Broken Wings

In a previous post I told you about a couple of trips that I took during my LOA from Royal Air. The trip to Chicagoland was obviously personal, (still waiting to hear) and the second trip was on behalf of Royal Air.

Royal Air has a fleet of SUVs and SDSUVs that we use to shuttle boxes around for the Big Box Haulers. The fleet has come under some scrutiny the last couple of years in the form of an Airworthiness Directive (AD) that deals with fatigue cracks in the wing spar.

The FAA and the manufacturer of the SUV have issued AD 2005-12-12 and AD 2005-12-13 to deal with these cracks. Click HERE to read more about them. These new ADs eliminate repetitive inspections as required by AD 79-10-15 and AD 99-11-13 with the installation of a costly (read $70K+ USD) wing spar strap.

Since I‘ve been gone from the ‘office’ and the other pilots have picked up the slack in my absence, they asked me to deliver one of our SUVs to ICT to have the AD complied with. The flight was great and uneventful. It was so good and enjoyable I realized I didn’t take any pictures until after I had shot the ILS and parked in front of the FBO. I guess I was so happy to be back in the air again AND out of the routine of flying my regular route that I just plain forgot.


I got to spend the night and had time to kill the next morning before my flight. I spent my time snooping around the various aircraft manufacturing facilities in the area and visited a pilot shop that I used to frequent when I lived just southeast of ICT in the late-90’s.

On my way back to New South Montucky I got to sit in DEN for a few hours. As I sat in the food court gnawing on a leathery fast food burger I got to watch a Lufthansa 747 taxi into the gate. What an impressive machine! It might be fun to fly for about a month or so. I wonder what a guy has to do to get a job flying one of those?