AVmail: January 26, 2009

0

Each week, we run a sampling of the letters received to our editorial inbox here in AVmail. One letter that’s particularly relevant, informative, or otherwise compelling will headline this section as our “Letter of the Week,” and we’ll send the author an official AVweb baseball cap as a “thank you” for interacting with us (and the rest of our readership). Send us your comments and questions using this form. Please include your mailing address in your e-mail (just in case your letter is our “Letter of the Week”); by the same token, please let us know if your message is not intended for publication.

Letter of the Week: Flight 1549

I am not here to belittle [Captain Sullenberger’s] landing, but I am here to mention that we are professionals. I have alway said I was the captain to save my bottom and if I did that everyone else would be taken care of, and that is what he did. He took off and climbed to 3,200 feet, lost both engines, saw he could not make it to Teterboro, did not want to crash into a populated area, and saw that the Hudson was the best place to land. The media tries to make everyone out to be a hero. He was just a damn good professional. He needs the paycheck he gets, and he should get at least 160 Christmas cards for years to come.

Louis Klemp

AVweb Replies:

Throughout the media frenzy, Capt. Sullenberger has said exactly what you are saying, that he was just doing his job. Can.t argue with the Christmas cards … .

Russ Niles
Editor-in-Chief


Dick Rutan asks, “How many rafts?” (AVmail, Jan. 19) Well, on a non-ETOPS bird, none.

Brooks Wolfe

In addition to Dick Rutan’s comments about how many rafts were on the US Air in the Hudson River, how many passengers were not wearing life vests or carrying seat cushions? Does anyone listen to pre-takeoff emergency briefings that include the loction of each passenger’s life vest?

Dick Capp

I suspect, since rescue was so imminent, the passengers elected to stay on the wing vs. climbing into the rafts. I understand the only problem was one of the slides (also a raft) turned upside-down and they couldn’t right it. They quit trying when the ferries arrived.

Roland McDonald


What the L?

Your article on Cessna’s name change for the former Columbia models (Cessna’s Corvalis and Cirrus’ TURBO, Jan. 17) states, “Cessna’s 190- and 235-knot Corvalis models have taken their new name in tribute to an Oregon town not far from the company’s Bend, Ore., manufacturing facility.” If that is the case, it would seem that they have faulty spellcheckers in Wichita. There are two Ls in Corvallis, Oregon, which is about 100 miles from Bend and on the other side of the Cascade mountains.

Frank Weissig

AVweb Replies:

Cessna knows the spelling varies, and we pointed that out in the story.

Russ Niles
Editor-in-Chief


Diamond “News”

Russ Niles’s interview with Diamond’s Peter Maurer (Training a Bright Spot at Diamond, Jan. 14) ignored the elephant in the room – the Thielert insolvency that has grounded large numbers of the DA-42 fleet. It’s hard to understand how a discussion of Diamond’s current condition and future prospects could blather on about training fleets, the current GA market, and the like but ignore that 800-pound fact, which is unique to Diamond. It’s also hard to believe that there will be a long line of people waiting to buy Diamond aircraft until they fix this mess.

Don Davidson

AVweb Replies:

Frankly, Don, we were running so many stories about Thielert at one time, we used to joke when we didn’t have one. Nothing much has changed with the Thielert/Diamond story since we spoke with Maurer in depth last November, and that’s why we didn’t talk about it.

Russ Niles
Editor-in-Chief


Read AVmail from other weeks here, and submit your own Letter to the Editor with this form.

LEAVE A REPLY