Sawdust
1991

But what does it do for snake oil? According to literature published by Magnetizer Group Incorporated, their little gizmo increases the fuel efficiency of home heating furnaces and engines by passing fuel through a magnetic field. "Following exposure to a south pole magnetic field, the electron orbits of the molecule are altered such that the net charge becomes positive. Because the net charges of the hydrocarbon and oxygen molecules are both negative, there are repulsive forces, not attractive, forces present. When magnetized, the fuel's hydrocarbons are ionized to exhibit a net positive charge. The change in charge allows the fuel to aggressively attract and bond with available, negatively charged, oxygen. This creates a more comprehensive hydrocarbon molecule with its own oxygen supply. The end result is a more efficient and fully burning, explosive mixture...."

The FAA Technical Center recently evaluated this system on a Teledyne Continental 0-200 engine and -- guess what? -- it doesn't make any difference.

ATC Corp? In a fascinating editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Robert H. Poole says "For safer skies, privatize." He argues that "the best solution is to spin off the air traffic control system as a user-funded corporation. Outside the federal government, it would be outside the civil service system, outside the federal procurement process, and-most important-outside the federal budget process." There is ample evidence that such a system would work well. In 1972, the British converted their CAA into a self-supporting Crown corporation, and its National Air Traffic Services division provides efficient services to both civilian and military aircraft. Four years ago, New Zealand corporatized its ATC system, and the user-funded corporation shows a profit and is on the list of candidates for privitization. And Switzerland has partially privitized its air traffic control system, when SwissControl was spun off in 1988 with the major Swiss aviation interests becoming minority shareholders. And the Association of European Airlines released a 1989 study calling for the creation of a commercial company to take over the management of a streamlined, continent-wide air traffic control system. Says Poole, "We cannot afford to continue playing bureaucratic games with the air traffic control system. Too many lives are at stake."

Congratulations to Charles Gutzman whose Falco won the Grand Champion Plans-Built at the 1990 North Central EAA Fly-In.

Media Watch. "Best Homebuilts" in the February issue of The Aviation Consumer rated the eight best kit aircraft and says, "Overall, we'd rate the Falco kit second only the the Christen Eagle in terms of completeness and precision." We recently received a copy of the Número 25, Año III issue of the Spanish magazine Volar, with spectacular photographs of Karl Hansen's Falco, including the butt-nude Falco on the centerspread.

Out the window. We get all sorts of weird calls, but the other day we heard from a guy on 14th Street in New York who wanted to build the Falco in his 6th floor shop. The principal requirement was that the plane fit through a three-foot by six-foot window so the piano movers could extract the thing when it was finished. A T-18 and a Volksplane had already made this trip, and Eugene Baum wanted the Falco to be the next. And on the price of the plans, he wanted to know if we had any discounts for 'a fellow aviator'. Sadly not, said I, explaining that all our customers were fellow aviators. Ah well, said Baum, "I had to ask. I'm Jewish."

G. Washington is passé-Jackie Kennedy slept here. Watch the October TV listings for the NBC mini-series, "A Woman Named Jackie", currently being filmed here in Richmond and with Meredith Scott in a couple of bit parts. They needed a house to be 'the Kennedy compound' in Hyannis, and our Cape-Cod style house is it. So when you see Jackie wake up and ask if "we won the election", that's our bed she's in, and all the scenes of them watching the election returns are at our house. As irony would have it, I've met the lady-years ago when I had a summer job pumping gas at the Hyannis airport -- and I always found her to be the nicest of the Kennedys.

Forsaking all others... well kinda. What's with the Italians and the curious "extra virgin" terminology they use on olive-oil cans? Like, you know, what does it really mean, and does it apply to young Italian ladies as well as salad oil? It sure sounds like the moral equivalent of a used-car sign. Maybe it has something to do with the daughters of Mafia dons, where you're not even supposed to ask.

Trophy hunters. Congratulations to Charles Gutzman who won Champion Plans-Built (that's third place) at Oshkosh. And at the PFA Rally at Wroughton, England, Bjoern Eriksen won the best kit-built aircraft award, and also Pilot magazine's Concours d'elegance award. Said Eriksen, "The response to Falco LN-LCA was rather amazing, and I have a feeling that we stole the show." No kidding, every Brit I've talked to has been raving about Eriksen's Falco.

