GA Advocate Ed Stimpson Dies

General Aviation Advocate Ed Stimpson Dies

By JOHN MILLER
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 26, 2009; 6:54 PM

BOISE, Idaho -- Edward Stimpson, an aviation advocate who pushed to rejuvenate struggling small aircraft manufacturers in the 1990s by limiting lawsuits against them, has died after a five-month illness. He was 75.

He died Wednesday from complications related to lung cancer, though he wasn't a smoker, said his sister, Catharine Stimpson.

Stimpson, president of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association for 25 years, was a major proponent of legislation signed by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to prevent general aviation companies from being named as defendants in lawsuits in crashes of small planes 18 years old or older.

By 1994, a wave of lawsuits was blamed for a downturn at small aircraft manufacturers such as Beech Aircraft Co. and Cessna Aircraft Corp., costing 100,000 industry jobs. Annual sales of single-engine planes averaged 13,000 from 1965 to 1982, but dropped to just 500 by 1993.

Catharine Stimpson remembered how Cessna used her brother's initials to signify the first 100 piston-powered planes the company built after resuming production.

"Whatever he did to preserve the industry was more than a job to him," she said in a phone interview from her home in New York. "He just loved the idea of being up there in the clouds."

Stimpson, who held a private pilot's license, also advocated against record attempts like 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff's 1996 bid to become the youngest person to fly across the country. Dubroff, her father and her flight instructor died when their plane crashed in Cheyenne, Wyo., prompting Stimpson to call for measures to "stop the circus-like, media-driven events."

He retired from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association in 1996 to become chairman of "Be A Pilot," an industrywide education and research program aimed at increasing the number of people learning to fly.

Stimpson was born in Bellingham, Wash., the oldest of seven children. He graduated from Harvard College and received a graduate degree from the University of Washington in Seattle. He and his wife, Dorothy, met as employees at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962.

He settled in Idaho after being hired as a lobbyist for Boise-based engineering firm Morrison Knudsen Corp. in 1989. His wife became one of the state's representatives to the Democratic National Committee until 2000. They had no children.

In 1998, Stimpson received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy for public service in aviation, an honor he shared with aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, World War II pilot Lt. Gen. James H. Doolittle and Apollo 11 astronaut Neil A. Armstrong.

And in 1999, then-President Clinton appointed Stimpson to the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization, a Montreal-based group that promotes safe aviation around the world. The post carries the rank of ambassador; Stimpson served through 2004.

Catharine Stimpson remembered one flight she took with her brother in Washington state where his concern for safety caught her attention.

"He saw the pilot doing something he did not approve of," she said. "Believe me, that pilot will not forget what he heard."

For two decades, Stimpson was a board member at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where a residence hall and laboratory have been named after him.

In April 2008, Stimpson was named to a Federal Aviation Administration panel to recommend improvements to airline safety measures after concerns arose that the FAA allowed Southwest Airlines to fly dozens of Boeing 737s without inspecting them for fuselage cracks as required and that Southwest's system for complying with FAA safety directives hadn't been inspected since 1999.

Tributes:

Ken Peppard (SWOW)
Ed was a champion of GA causes and well respected throughout the aviation and political communities. In the current challenges to GA in economic and access issues, his steady, professional guidance will be missed sorely. -

Dave Higdon - Wichita, Eagle
I was privileged to know him and call him a friend ... he even gave me the compliment of trying to recruit me to work for him at GAMA...among the nicest compliments ever...

The story is all over, on the aviation services, in papers -- including the Wichita Eagle...

Sorry to hear of his passing. Can't imagine our GA world being as good as it still is without his contributions.

Ron David, SWOW
Garrett Livack and I helped create many audio visual programs to promote the GA story under Ed's watchful direction. Balanced, disciplined and dedicated beyond measure, he worked without equal to tell Capitol Hill and the American public what an asset General Aviation really is.

FAA Convenes First International Runway Safety Conference

Taxiing Toward Tomorrow

FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Transportation John Porcari, NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman and Capt. Robert Bragg - the last surviving flight crew member involved in the 1977 runway collision of two jumbo jets at Tenerife - will headline the conference at the beginning of December.

This information is forwarded courtesy of the FAA's Ken Peppard (SWOW)

Remos Aircraft – A New Breed of General Aviation

November 5th through November 7th, an international assembly of over 7,500 aviation enthusiasts and industry leaders convened in Tampa, Florida, for the inaugural “AOPA Summit.” In front of attending guests, AOPA unveiled its 2010 sweepstakes aircraft, a Remos GX light sport aircraft.

For more click here: http://aero-news.net/

Classic Wing Walker, WW II Ace Featured on November 18th

Record crowd turns out for "Shared Podium Luncheon" in November.

World War Two ace Whitey Feightner share several good "sea stories" about aerial combat in the Pacific during World War Two and how useful it was to have had the opportunity to assess the enemy's own Zero fighter.

Nour Jurgenson, one of the most daring wing walkers of the post-war era also talked about some of her most dangerous moments in the sky.
For years Silver Wingers have pleaded with Nour to share her stories, but she evaded all requests until Whitey quietly submitted his. No one has ever said "no" to Whitey.

A solo performer, Nour flew in the tradition of the Black Cats of the 1920's, capturing both the essence and the free-spirit of the true barnstormer and is still live to talk about it.

Audio and video recordings were made by our special friend Steve Wallace. The results wil be made available as soon as edition is complete.

Getting There

ENERGIZE!

When Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise issues his favorite command, his deck officers are always ready to respond without hesitation, but where does that "energizing" energy come from? Picard cannot simply pull the NCC-1701 into a gas station in deep space and say "filler up", can he?

