Archive for September, 2017

Flymall September 2017 Newsletter

Wednesday, September 27th, 2017

Welcome to the Flymall Wheels & Wings September 2017 Newsletter.

Earlier this month the country remembered the terrorist attacks that happened 17 years ago.  Harry was flying between Gaithersburg, Maryland and New York on that day.  Click here for his story and he describes the event from the inside looking out.

September is also Harry’s birthday month – September 26 19??.  It is becoming a tradition for Harry & Pat to celebrate birthdays at Julliano’s Brick Oven Pizza.  Click here for pictures of Harry’s b-day party at Julliano’s.

Harry received a big surprise on his birthday morning. As he was feeding his turtles he saw something moving in the dirt.  It was a baby eastern box turtle hatching from the nest.  A total of 3 turtles were found in the habitat that day.  As of this newsletter they are all doing well.  Click here for Harry’s turtle page on the Flymall.

Once again the weather was in the news earlier in September. Hurricane Irma.  Here is a METAR for Key West during Hurricane Irma (Harry got this from ADDS during the hurricane).  Click on the picture for a larger view.

TAF found online for Princess Juliana International Airport (Philipsburg, Sint Maarten) during Irma. Click on the picture for a larger view.

While on the topic of the hurricane, Harry’s student Francesca came back to Maryland (from Embry Riddle in Florida) to ride out the storm.  They had dinner together at Julliano’s.

Another successful pass by one of Harry’s students. Gilad passed his initial flight instructor checkride. Congratulations.

The big news from this past August was the eclipse on August 21 2017.  Here is a picture of it taken by a friend.

While on the topic of the eclipse here is an old car advertisement from the 1963 eclipse.

 

If you’re in the market for a used aircraft visit our used aircraft page by clicking here.  If you’re planning to leaseback your aircraft to a flight school check out Harry’s leaseback calculator developed by Harry when he was a Cessna dealer. Click here for the calculator.

Looking for something to do, visit our events calendar. Many car shows and air shows benefit different charities. You can search our events calendar by the name of a charity to find an event that supports your favorite charity. For example “Toys for Tots”.  You can even have our calendar email you a reminder about an event.

You can sign up for our newsletter on any of the pages on the Flymall.  Simply use the “sign up for our newsletter” box in the upper right of our webpages.

 

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Harry’s friend Brenda at Bravo Flight Training continues with her success as a new flight school. She recently hosted an informative aircraft insurance seminar. Visit her site for informative and educational events like this.  Earlier this month Brenda also earned her seaplane rating.  Brenda was also part of a group that went down to Jack Brown’s Seaplane base many years ago.  About 8 total earned their seaplane rating during that week. Click here for Harry’s post on the outing.

If you enjoy going to car shows, motorcycle shows, air shows, etc., consider becoming an appraiser. The Flymall is looking for folks to join our team.  You’ll work for yourself, make you own hours, and learn about numerous different cars, bikes, aircraft, and more.  You’ll be required to attend our one day training program ($575.00 fee) and then you’re off to start getting paid to look at vintage cars, motorcycles, and more.  Visit our appraisal page for more info on our appraisals.

On August 19 we celebrated National Aviation Day.  Happy National Aviation Day!

If you would like to advertise on the Flymall contact Harry.  – Ira Walker is one of our long term advertisers.  He is an expert craftsman and aircraft restorer.  Ira built Harry’s very rare Briggs & Stratton Midget Mobile from plans.  Ira is an expert on Husky Aircraft as well as Pitts, and Snowcars.  Here are a few of his current projects.  The snowcar is the predecessor of the modern snow mobile.

Harry recently attended a Japanese Motorcycle Show at the White Rose Motorcycle Club. A very impressive motorcycle club. The club owns 200 acres of land with riding trails, streams, etc. in York PA.  They have their own snow plow, salt truck, numerous tractors, maintenance shop, and more. The main club house includes a full commercial kitchen (the food is great).  Harry had his 1984 Honda Gyro in the show and it won first place in its class.

Click here for pictures from day 1 at the show.

Click here for pictures from day 2 at the show.

In late August Harry, Pat, and Jett attended the Simple Transport 10 show in Hagerstown.  We had our 1912 AC Delivery in the show.  It won a top motorcycle award and also the People’s Choice award.  Our vehicles have done very well at the shows this year.  We have won awards every time we showed a vehicle.

Here is Harry collecting the People’s Choice award.

Here is Pat with the top motorcycle award and the People’s Choice award.

 

Click here for pictures from the show.

Prototypes: Last month we featured some prototypes and one of a kind vehicles.  We received a lot of positive feedback on this. So this month we’re featuring a few more and the theme is “You can take it with you”.  Have you ever thought that it would be nice to be able to fold up your car, motorcycle, or plane and take it with you? Well you can.

First here is the Goodyear Inflatoplane. It was an all fabric inflatable aircraft. It could be packed into a 44 cubic foot container. That made Inflatoplane suitable for transport by truck, jeep trailer or aircraft. As it was proposed, main use for this unusual aircraft was rescue. The plan was to drop the container behind enemy lines so downed pilots could rescue themselves.  Very few we made.

