Two big news stories today. One sad one happy. Both involve unique planes and expert pilots that I’ve flown with a few times. The sad one first:
Man Killed in Plane Crash at Covington Airport was Avid Pilot
I flew with Lance Hooley several times in the A320, about 14 years ago, when I was a first officer at the airline we both work at. Worked at I should say, in Lance’s case. That’s hard to write. He was an engaging intelligent pilot. Talked with him last just a few months ago, on a jetbridge taking a jet he had flown in. Yesterday he was flying from Chicago in a super cool homebuilt jet, one that’s been featured in several magazines and online profiles, including this recent cover story:
Looks like he crashed 2,000 feet from the Covington Municipal Airport in Tennessee. A homebuilt jet is far away from a Cessna 150, but Lance was no aviation dilettante. He soloed at age 16 back in 1976, joined the USAF, was a long-time A320 captain, and had built and flown several canard planes. He leaves behind a wife.
The other story is happy. It involves a super cool plane as well, the Perlan II glider. They got to 76,124 feet pressure altitude (74,295 feet GPS altitude) over the mountains of Argentina today. World record. That’s higher than Concorde and U2 flights. In a dang glider!
https://twitter.com/PerlanProject/status/1036343093895811073
I’ve flown with Tim Gardner several times in both ASK-21 and Duo Discus gliders at the Minden, Nevada, airport. Always a pleasure. Learnt a lot about high-performance sailplanes, and reading the clouds. Where I looked out and saw mountains and lakes and clouds — he saw the wind. Try ten left he’d say, and soon we’d start climbing again. That’s Tim getting out the back seat today:
So two pilots. Both competent and experienced, trained and tested many times in the past. Two truly one-of-a-kind airplanes, both very cool and flown successfully many times. Two very different days.
One broke a high altitude record. One tied the low altitude record.
For me, its a way-too-close-and-personal reminder of the rewards and the dangers in flying. Especially flying special aircraft. I have nothing insightful to share, no special words of wisdom. But please enjoy the highs (even if they are less than 76,000 feet) and be very considerate of the dangers. We are risk managers. And what we do as risk managers is important.
I look forward to flying with Tim again. I already miss flying with Lance. Would I fly in a one-of-a-kind jet canard homebuilt? Don’t know. But where, how, do we draw the line?