Earth to earth, dust to dust. At Oshkosh, Aviation Consumer contributor Brent Silver stopped by for a chat. He's an aviation safety consultant and the writer who wrote the milestone whistle-blowing series about the inflight failures of the V-tail Bonanzas. No lover of wood in aircraft construction, Brent said he considered wood "an intermediate step between dirt and dirt." Don't say we never warned you.

Media watch. Charles Gutzman's Falco made cover of the September issue of Sport Aviation, and there's a nice article about the plane inside. See the September issue of England's Pilot magazine for Steve Wilkinson's "Building a Falco, Part IV" with Bjoern Eriksen's Falco on the cover. There's a wonderful article by Steve on moving the Falco to the airport in the October issue of Air & Space magazine-which incidently is becoming a terrific magazines, with articles by some of the best writers in aviation today. And there was some nice coverage of the Falco in the August issue of U.S. Aviator. A recent issue of Interavia reports that Saberliner has agreed to cooperate with Agusta to manufacture the SF.260E currently being proposed to the USAF as a replacement for T-41s. See the October issue of Air Progress for an article on the Promavia Jet Squalus.

Woodn't it be nice to have a 120-lb speedbrake? Stelio Frati's F.22 Sprint has a 160 hp engine, constant-speed prop, retractable gear, two seats, and is very similar in layout, design and appearance to the Falco, except that the Sprint has a longer tail arm and a swept tail. Empty weight is 1,332 lbs and top speed 190 mph. Hmmm... maybe wood does have a few advantages.

Phast Phalco? Marcel Morrien of the Netherlands stopped by the other day on a vacation trip to the U.S. One problem he's contemplating is the 'PH-' call-sign of his Falco, which is coming along nicely. Marcel owns a drug store and is thinking about PH-ARM, which is doubly cute because arm is Dutch for "poor". Or what about PH-AST? Or PH-ALC. PH-UNN? Now don't get naughty.

Lithuanian Q-Tips. "What's the stupidest thing a pilot could do?" asked Jonas Dovydenas. Land with your gear up? Yup. Seems Jonas was on a trip to Laconia, New Hampshire, and had his mind on other things as he was shooting an approach to a grass strip. Just as he was about to touch down he heard a thumping sound, jerked it up and went around. On landing, he found the tips curled slightly, so he flew it home, and it was as smooth as ever. The prop shop was able to straighten the blades and get him back in the air in short order.

Congratulations to John and Midge Oliver for winning the Grand Champion-Custom Built award at the EAA East Coast Fly-In at New Castle, Delaware, at the end of September. Midge reports, "There was a red Marchetti parked across the aisle from the Falco. Looked big and powerful, but it didn't win anything."

Ship-shape. Be glad you're not Hans Sonntag, Falco builder in Germany. We shipped his spar kit by sea, in the usual glued-screwed-and-stapled plywood crate. It went by sea, and when it arrived in Hamburg, Dr. Sonntag reported that the crate was essentially gone and that the spar had made the Atlantic crossing on the open deck of the ship and was well-washed with sea water. Amazingly, there was no damage to the spar nor any missing pieces, but he nearly had a cardiac arrest when he saw the spar for the first time. From now on, all shipments to Dr. Sonntag go by air freight.

Steve's ear-up landing. Back in October, Susan Crandell called to report that Steve Wilkinson had a six-hour operation on an abcess in his ear, that he was in some hospital in NYC and would be there for a week. Since he wasn't going to be phone-able for a couple of days, I chased down the fax number for the nurse's station on the floor and then sent a fax to a bunch of his writer friends-all of whom have faxes and who quickly passed the word around. Within minutes the fax machine at the hospital began erupting with messages from all over the world, the most memorable being from Flying photographer Russell Munson:

"Dear Steve, Can you 'ear me? I say, CAN YOU 'EAR ME? They tell me you had an abacus in your ear, and it made you feel bad. Well, what did you expect? Even a banana isn't comfortable, but an abacus? Are you nuts? Did you think you would be able to do calculus in your head? NEVER STICK ANYTHING FOREIGN IN YOUR BODY. Now you know why, asshole. Don't expect any sympathy from me. Your old pal, -- Russ"

This is what aviation is all about.