Where shall we find the fuel resources we need to energize... whether it is for driving a a Christmas Present to the Post Office, or topping off for a cross-country flight to Oshkosh?

A thought-provoking, in-depth discussion on the subject of energy became available today on the BCC's World Service. It features one of the World's foremost experts, Daniel Yergin, co-founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, interviewed by BBC Correspondent, Mr. Peter Day.

In this fascinating, 25 minute conversation you will learn about energy (fuel) in all its forms, past, present and future. You may listen "on demand" via the internet by clicking here
Enjoy! - RD

Teaching imagery in Taji, Iraq

Dick Morrell is a friend, and a member of the Northern Virginia flying community who is on TDY in Iraq working for the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He hopes to be home for Christmas (2009) but has been filing some great emails on his activities in and around Camp Taji located about forty click North of the Capital.

Dick's older brother, Capt. Arthur Morrell died in a Harrier accident many years ago.

Click here to read Dick's latest email from Taji and don't miss the pictures at the end.

Flying Piggy Back - Great Story RD

Here is a wonderful, entertaining "Trip Report" from Jack "Triple" Nickel, the pilot of the 747 who flew the shuttle back to Florida after the Hubble repair flight - a humorous and interesting inside look at what it's like to fly two aircraft at the same time.

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Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal. Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done.

It was like a dream...someone else's dream.

We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go off the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway.. So, I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16.

All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall out of a tree as if to say, "Oh, just take me."

Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe. I said, "Is that a skunk I smell?" - the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me, smiled, and said, "Tires"! I said, "TIRES? OURS?" They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an amateur. Okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced. Where's your mom when you REALLY need her?

The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000' The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say, "Hey, let's roll completely over on our back" - not a good thing I kept telling myself. So I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster.

Airliners and even a flight of two F-16's deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea....let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon.

So at Ormond Beach, we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.John's and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stopped to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh, say can you see....

After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach... they were all standing and waving! "What a sight" I thought ... and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying, "Not yet Triple, keep showing this thing off," which was not a bad thing to be doing.

However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land. So I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land.....still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem.

"Oh, thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!"

Well, we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed that it was fun.

There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like - with the orbiter on it - the 747 falls like a rock if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again - IT IS COMING DOWN!!! So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing.

Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long. Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4).

Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet.

I'm sure I'll wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again, I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.

Learn more about NASA IP Jack Nickle

Our Oldest Living Member

Happy birthday to Tuskegee "Redtail" Johnny Suggs, a long time member of SWOW.

Colonel Suggs was born October 8th 1911. We all miss his late wife Alice, who was also a regular attendee at our meetings.

This photo was taken by Nour shortly after the commemoration of the 9-11 memorial at Arlington National Cemetery . It lists the names of all those who perished there that day and contains the small, unidentifiable remains of those victims.

Nour, John and I often drove through Arlington following our luncheons at Spates Hall. He now resides at Knollwood, the beautiful Army retirement facility located at the North end of Rock Creek Park in N.W. Washington, DC.

World War Two Aircraft Visit Warrenton, Va. Airport

Two American Bombers that served during World War Two visited Warrenton Airport (W66) last week.

Once they numbered in the thousands, but today, only a handful of B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators still exist that can fly ... but fly they do. Their crews are made up of the sons and grandsons and daughters of the World War Two Veterans who originally manned these planes. And to see them in action, to hear their massive radial engines roar, can still excite those lucky enough to share the experience.

SWOW's David Fields persuaded the non-profit Collins Foundation to bring the two rare flying antiques to the Warrenton Airport West of Dulles to share the sights and sounds of yesteryear with scores of local residents who drove out to see the planes and meet at least two dozen WWII vets who actually crewed aboard these bombers in combat.

For a modest donation to the Foundation, visitors were permitted to take guided tours through the flying museum pieces. a few flights were also arranged ... for hefty donations.

Dave Fields knows how to stage an event, so when a good rain shut down operations at the Midland, VA airport twice, but no one seemed to mind, they just sat down for lunch in a heated hangar and listened to stories told by the vets. Jim Davis and Scotty Cameron were among the Silver Wingers who helped Fields with the event.

What Is Silver Wings Over Washington?"

Silver Wings Over Washington is a National Capital-area fraternity of men and women for whom flying means nearly as much as life itself.

Our members include combat pilots and combat aces, airshow flyers, record setters, airline captains, air traffic controllers, test pilots, student pilots and even an astronaut or two. In short, we represent a microcosm of aviation and aviators.

The President of SWOW is Ron David, a documentary writer, narrator, and former airshow pilot. Our Vice President is World War Two Fighter Ace Admiral Whitey Feightner. We meet every other month at the Army Navy Country Club near Washington National Airport to share camaraderie, great stories, and a good lunch.

To confirm your reservation for each of our six annual luncheon gatherings, call us at 202-333-8707 or (703) 451-4181. Dues are $25 per year, luncheons cost $28.00.
Our next event will take place at 1100 hours on November 19th, 2009

Members of the Silver Wings Over Washington Board

President: Ron David (202) 333-8707
Vice President: Admiral "Whitey" Feightner
Treasurer: Mrs. Joan Stalk
Secretary: Linda Wells
Members of the Board
Randy Brandt
Gil Coshland
Carol Sue Coupland
Steve Craven
David Fields
Debbie Gallaway
Laura Kelley
Charles Stallworth

Join us on November 19th for our luncheon and let Whitey, Nour and Ron take you back to America's Barnstorming Era to hear contemporary stories reminiscent of yesteryear

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bond of Earth,
And danced the skies on laughter Silvered Wings ..."

Silver Wings Over Washington is a National Capital-area fraternity of men and women for whom flying means nearly as much as life itself.