AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2014 - 12

LETTERS

FROM OUR DECEMBER 2013 ISSUE

Mighty Seabird
Barry Schiff's story on the Grumman HU-16B Albatross and his reflections
on "A Bygone Era" had readers flying down memory lane.
AROUND THE WORLD IN 25 DAYS

TBM in Icing

SAFETY PILOT LANDMARK ACCIDENT

The Voice of General Aviation

Extra Extra

AEROBATICS TO TURBOPROPS

www.aopa.org/pilot | December 2013

in two months. The Coast
Guard retired the aircraft from
Elizabeth City in October.
Chris Burns
AOPA 1083903
Hanover, Pennsylvania

Grumman HU-16B Albatross | MU-2 Around the World | Aviation Legends: Walter Extra

Barry Schiff must have been
writing for me this month.
How I envied him in the
Albatross. He must have been
praying for some fresh water to
set down on. I've had a major
love affair with amphibs since
high school and college, when
"Wow, my heart I was commuting weekends
skipped a beat when between school and work on
the Spruce Goose to Avalon
what should appear on Catalina Island, California
on the December (usually in the right seat). That
left me with some funny stocover, an updated ries of Goose experiences (and
Slobbering Albert! some not so funny).
It was all so much fun in a
I was fortunate to bygone era ("Proficient Pilot").
ride around in the A trip to the airport for a happy,
relaxing trip to New York-
back of these won- always dressed properly in a
derful birds. It was suit and tie, of course. Flying
to Catalina and being invited to
a great seabird and stand in the cockpit, or later in
a lot of fun on fresh the Grumman Goose, circling
low over the channel to watch
water; not so much the whale migration. Or taking
a couple of hours off from work
on salt water."
and running out to Airflight to
Walt Carrier
just fly wherever. It is so sad
AOPA 557743
Fenton, Michigan
that the young people of today
will miss so much-not just in
aviation, but in every facet of
their lives.
As always, thank you Barry
Schiff for your great writing,
early instrument check in the and thank you for bringing back
Albatross and found it to be a flood of memories.
incredibly stable on the gauges.
Bruce Kerr
AOPA 5461370
My exposure to the Albatross,
Long Beach, California
however, was brief-75 hours
Flying over California's
Calatina Island.

Grumman HU-16B Albatross

A High-Tech Rebirth

www.aopa.org

12 | AOPA PILOT February 2014

MU-2 Adventure

December 2013

Thanks for the article on the
HU-16B-the "Goat" in Coast
Guard lingo. Fresh out of
flight training, I reported into
Elizabeth City, North Carolina,
on August 4, 1974 (Coast Guard
Day). On August 6, I started
my co-pilot checkout in Coast
Guard tail number 7243, an
HU-16E (longer wing). The
Coast Guard had stopped
water work because the cost
of maintaining the fleet for an
infrequent amphibious use was
not cost effective. We flew the
Albatross as a land airplane on
fisheries patrols and mediumrange search missions.
The pilots who flew the
"Goat" at E City were mostly
dual- qualified helicopter
pilots with new fixed-wing
pilots (like me) as their copilots. With the C-130 on the
ramp as well, most of the fixedwing drivers tried to avoid the
Albatross. As a result, we flew
the Albatross a lot like a helicopter-rarely getting above
500 feet. We made our way out
to search areas below any overcast, skimming over eastern
North Carolina's flat terrain,
and under the gunnery range
airspace in Dare County.
The big radials made an
incredible roar on takeoff with
a power setting somewhere
around 51 inches of manifold
pressure, as I recall. We wore
helmets. Leveling off early
had the benefit of reducing the
noise. The "Goat" had electrically controlled propellers-I
noted the same on the B-model
with its toggle switches to set
rpm in the story. I took an

"Barry Schiff 's column, 'Proficient
Pilot: A Bygone Era,'
is yet another of his
masterpieces that
brings to life a world
that many of us are
too young to have
known, but that still
motivates us to fly
today. Although the
environment we fly
in today is different,
it is the nostalgia,
lore, humor, and lessons learned from
the past that makes
flying so much more
than just a hobby or
day job. Hats off to
Barry!"
Greg Barnett
AOPA 1219961
Great Falls, Virginia

Round the world
in 25 days

I read the story of Mike Laver's
round-the-world trip with
great interest. Two weeks ago,
my husband and I completed
a similarly momentous trip but
on a bit smaller scale. We flew
our almost-40-year-old Cessna
http://www.aopa.org/pilot http://www.aopa.org
AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2014

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