Next here is a 1960s Centaur Folding Scooter. This was a scooter designed to be folded up like a suitcase and could be carried with you as such.

Click here for a newsletter post Harry did on a Mazda Suitcase Concept Car.  This was/is a 3 wheel car that folds up to be carried like a suitcase.  The car came from a design contest. An engineer at Mazda thought “What if you could get off of an airplane and not need a rental car.  The suitcase you are carrying is your car”.

Here’s another folding scooter – the Valmobile Suitcase Scooter.  Click here for pictures of the Valmobile Suitcase Scooter.

Click here for a newsletter post Harry did on the Switchblade flying motorcycle.  This is a 3 wheel motorcycle that converts to an aircraft (or vise versa).  After landing, no need to get a rental car, just convert your plane back to the motorcycle and you’re on your way.

So as you can see, you can take it with you!

While not actually a concept vehicle or one that can be folded up, here is something that you do not see too often, a 1938 GAZ GL-1.

The GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod) company was founded in 1932 in a partnership between Ford and the Soviet Union with the intention of growing the automobile sector in the Soviet Union. The result for racing, was this exotic GL-1 equipped with a six cylinder 3.5L engine, boosting 100hp.

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While on the automotive theme, here is a newsletter post Harry did on a hot-rod themed dentist office.

CFI Notes: How not to do a short field landing. A CFII, MEI did this.  This was done going in to a 2000 foot paved runway in a Cessna 172.  If done correctly there is no need to even use the brakes.

 

Harry is often asked by new pilots about VFR over the top. Here is what it looks like. On a recent flight Harry was VFR over the top (at first a scattered layer and then it turned to broken). Click here for the pictures.  The pictures are in order and they show the layer of clouds becoming more solid below the aircraft.

Harry recently purchased a 3 wheel vehicle called a Heald Hauler (pictured below). This vehicle will be converted into a 3 wheel fire-truck using some of the features found in these 3 wheel fire-trucks.  The vehicle will get a full mechanical restoration as the transformation to a fire-truck takes place.

 

 

Visit our Classified page for aircraft sales, vintage cars and motorcycles, and more.

The Flymall team to looking for someone with real estate experience to grow our real estate sales section of the Flymall.  If interested please contact Harry.

 

CFI Notes: Recently an instructor applicant went to a local Designated Pilot Examiner for an initial flight instructor checkride.  Within minutes of the checkride starting the examiner had to fail her.  There were a few endorsements missing as well and some of the required training (required training was not logged in the log book).  This is a failure by the recommending instructor as well as the applicant.  Advisory Circular 61-65F is very clear on the endorsements required for the flight instructor practical test.  One of the endorsements references FAR 61.187 and 61.187 states “A person who is applying for a flight instructor certificate must receive and log flight and ground training from an authorized instructor”.  If the ground instruction is not logged in the applicant’s log book the examiner has no choice but to fail the applicant.  The applicant failed the checkride because 2 endorsements were missing and the required ground training was not in her log book.

A while on the topic of flight training, enjoy this YouTube video about go-arounds.

 

 

Words of wisdom for the aviator – Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase headwinds!

Here is an interesting aircraft with a unique feature. The Douglas A-4 or “Scooter” as it was called.  It is said that this aircraft can make a gear-up landing on it’s belly tanks with very minor damage to the nose section of the aircraft.  After the gear up landing it could be back in the air in minimal time.

 

If you would like to advertise on the Flymall contact Harry.  We have numerous places available to advertise your business on the Flymall.

Harry loves to promote general aviation to young folks.  In fact Harry made aviation history in doing so.  Back in the early 1990s Harry had a student pilot that made a coast to coast flight (solo) in a Cessna 172.  This was long before the days of GPS and moving maps.  Young (16 years old) Jimmy Mathis did a long cross country from Ocean City, Maryland to Long Beach, CA. Click here for an article Harry published about the trip.

 

 

Many of the locals know that there is construction going on at the Montgomery County Airpark and that we have back taxiing going on due to the taxi way being closed.  Harry recently witnessed a near collision (head on) on the runway. Here is his account of what happened: “I was in the main parking lot and saw N5132C back taxiing on 32 (I thought he was back taxiing however after speaking with the pilot he said he landed on 14).  N5132C was nearing taxiway C about to turn off the runway.  He had not started his turn yet.  Then I heard and saw an aircraft on his takeoff roll from 32. The takeoff aircraft was N34VF.  N34VF rotated just a few feet prior to hitting N5132C. N34VF flew over N5132C.  For a few seconds, the two aircraft were coming straight at each other.  Another 5 seconds and they would have hit.  Most aircraft were using 32 based on the windsock however the AWOS was saying winds variable or calm.”  Be careful while the construction is going on.

Here’s an interesting article Harry saw online about an aircraft once owned by Charles Lindbergh.  It is based in Maryland and still flying.  Click here for the story.

Here is a friend’s 3 wheeler that was at a show in September. It is a copy of the very first Oldsmobile (steam powered) that he hand built (including the engine) from pictures. This is a scaled down version. He did build a full size non running version as well. Mr. Olds built his first 3 wheel steam powered vehicle in 1887.

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