Wingtips February 2003

Gus Briegleb
Gus Briegleb, noted sailplane designer, soaring advocate, and airport owner/operator, died on September 5 in El Mirage, California. He was 89. His family recalls that Briegleb’s interest in aviation began when he took a ride in a DH-4 as a teenager. In 1928, at the tender age of 16, he built his first aircraft in the basement of his father’s church in Los Angeles. Supposedly, the federal aviation authorities at the time told him he was too young to get a pilot’s license, so he took the motor out of it and turned it into a glider. By 1939, Briegleb was selling glider kits to homebuilders. His design work extended into the 1960s and 1970s, when he helped develop the M2-Fl lifting body, which was a prototype for the space shuttle.

Paul Page Douglas
Paul Page Douglas, a retired Air Force brigadier general and Burnet County rancher, died on December 26 at Darnell Army Community Hospital at Fort Hood after a brief illness. He was 83. Douglas was commissioned as a second lieutenant five days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and flew a P-4 7 Thunderbolt fighter plane for the 8th Air Force on 136 combat missions over Europe. He was credited with shooting down eight Nazi aircraft, damaging two others in the air, and destroying 27 on the ground. On two occasions, he downed three enemy planes on one mission. After the war, he returned to his wartime 36th Fighter Wing as commander of one of its squadrons in occupied West Germany. Douglas later moved to jet fighters, flying the F-86 Sabre, the F-89 Scorpion, and, in combat missions over North Vietnam in 1968, the F-105 Thunderchief. Douglas retired from the Air Force in 1970; and worked for the University of Central Arkansas until 1983. Subsequently, in 1983 he retired to his ranch and farm near Bertram, west of Austin.

Joe Foss
Joe Foss, a World War II hero who shot down a record number of enemy planes as a Marine pilot and later became governor of South Dakota, died December 25. He was 87. Foss led a Marine unit known as Joe’s Flying Circus that shot down 72 Japanese planes. He downed 26 planes himself, tying the U.S. aerial record Eddie Rickenbacker set in World War I. Foss also served as a colonel in the Air Force in the Korean War and was awarded the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Purple Heart. In 1984, he was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio.

Roy LoPresti
Famed aircraft designer Roy LoPresti, who described himself first and foremost as an aviation enthusiast and whose motto was, “Life is short, fly fast,” died in August, in Florida. after suffering an injury at home. He was 73. LoPresti began his career as a designer with Grumman and took great pride in his design and redesign involvement with several noteworthy general aviation airplanes, including the Grumman Tiger, the Mooney 20 I, and the SwiftFury. He served at- chief engineer at both Mooney and Beech and later started a successful family aviation business, LoPresti Speed Merchants, specializing in speed mods for piston singles.

Fay G. Wells
Fay Gillis Wells, a pilot and journalist, who once bailed out of a disintegrating airplane over Long Island, covered wars and politics as a journalist, shared a New York apartment with a pet leopard, and traveled the world in search of adventure, died of pneumonia December 2 at the age of 94. She was a founding member of the Ninety-Nines in 1929. At her death, she was one of only four charter members still alive. She and her husband, Linton Wells covered the news around the world for 40 years before settling in Virginia in 1963. Although her pilot’s license lapsed in the 1930s, she flew an airplane on her 92nd birthday, landing it at Elizabeth, New Jersey for her high school class’s 75th reunion. It was her last flight!

New Members Appointed to the Texas Aviation Advisory Committee

Recently, two new members were appointed to a three-year term on the Texas Aviation Advisory Committee. They are: Jim Schwertner Jr. of Austin and Gordon Richardson of Caldwell.

Jim Schwertner is President and Chief Executive Officer of Schwertner Farms, Inc. and Capitol Land and Livestock in Schwertner, Texas. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Schwertner State Bank, Schwertner, Texas. Jim, who has a multiengine pilot’s license with instrument rating, operates three aircraft for both business and pleasure, a Rockwell Turbo Commander, a Husky, and a Piper Cub. In 1987, he established a world speed record in a Piper Navajo.

Gordon Richardson, owner of Gordon Richardson Insurance Associates in Caldwell, Texas has been involved in aviation since 1971. A pilot with over 3000 flight hours, Gordon is active in the Commemorative Air Force, the EAA Warbird community, and the Seaplane Pilots Association. He has contributed to his community by serving on several boards of non-profit organizations and has been District Governor of the Lions Club. Gordon flies a J-3 Cub, a Super Cub on Whip amphibious floats, a Beech Bonanza and airshows with a North American T-28C.

