pwd72s]

Another example of crazy "no exceptions" bureaucratic thinking.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by fingpilot

I'll tell y'all a not-so-funny story about a pilot I wanted to hire after a certain amount of time...

She was a CFII, and was building time anyway she could. Had everything right, was one of those natural aviators (or aviatrix, in this case). I was running a multiple aircraft flight department in Las Vegas (everything from LearJets to MD80's) and I had met her when I was running the Minnesota Northstars flight department. My insurance requirements were a min of 1000 hours, and 400 of that multi PIC. She didn't have that in Minnesnowta, but finally did have it when I saw her again in LAS. I made the descision to hire her (our third female in a flight department of 50+ pilots).

We, as usual, requested her records from the FAA as part of putting her folio together, and discovered that she had a FATAL accident on her record (disqualifying her from our employment, of course).

I called her in, and asked why she hadn't disclosed this on her app or, more importantly, to me.

She had taken a job hauling skydivers to altitude as a way of building multi-engine time, and it was turboprop as well. She said that one of the jumpers in her 3 month stint had a 'streamer' and had smacked the ground, but she had no notice beyond that. A call to the FSDO confirmed that as PIC, she was responsible for all of her passengers from takeoff to landing, even when they were not in the plane.

Was news to me, and to her as well. I heard, many years later, that she got hired by Mesaba, and eventually Nortwest, after she sued the company that had hired her and listed her as 'contributory' to the death of a guy that left her plane voluntarily.

So, avoid the jump business as a pilot unless you want to be responsible for every chain of events not under your control.

Wow - good to know.

I swear the more I learn about the FAA the more I look at it in the same way a fire hydrant looks at dogs. And for the same reasons.

I swear, a plane could get hit by a meteor in the clear blue sky and the feds would find a way to make it be "pilot error". I honestly think they delight in trying to ruin peoples' careers sometimes. I've met a few inspectors who were really cool, but there are always a few...