We welcome each of these gentlemen and know that they will make a significant contribution to our efforts to improve aviation throughout Texas.

Members of the Texas Aviation Advisory Committee provide valuable input to the Texas Department of Transportation on our aviation development programs and serve as your representatives to the department on aviation matters. Committee members also work with members of the Texas Legislature on a variety of aviation issues.

We also want to extend our gratitude to Clyde Barton of Lake Jackson and Mark Huffstutler of Uvalde for their service on the Texas Aviation Advisory Committee. We greatly appreciate their time and effort in contributing substantially toward improving aviation in our state.

Bill Gunn
TxDOT Aviation

The President of the United States has a ranch… so do a lot of lucky Texans. What makes President Bush and his ranch unique to pilots are the Secret Service and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) when the President is in residence.

Why is this important to pilots??? Because the airspace around President Bush’s ranch is prohibited airspace, specifically P-49, meaning aircraft must avoid. To date, 60 pilots have been cited for violating this protected airspace. The FAA has issued citations to the pilots involved in these intrusions of up to 60 days suspension of their pilots’ licenses.

Prohibited Area P-49, which is six nautical miles (NM) across and from the surface to 5,000 feet mean sea level (MSL), is depicted on sectional and low Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) charts. Prohibited areas, including P-49, do not permit general civil flight operations at any time. TFRs may or may not permit limited flight operations, depending on the situation. TFRs are manifested in several federal aviation regulations, from 91.137 to 91.145, as well as 99.7. TFRs are published in Notice to Airmen or NOTAMs. There are three types of NOTAMS:

• Local (L) NOTAMs “Nice to Know” – local in that only the Flight Service Station (FSS) servicing that area holds that an L NOTAM is informational in nature, not safety-related or regulatory. Grass mowing between the runways would be an example of an LNOTAM.
• Distant (D) NOTAMs are ·’Important to Know” – these are safety-related and are sent to all FSS hourly. D NOTAMs are safety of flight-related but not regulatory. A runway or taxiway temporary closure would be an example of a D NOTAM.
• Finally, Flight Data Center NOTAMs (FDC) – these are “Have to Know” because they do affect safety of flight and are regulatory.

How do you get NOTAMs? Several sources – call FSS at 1-800-WXBRIEF and ask for NOTAMs. Be sure you ask for FDC NOTAMs. Dial up Digital User Access Terminal (DUAT) www.duat.com or www.duats.com and select a full weather briefing or NOTAMs only. You will receive all D and FDC NOTAMs as part of a standard weather briefing. Private weather services will provide NOTAMs just as DUAT will.

Other good sources for pictures of the TFRs include www.eaa.org and www.aopa.org. You do not need to be an EAA or AOPA member to access the excellent information available. Also, you can go directly to the source – www.faa.gov/NTAP. This is the FAA site for the Notice to Airman Publication (NTAP), a paper and electronic listing of all FDC NOTAMs on file. The NTAP is revised every 28 days, but this web site will show day to day changes in the FDC NOTAMs, including TFRs.

The prohibited area and accompanying TFR around the presidential ranch in Crawford work as follows: the six NM wide, 5,000-foot MSL high P-49 may not be entered. The TFR, from the outer edge of P-49 to 30 NM surface to 18,000 feet MSL is activated by FDC NOTAM at the discretion of federal authorities, generally when the president is in residence. The dimensions of the TFR could vary in the future. In the past, pilots were permitted into the TFR only when in radio contact with Waco Approach Control and with a discreet transponder code. Limits were placed on training at airports within the TFR.

The November 28, 2002, issue of the San Antonio aviation sectional chart includes a new depiction of the TFR dimensions, shown as the white area within the dashed blue rim. Note this depiction does not mean the TFR is active, rather the dimensions are shown to assist pilots when the TFR is activated by NOTAM.

Pilots would be wise to contact Gray Approach Control when south and west of P-49 on 120.075, 118.45, or 118.0. Contact Waco Approach on 135.2, 127 .65, or 126.12 when north or east of P-49.

General Aviation flying has changed. Pilots now must check NOTAMS, in some cases just to fly touch and go landing at their home airport! Check before you fly!